IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11064.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do People React to Income-Based Fines? Evidence from Speeding Tickets Discontinuities

Author

Listed:
  • Martti Kaila

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of income-based criminal punishments on crime. In Finland, speeding tickets become income-dependent if the driver’s speed exceeds the speeding limit by more than 20 km/h, leading to a substantial jump in the size of the speeding ticket. Contrary to predictions of a traditional Becker model, individuals do not bunch below the fine hike. Instead, the speeding distributions are smooth at the cutoff. However, I demonstrate that the size of the realized speeding ticket has sizable but short-lived impacts on reoffending ex-post. I use a regression discontinuity design to show that fines that are 200 euros larger decrease reoffending by 15 percent in the following six months. After 12 months, the effect disappears. My empirical results are consistent with an explanation that people operate under information frictions. To illustrate this, I construct a Becker model with misperception and learning that can explain all the empirical findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Martti Kaila, 2024. "How Do People React to Income-Based Fines? Evidence from Speeding Tickets Discontinuities," CESifo Working Paper Series 11064, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11064.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manudeep Bhuller & Gordon B. Dahl & Katrine V. Løken & Magne Mogstad, 2020. "Incarceration, Recidivism, and Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(4), pages 1269-1324.
    2. Andreas R. Kostøl & Andreas S. Myhre, 2021. "Labor Supply Responses to Learning the Tax and Benefit Schedule," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(11), pages 3733-3766, November.
    3. Timothy B. Armstrong & Michal Kolesár, 2020. "Simple and honest confidence intervals in nonparametric regression," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(1), pages 1-39, January.
    4. Harju, Jarkko & Matikka, Tuomas & Rauhanen, Timo, 2019. "Compliance costs vs. tax incentives: Why do entrepreneurs respond to size-based regulations?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 139-164.
    5. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    6. Bastani, Spencer & Selin, Håkan, 2014. "Bunching and non-bunching at kink points of the Swedish tax schedule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 36-49.
    7. Nyarko, Yaw, 1991. "Learning in mis-specified models and the possibility of cycles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 416-427, December.
    8. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati & Pietro Vertova, 2009. "The Deterrent Effects of Prison: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(2), pages 257-280, April.
    9. Eric Helland & Alexander Tabarrok, 2007. "Does Three Strikes Deter?: A Nonparametric Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    10. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Rekers, Ramona, 2022. "Speed limit enforcement and road safety," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    11. Markus Gehrsitz, 2017. "Speeding, Punishment, and Recidivism: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(3), pages 497-528.
    12. Raj Chetty, 2012. "Bounds on Elasticities With Optimization Frictions: A Synthesis of Micro and Macro Evidence on Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 969-1018, May.
    13. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "Using Differences in Knowledge across Neighborhoods to Uncover the Impacts of the EITC on Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2683-2721, December.
    14. Koichiro Ito, 2014. "Do Consumers Respond to Marginal or Average Price? Evidence from Nonlinear Electricity Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 537-563, February.
    15. Paul Heidhues & Botond Kőszegi & Philipp Strack, 2018. "Unrealistic Expectations and Misguided Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(4), pages 1159-1214, July.
    16. Aaron Chalfin & Justin McCrary, 2017. "Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 5-48, March.
    17. Gregory DeAngelo & Benjamin Hansen, 2014. "Life and Death in the Fast Lane: Police Enforcement and Traffic Fatalities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 231-257, May.
    18. Bohren, Aislinn & Hauser, Daniel, 2017. "Learning with Heterogeneous Misspecified Models: Characterization and Robustness," CEPR Discussion Papers 12036, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Felipe Goncalves & Steven Mello, 2021. "A Few Bad Apples? Racial Bias in Policing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1406-1441, May.
    20. Brantly Callaway & Andrew Goodman-Bacon & Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna, 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with a Continuous Treatment," Papers 2107.02637, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    21. Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 180-212, August.
    22. Evan K. Rose & Yotam Shem-Tov, 2021. "How Does Incarceration Affect Reoffending? Estimating the Dose-Response Function," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(12), pages 3302-3356.
    23. Benjamin Hansen, 2015. "Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1581-1617, April.
    24. Randi Hjalmarsson, 2008. "Crime and Expected Punishment: Changes in Perceptions at the Age of Criminal Majority," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 11(1), pages 209-248.
    25. Peter Ganong & Simon Jäger, 2018. "A Permutation Test for the Regression Kink Design," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(522), pages 494-504, April.
    26. Gehrsitz, Markus, 2017. "Speeding, Punishment, and Recidivism: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," IZA Discussion Papers 10707, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    27. J. Aislinn Bohren & Daniel N. Hauser, 2021. "Learning With Heterogeneous Misspecified Models: Characterization and Robustness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(6), pages 3025-3077, November.
    28. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Tore Olsen & Luigi Pistaferri, 2011. "Adjustment Costs, Firm Responses, and Micro vs. Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: Evidence from Danish Tax Records," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 749-804.
    29. Francesco Drago & Friederike Mengel & Christian Traxler, 2020. "Compliance Behavior in Networks: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 96-133, April.
    30. Johannes Rincke & Christian Traxler, 2011. "Enforcement Spillovers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1224-1234, November.
    31. Lance Lochner, 2007. "Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 444-460, March.
    32. Anna Aizer & Joseph J. Doyle, 2015. "Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 759-803.
    33. Libor Dušek & Christian Traxler, 2022. "Learning from Law Enforcement," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 739-777.
    34. van Benthem, Arthur, 2015. "What is the optimal speed limit on freeways?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 44-62.
    35. Henrik J. Kleven & Mazhar Waseem, 2013. "Using Notches to Uncover Optimization Frictions and Structural Elasticities: Theory and Evidence from Pakistan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 669-723.
    36. Brian Bell & Laura Jaitman & Stephen Machin, 2014. "Crime Deterrence: Evidence From the London 2011 Riots," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(576), pages 480-506, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Traxler, Christian & Westermaier, Franz G. & Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2018. "Bunching on the Autobahn? Speeding responses to a ‘notched’ penalty scheme," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 78-94.
    2. Lepage, Louis-Pierre, 2020. "Are criminals strategic? Offender responses to drug sentencing cutoffs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Søgaard, Jakob Egholt, 2019. "Labor supply and optimization frictions: Evidence from the Danish student labor market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 125-138.
    4. Einav, Liran & Finkelstein, Amy & Schrimpf, Paul, 2017. "Bunching at the kink: Implications for spending responses to health insurance contracts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 27-40.
    5. Escobar, Sebastian & Ohlsson, Henry & Selin, Håkan, 2019. "Taxes, frictions and asset shifting: when Swedes disinherited themselves," Working Paper Series 2019:6, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    6. Juliana Londoño-Vélez & Javier Avila-Mahecha, 2024. "Behavioral Responses to Wealth Taxation: Evidence from Colombia," NBER Working Papers 32134, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Escobar, Sebastian & Ohlsson, Henry & Selin, Håkan, 2023. "Giving to the children or the taxman?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    8. Einav, Liran & Finkelstein, Amy & Schrimpf, Paul, 2019. "Reprint of: Bunching at the kink: Implications for spending responses to health insurance contracts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 117-130.
    9. Andreas R. Kostøl & Andreas S. Myhre, 2021. "Labor Supply Responses to Learning the Tax and Benefit Schedule," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(11), pages 3733-3766, November.
    10. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Miao, Chizheng, 2020. "Ethnicity and tax filing behavior," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    11. Kosonen, Tuomas & Matikka, Tuomas, 2020. "Discrete Labor Supply: Empirical Evidence and Implications," Working Papers 132, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Marcelo Bergolo & Gabriel Burdin & Mauricio De Rosa & Matias Giaccobasso & Martín Leites, 2019. "Tax bunching at the Kink in the Presence of Low Capacity of Enforcement: Evidence From Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 19-05, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    13. Paetzold, Jörg & Winner, Hannes, 2016. "Taking the high road? Compliance with commuter tax allowances and the role of evasion spillovers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 1-14.
    14. Almunia, Miguel & Lopez-Rodriguez, David, 2012. "The efficiency cost of tax enforcement: evidence from a panel of spanish firms," MPRA Paper 44153, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Slotwinski, Michaela & Schmidheiny, Kurt, 2014. "Behavioral Responses to Local Tax Rates: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Foreigners Tax Scheme in Switzerland," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100292, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Erich Battistin & Agar Brugiavini & Enrico Rettore & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "The Retirement Consumption Puzzle: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2209-2226, December.
    17. Bastani, Spencer & Selin, Håkan, 2014. "Bunching and non-bunching at kink points of the Swedish tax schedule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 36-49.
    18. Stuart Adam & James Browne & David Phillips & Barra Roantree, 2021. "Frictions and taxpayer responses: evidence from bunching at personal tax thresholds," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 612-653, June.
    19. Bertanha, Marinho & McCallum, Andrew H. & Seegert, Nathan, 2023. "Better bunching, nicer notching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 237(2).
    20. Libor Dušek & Christian Traxler, 2024. "Swiftness and Delay of Punishment," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0032, Berlin School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    deterrence; learning; optimization frictions; regression discontinuity design; income-based fines;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11064. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.