Essay 1. Understanding the effects of anti-profiling policies. Many police agencies have enacted measures to reduce racial profiling, yet little empirical evidence exists regarding the effects of such programs. I use a profiling scandal in New Jersey to quantify the effects of a move towards race-neutral policing. The scandal and subsequent reforms decreased annual arrests of minorities by 10-40% for vehicle theft. Time-series and geographic variation in offending also suggest these reforms increased vehicle theft offending. Data on accidents generates little evidence of additional adverse responses by minorities to lessened police scrutiny. These findings are robust to numerous specification checks, and similar patterns are observable in Maryland, which experienced a profiling scandal several years prior to New Jersey.

Essay 2. Oil for what? Illicit Iraqi oil contracts and the U.N. Security Council. This paper analyzes records of illicit oil contracts issued by the Iraqi government through the United Nations Oil-For-Food Program. Security Council members obtained more contracts than non-members and contract receipt is associated with pro-Hussein votes on resolutions. For non-permanent seat holders Council membership is associated with a 46% contract premium, while permanent seat holders obtained an estimated benefit of $29 million each during program. A 10% increase in the probability of casting a pro-Iraq vote on the Council corresponds to $55 million in contracts. Contrary to median voter models, contract receipt on the Security Council appears linked to prior support of Iraq.

Essay 3. Does religion really reduce crime? A large research literature has established a negative relationship between local crime measures and religious participation using ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression analysis. If crime affects religious participation, however, OLS coefficients in this context suffer from endogeneity bias. Using historic participation as an instrument for current religious participation, I find a negligible effect of religion on crime and a negative effect of crime on religion. To further explore the relationship between religious participation and crime, I examine variation in crime incidence around Easter. Consistent with the IV results, I find no evidence of a decrease in crime following Easter.