Event Dependence in Death Penalty Executions

This pre-analysis plan outlines a research strategy to test a "self-reinforcing" theory of death penalty executions, which holds that counties face decreasing marginal costs for executions. We test this theory through examining event dependence in executions among counties that have the death penalty. To test for the presence of these self-reinforcing processes in executions, and the exogenous factors that may explain executions, we utilize an event history model that accounts for event dependence. The empirical findings of this analysis may have profound consequences for how we understand executions. Evidence of event dependence would reveal that the main determinant of whether an individual is executed is the county's previous experience with execution, which would raise many important policy, legal, and moral questions.