Research

Crime and Punishment Order:  Prosecutorial Discretion and Discrimination

Abstract:

Increasing the discretion of judicial actors is often used as a solution for overburdened criminal justice systems. This paper investigates the effect of increased prosecutorial discretion on the differential treatment of people with migratory background. I evaluate the direct and indirect effects of the introduction of the ‘punishment order’ instrument in the Netherlands in 2008, which allows prosecutors to decide on the guilt and the punishment of the accused without the involvement of a judge. This policy leads to an overall decrease in court cases and an increase in dismissals. Using difference-in-differences estimations, I find that the reform leads to a 2 p.p. decrease in dismissals and 1 p.p. increase in court trials for those with a migration background, compared to those without. I also show that people without a migration background are 2 p.p. more likely to receive a punishment order for the same crime and similar criminal history. The effects are widely heterogeneous and strongest for those with a Moroccan or Caribbean background. The results on efficiency are mixed. While the mean number of days to resolve a case increases, the number of cases that are solved under 7 days also increases. I investigate multiple channels such as type of crime, severity of crime, and stereotypes against certain groups.

Permanent Guests: Self Selection and Economic Returns for Turkish Migration to Europe (with Sacha Kapoor and Dinand Webbink)

Abstract:

What are the economic returns of immigration for the migrants? Does immigration or internal migration increase the returns more for migrants from developing countries? Who chooses which type of migration? We investigate the second wave of Turkish migration to Europe from 1973 onwards that lead to at least 2 million new Turkish migrants in Europe in 2 decades mostly through family reunification. We show that immigration causes 25% increase in the long term income by comparing siblings who remain behind. Returns disappear when we compare internal migrants in Turkey to immigrants. We show that an important channel for this result is that while internal migration causes upward occupation mobility, international migration causes downward occupation mobility. Immigrants consistently hold more assets then any other subgroup which shows that they accumulate more wealth. We find no evidence of household selection or educational selection amongst the groups that are eligible for migration (low skilled rural population). Rank amongst the siblings and gender are the most important determinants of migration.

The poster of Permanent Guests paper as it is presented in the SOLE Conference (2022) Poster Session

The Political Mosque (with Mushfiq Mobarak)

This paper investigates the effect of government funded mosques on the integration of Turkish diaspora in Europe.

The Determinants and Effect of Governmental Policies on Immigrant Outcomes in the Netherlands

This project utilizes Dutch administrative data that is provided by CBS (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek) to investigate migrant integration in the Netherlands. Project focuses on different dimensions of integration and asks several questions: How does the school system, criminal justice system discrimination, dual citizenship laws, benefits & taxation decisions affect the migrants? How do the policies of country of origin affect migrants?

The project is awarded with ODISSEI Microdata Access Discount (MAD) grant.

Transparent Electoral Data in the Netherlands: A Database Creation Project (with Paul Bose)

Currently the Netherlands does not have a public database for election results at voting booth level for any period. This project aims to gather the historical election data on voting booth level for all Netherlands.