Back of the Envelope II, Smackdown

I posted a critique of Steven Landsburg's article, "Feed the Worms Who Write Worms to the Worms: The economic logic of executing computer hackers" here.

Mr. Landsburg was kind enough to comment on my post by e-mail, and I am reprinting our correspondence with his permission. I think it is instructive.

The highlight would be that he provides an excellent link that references a full spectrum of econometric studies on the deterrent effect of the death penalty. You can find it here.

His first e-mail is here, followed by my response. He responds to my response here. My thanks to Mr. Landsburg for his comments.