“How Much Do Mandatory Minimums Matter?”

The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Spencer Cooper now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

I estimate the causal effect of mandatory minimum (MM) eligibility on federal drug sentencing using a regression discontinuity design with extrapolation to disentangle statutory impacts from prosecutorial selection.  I find that MM eligibility increases sentence length uniformly across case types by about 10 months (14%).  This includes defendants with low criminal history, indicating limited protection for low-level offenders.  To assess which types of cases are affected by selection, I compare extrapolated counterfactual sentence lengths against observed sentences.  I find evidence that charging manipulation is localized among minority defendants.  These results indicate that racial disparities in MM sentencing are driven by prosecutor charging decisions rather than by features of the MM statute.