John J. Donohue III is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is an economist/lawyer who has used large-scale statistical studies to estimate the impact of law and public policy in a wide range of areas from civil rights and employment discrimination law to school funding and crime control. Before joining Yale Law School, he was a chaired professor at both Northwestern Law School and Stanford Law School. He recently co-authored (with George Rutherglen) Employment Discrimination: Law and Theory. Among his major articles are: Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate (with Justin Wolfers), Shooting Down the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis (with Ian Ayres), and The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime (with Steven Levitt). Professor Donohue is a graduate of Hamilton College and he received his J.D. from Harvard and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.
Abortion and Crime
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Teen Childbearing (with Jeffrey Grogger and Steven Levitt), American Law and Economics Review (2009)
Further Evidence that Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime: A Reply to Joyce (with Steven D. Levitt), Journal of Human Resources (2004)
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime (with Steven D. Levitt), Quarterly Journal of Economics (2001)
We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began...
Antidiscrimination Law
Antidiscrimination Law, Handbook of Law and Economics (2007)
This essay provides an overview of the central theoretical law and economics insights and empirical...
Understanding the Reasons for and Impact of Legislatively Mandated Benefits for Selected Workers, Stanford Law Review (2001)
The Impact of Race on Policing and Arrests (with Steven Levitt), Journal of Law and Economics (2001)
Crime
Murder in Decline in the 1990s: Why the U.S. and N.Y.C. Were Not That Special," Book Review of Frank Zimring's, Punishment and Society (2008)
Some Perspectives on Crime and Criminal Justice Policy, The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal Justice (1007)
Death Penalty
Estimating the Impact of the Death Penalty on Murder (with Justin Wolfers), American Law and Economics Review Advance Access (2009)
The Death Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence (with Justin J. Wolfers), The Economists' Voice (2006)
John Donohue and Justin Wolfers argue that Gary Becker and Richard Posner are wrong to...
Letter: A Reply to Rubin on the Death Penalty (with Justin J. Wolfers), The Economists' Voice (2006)
Contrary to Paul Rubin's recent testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, we believe the fragility...
USES AND ABUSES OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IN THE DEATH PENALTY DEBATE (with Justin J. Wolfers), American Law & Economics Association Annual Meetings (2006)
Gun Control
More Guns, Less Crime Fails Again: The Latest Evidence from 1977 – 2006 (with Ian Ayres), Econ Journal Watch (2009)
Yet Another Refutation of the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis – With Some Help From Moody and Marvell (with Ian Ayres), Econ Journal Watch (2009)
Shooting Down the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis (with Ian Ayres), Stanford Law Review (2003)
The Latest Misfires in Support of the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis (with Ian Ayres), Stanford Law Review (2003)
Incarceration
Assessing the Relative Benefits of Incarceration: The Overall Change Over the Previous Decades and the Benefits on the Margin, Do Prisions Make Us Safer? The Benefits and Costs of the Prison Boom (2009)
Allocating Resources among Prisons and Social Programs in the Battle against Crime (with Peter Siegleman), The Journal of Legal Studies (1998)
Labor and Employment
The Costs of Wrongful-Discharge Laws (with David Autor and Stewart Schwab), The Review of Economics and Statistics (2006)
Full data and programs behind the published paper are available from: http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/dautor/data/autdonschw06
The Evolution of Employment Discrimination Law in the 1990s: A Preliminary Empirical Investigation (with Peter Siegelman), Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research (2005)
Law and Economics
Some Thoughts on Law and Economics and the Theory of Second Best, Chicago-Kent Law Review (1998)
The Effects of Joint and Several Liability on Settlement Rates: Mathematical Symmetries and Meta-Issues in the Analusis of Rational Litigant Behavior, Journal of Legal Studies (1994)
Law and Economics of Civil Procedure
Opting for the British Rule: Or, If Posner and Shavell Can't Remember the Coase Theorem, Who Will?, Harvard Law Review (1991)
The Effects of Fee Shifting on the Settlement Rate: Theoretical Observations on Costs, Conflicts and Contingency Fees, Law and Contemporary Problems (1991)
Law and Politics
Clinton and Bush's Report Cards on Crime Reduction: The Data Show Bush Policies Are Undermining Clinton Gains, The Economists' Voice (2006)
At the Democratic Convention Clinton argued that he had put police on the street and...