As prison populations have increased, states have often turned to private prisons in an effort to save on correctional costs. This paper first considers the trade‐offs between private and public prisons, then assesses the cost‐effectiveness of such strategies across all 50 states over 1999–2015 using a fixed‐effects panel model. We find that private prisons provide no significant systematic cost savings over the period of study, adding econometric clarification to previously inconclusive case study evidence.

中文翻译：

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走向私有化：私人监狱对各州来说是节省成本的选择吗？

随着监狱人口的增加，各州经常转向私人监狱以节省惩教费用。本文首先考虑了私人监狱和公共监狱之间的权衡，然后使用固定效应面板模型评估了 1999-2015 年所有 50 个州的此类策略的成本效益。我们发现，在研究期间，私人监狱没有提供显着的系统性成本节约，为之前不确定的案例研究证据增加了计量经济学的澄清。