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Jurisdiction, Crime, and Development: The Impact of Public Law 280 in Indian Country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl ,
Peter Grajzl  and
A. Joseph Guse
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Abstract

Public Law 280 transferred jurisdiction over criminal and civil matters from the federal to state governments and increased the extent of nontribal law enforcement in selected parts of Indian country. Where enacted, the law fundamentally altered the preexisting legal order. Public Law 280 thus provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of legal institutions and their change on socioeconomic outcomes. The law's controversial content has attracted interest from legal scholars. However, empirical studies of its impact are scarce and do not address the law's endogenous nature. We examine the law's impact on crime and on economic development in U.S. counties with significant American-Indian reservation population. To address the issue of selection of areas subject to Public Law 280, our empirical strategy draws on the law's politico-historical context. We find that the application of Public Law 280 increased crime and lowered incomes. The law's adverse impact is robust and noteworthy in magnitude.

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Articles
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Law & Society Review , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 127 - 160
Copyright
© 2014 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

For helpful comments and discussion we thank Randall Akee, Sam Allen, Sofia Amaral-Garcia, Dominic Parker, Darrell Glaser, Joshua Hill, Noel Johnson, Miriam Jorgensen, Harvey Markowitz, Peter Murrell, Tinni Sen, Katie Shester, Thomas Stratmann, participants of the annual meetings of the International Society for New Institutional Economics, the European Association of Law and Economics, the Society for Government Economists, and Southern Economic Association, seminar participants at Virginia Military Institute and George Mason University, three anonymous referees of this journal, and the editors Timothy Johnson and Joachim Savelsberg. We also thank Bill Johnson for excellent research assistance.

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