Reject & Resubmit Journal of Public Economics

NBER Working Paper
While investments in schooling generate large private and external returns, negative peer interactions in school may generate substantial social costs. Using data from four national sources (Uniform Crime Reports, National Incident-Based Reporting System, National Crime Victimization Survey, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System) and a variety of identification strategies, this study comprehensively explores the effect of in-person schooling on contemporaneous juvenile violence. Using a proxy for in-person schooling generated from anonymized smartphone data and leveraging county-level variation in school calendars — including unique, large, localized changes to in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic — we find that in-person schooling is associated with a 28 percent increase in juvenile violent crime. A null finding for young adults is consistent with a causal interpretation of this result. The effects are largest in larger schools and in jurisdictions with weaker anti-bullying policies, consistent with both concentration effects and a peer quality channel. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that relative to closed K-12 schools, in-person schooling generates $233 million in monthly violent crime costs.

SSRN Working Paper, Revise & Resubmit at Review of Economics & Statistics
This study explores the relationship between legalized sports gambling, unexpected emotional cues, and reported intimate partner violence (IPV). Using crime data from the 2011 to 2022 National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and extending Card & Dahl (2011)’s model, we find that when sports gambling is legalized, the effect of NFL home team upset losses on IPV increases by around 10 percentage points. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that these effects are larger: (i) in states where mobile betting is legalized, (ii) in locations where higher bets were placed, (iii) around paydays, and (iv) for teams who were on a winning streak. Together, these findings support that financial losses from participation in sports gambling can amplify the emotional cues from a favorite team’s unexpected loss.