Papers written by Author(s): 'Caroline Walker'
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Working PaperEstimating the Impact of the Age of Criminal Majority: Decomposing Multiple Treatments in a Regression Discontinuity Framework
January 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-01
This paper studies the impact of adult prosecution on recidivism and employment trajectories for adolescent, first-time felony defendants. We use extensive linked Criminal Justice Administrative Record System and socio-economic data from Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit). Using the discrete age of majority rule and a regression discontinuity design, we find that adult prosecution reduces future criminal charges over 5 years by 0.48 felony cases (? 20%) while also worsening labor market outcomes: 0.76 fewer employers (? 19%) and $674 fewer earnings (? 21%) per year. We develop a novel econometric framework that combines standard regression discontinuity methods with predictive machine learning models to identify mechanism-specific treatment effects that underpin the overall impact of adult prosecution. We leverage these estimates to consider four policy counterfactuals: (1) raising the age of majority, (2) increasing adult dismissals to match the juvenile disposition rates, (3) eliminating adult incarceration, and (4) expanding juvenile record sealing opportunities to teenage adult defendants. All four scenarios generate positive returns for government budgets. When accounting for impacts to defendants as well as victim costs borne by society stemming from increases in recidivism, we find positive social returns for juvenile record sealing expansions and dismissing marginal adult charges; raising the age of majority breaks even. Eliminating prison for first-time adult felony defendants, however, increases net social costs. Policymakers may still find this attractive if they are willing to value beneficiaries (taxpayers and defendants) slightly higher (124%) than potential victims.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperRace and Mobility in U.S. Marriage Markets: Quantifying the Role of Segregation
December 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-59R
We examine racial disparities in upward intergenerational mobility of family income by linking American Community Survey respondents born in 1978-87 to their parents' tax records. This linkage facilitates better measurement of marriage-market processes than tax records alone. Relative to White individuals, we document lower upward mobility of partner income for Black, Hispanic, and Asian individuals. These disparities offset Asian women and men's advantages in personal income mobility, overturn Black women's small advantage, and compound Black men's disadvantage. We develop a novel nonparametric decomposition which reveals that these disparities are driven primarily by racial differences in marriage-market opportunities, but also by different partnering rates conditional on opportunities. We then apply a selection-correction methodology to estimate causal effects of childhood exposure to racial segregation. Our design approximates a shift in the current generation's segregation exposure, holding historical exposures constant. This channel generates substantial Black-White intergenerational mobility gaps across all income measures, and we show that these effects cumulate over a multigenerational horizon.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe impact of manufacturing credentials on earnings and the probability of employment
May 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-15
This paper examines the labor market returns to earning industry-certified credentials in the manufacturing sector. Specifically, we are interested in estimating the impact of a manufacturing credential on wages, probability of employment, and probability of employment specifically in the manufacturing sector post credential attainment. We link students who earned manufacturing credentials to their enrollment and completion records, and then further link them to their IRS tax records for earnings and employment (Form W2 and 1040) and to the American Community Survey and decennial census for demographic information. We present earnings trajectories for workers with credentials by type of credential, industry of employment, age, race and ethnicity, gender, and state. To obtain a more causal estimate of the impact of a credential on earnings, we implement a coarsened exact matching strategy to compare outcomes between otherwise similar people with and without a manufacturing credential. We find that the attainment of a manufacturing industry credential is associated with higher earnings and a higher likelihood of labor market participation when we compare attainers to a group of non-attainers who are otherwise similar.View Full Paper PDF
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