The price of expungements

•Expungements may allow one to mitigate both the pecuniary and social costs associated with having a criminal record.•However, expungements may reduce general deterrence because they reduce the expected costs associated with committing a first offense.•In theory, there is a price for expungements that if implemented would hold constant general deterrence.•This paper empirically studies the effect of expungement on criminal behavior and shows how this effect varies with the price of expungements.•Our experiment shows that it is better to implement expungements at very high prices because the price signals the moral reprehensibility of the offense.