By Amanda Y. Agan, Andrew Garin, Dmitri K. Koustas, Alexandre Mas, and Crystal Yang

All results in this paper using IRS data are drawn from the publicly available working paper “The Impact of Criminal Records on Employment, Earnings, and Tax Filing,” which is available on the IRS Statistics of Income Tax Stats website. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or the official positions of the U.S. Department of the Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. Researchers Agan, Garin, and Koustas received funding for this research through the Clean Slate Initiative, a project of the New Venture Fund. We thank the San Joaquin Public Defender's Office and District Attorney's office for their help and tireless work in making this project possible. We also thank the numerous interns who worked in San Joaquin to help us gather data. Camilla Adams, Kaan Cankat, Sarah Frick, Jared Grogan, Bailey Palmer, and Kalie Pierce provided instrumental research assistance. We also thank Emma Rackstraw and J-PAL NA for the initial conversations that allowed this project to happen. The RCT in this paper was registered in the AEA RCT Registry, RCT ID: AEARCTR-0004414. IRB approvals were obtained where necessary.

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2023-133

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2023. 53p.