Becker vs Miron on Capital Punishment

Gary Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, says in a recent column:

I support executing some people convicted of murder because – and only because – I believe that it deters other murders.

Jeff Miron, who teaches the Economics of Crime course at Harvard, says in a recent blog post:

Mountains of social science evidence have failed to uncover a substantial deterrent effect of the death penalty.

Now I don't feel so bad that macroeconomists seem never to agree with one another.