Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

SITE Working Paper Series,
Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics

No 52: Retraction of: "Prostitution and Violence: Evidence from Sweden"

Maria Perrotta Berlin (), Giancarlo Spagnolo (), Giovanni Immordino () and Francesco F. Russo ()
Additional contact information
Maria Perrotta Berlin: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Postal: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
Giancarlo Spagnolo: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Postal: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
Giovanni Immordino: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Postal: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
Francesco F. Russo: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Postal: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: The Swedish prostitution law criminalizes sex buyers but not sellers and is praised for significantly reducing street prostitution while protecting sex workers. As a consequence, this “Nordic model” is rapidly spreading around the world. However, a rigorous evaluation of the effects of this legislation on sex market participants and society at large is still missing. We document an increase in violence against women following the introduction of this law, mostly ascribable to domestic violence rather than violence towards sex workers. We propose a model that rationalizes our findings and simulates the effects of alternative policies. The results also suggest that the freeze of prostitution markets may have been one determinant of the surge in domestic violence observed during the Covid-19 crisis.

Keywords: Prostitution; Regulation; Prohibition; Laissez-faire; Violence

JEL-codes: I14

Language: English

42 pages, First version: December 9, 2019. Revised: June 27, 2023. Earlier revisions: June 25, 2020, June 25, 2020, June 25, 2020, June 25, 2020, June 25, 2020, June 27, 2023.

Note: Retraction of: Prostitution and Violence. Evidence from Sweden SITE Working Paper N. 52, April 2019 Published: 27 June 2023 This is a retraction of: Maria Perrotta Berlin, Giovanni Immordino, Francesco F. Russo, Giancarlo Spagnolo, Prostitution and Violence. Evidence from Sweden, SITE Working Paper N. 52 , April 2019. The authors and editorial team are retracting this article because they found an inadvertent coding error, as a result of which results cannot be replicated.

Full text files

hasite0052.2.pdf PDF-file Retraction of: Prostitution and Violence. Evidence from Sweden

Download statistics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Dominick Nilsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:11:26.