Optimising Criminal Behaviour and the Disutility of Prison
利用银行抢劫案的微观数据，通过抢劫者在银行内面对金钱与抓捕的权衡，估计个体对监禁的负效用，发现能力越高的抢劫者负效用越大，延长刑期可能更有效针对这些危害更大的罪犯。
We use rich microdata on bank robberies to estimate individual-level disutilities of imprisonment. The identification rests on the money versus apprehension trade-off that robbers face inside the bank when deciding whether to leave or collect money for an additional minute. The distribution of the disutility of prison is not degenerate, generating heterogeneity in behaviour. Our results show that unobserved heterogeneity in robber ability is important for explaining outcomes in terms of haul and arrest. Furthermore, higher ability robbers are found to have larger disutilities, suggesting that increased sentence lengths might effectively target these more harmful criminals.