Seminar

SEMINAR IS CANCELED

Abstract:
In this lecture I will provide an overview of empirical work on the deterrence effect of capital punishment, with an emphasis on my own work on the subject as well as a recent National Academy of Science Report of which I was a coauthor. The lecture will review the methodologies that have been applied to measure deterrence effects and explain why the National Academy report concluded that the existing empirical literature provided no guidance on the question of whether capital punishment deters. I will argue that the capital punishment/deterrence literature is an extreme case of some general weaknesses in various types of empirical work.