Some time ago, a paper came to my attention. The paper, written by two researchers, one from Emory University and one from Clemson University, is called, "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a 'Judicial Experiment'”. It purports to show that executions for murder save lives by deterring future murders.
Our results indicate that capital punishment has a deterrent effect, and the moratorium and executions deter murders in distinct ways. This evidence is corroborated by both the before-and-after comparisons and regression analysis. We also confirm that the moratorium and executions do not cause similar changes in non-capital crimes. The results are highly robust.
I can't find the "eighteen for one" quote mentioned below in this linked paper – I remember seeing a different one which I'll have to hunt for later.
...now economists have entered the debate. And they have brought to the task a dazzling range of highly sophisticated techniques originally developed to answer more prosaic questions, such as whether tax breaks encourage saving. More often than not the economists find that executions do save lives. The most dramatic finding comes from Joanna Shepherd and a team at Emory University in Atlanta. They have taken advantage of the fact that some parts of the US don't execute murderers, and only a handful of states execute them consistently.
(snip)
As they starkly report their central finding: each execution results in an average of 18 fewer murders.
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