In February 2000, the Swedish state monopoly alcohol retail company launched a large scale experiment in which all stores in selected counties were allowed to keep open on Saturdays. We assess the effects on crime of this expansion in access to alcohol. To isolate the impact of the experiment from other factors, we compare conviction rates in age cohorts above and below the national drinking age restriction in counties where the experiment had been implemented, and contrast these differences to those in counties that still prohibited weekend alcohol commerce. Our analysis relies on extensive individual conviction data that have been merged to population registers. After demonstrating that Saturday opening of alcohol shops significantly raised alcohol sales, we show that it also increased crime. The increase is confined to crimes committed on Saturdays and is driven by illegal activity among individuals with low ability and among persons with fathers that have completed at least some secondary education. Although the increases in crime and alcohol sales were slightly higher during the initial phase of the experiment, our evidence suggests that both effects persist over time. Our analysis reveals that the social costs linked to the experiment exceed the monetary benefits.

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We estimate the causal effects of parental incarceration on children's short-and long-run outcomes using administrative data from Sweden. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous variation in parental incarceration from the random assignment of criminal defendants to judges with different incarceration tendencies. We find that the incarceration of a parent in childhood leads to a significant increase in teen crime and significant decreases in educational attainment and adult employment. The effects are concentrated among children from the most disadvantaged families, where criminal convictions increase by 10 percentage points, high school graduation decreases by 25 percentage points, and employment at age 25 decreases by 29 percentage points. In contrast, there are no detectable effects among children from more advantaged families. These results suggest that the incarceration of parents with young children may significantly increase the intergenerational persistence of poverty and criminal behavior, even in affluent countries with extensive social safety nets.

Zidar, and numerous seminar participants for helpful comments and suggestions. Kevin DeLuca, Nicole Gandre, Disa Hynsjo, James Reeves, Amy Wickett, and numerous students in Sweden provided excellent research assistance. Ann-Sofie Arvidsson, Malcolm Pettersson, and many others provided invaluable help in answering our questions about the institutional context. Funding for this project was provided by FORTE and Handelsbankens forskningsstiftelser. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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