ALCOHOL PREVALENCE,ALCOHOL POLICIES,AND CHILD FATAL INJURY RATES FROM MOTOR VEHICLE CRASHES

In this study, we consider the effects of state alcohol policies on motor vehicle fatalities for children. While numerous studies have considered the effects of such policies on motor vehicle fatalities for the overall population, for teens, and for the elderly, their effects on fatalities among children in particular have not previously been studied. We use state‐level cross‐sectional time series data for 1982–2002. The dependent variable of interest is fatalities among child motor vehicle occupants (CMVO). Separate models are estimated for 0‐ to 4‐yr‐olds, 5‐ to 9‐yr‐olds, and 10‐ to 15‐yr‐olds, as well as for fatalities occurring during the day versus the night. We find that number of fatalities among CMVO is strongly correlated to alcohol use measured at the state level and that administrative license revocation policies and higher beer tax rates appear to consistently reduce such fatalities. For two of the three age groups, beer tax rates appear to reduce fatalities during the night rather than the day. However, zero tolerance and blood alcohol concentration limit laws do not seem to have any statistically significant effects on fatalities. (JEL I18, J13)     

Motorcycle Helmet Laws and Motorcyclist Fatalities

We employ panel data over a 22-year period to study the impact of state laws mandating helmet use by motorcyclists. We find that helmet laws are associated with an average 29–33% decrease in per capita motorcyclist fatalities. However, since voluntary helmet wearing rates are higher in harsher climates, the efficacy of helmet laws varies directly with the warmth of a states climate. Repeal of helmet laws in the 1970s and subsequent re-adoption in the late 1980s and early 1990s have had roughly symmetrical effects on fatalities. Alcohol consumption and the number of police available to enforce traffic laws also significantly effect motorcyclist fatalities.     

Guns,laws and public shootings in the United States

Since the late 1990s, there have been increasing numbers of public shootings carried out with firearms in the United States. These tragedies continually renew the regulatory debate concerning public safety while considering civil liberties. Using a unique data set, we investigate whether laws correspond to whether an event occurs and the effects of event-specific characteristics on public shooting outcomes. In particular, we analyse how state-specific gun laws, the types of firearms, the shooting venues and the mental health of the gunman impact the outcomes of public shootings. Results show that most gun laws are unrelated to whether an event occurs. In addition, common state and federal gun laws that outlaw assault weapons are unrelated to the likelihood of an assault weapon being used during a public shooting event. Moreover, results show that the use of assault weapons is not related to more victims or fatalities than other types of guns. However, the use of hand guns, shot guns and high-capacity magazines is directly related to the number of victims and fatalities in a public shooting event. Finally, the gunman’s reported mental illness is often associated with an increase in the number of victims and fatalities.     

A note on Peltzman's theory of offsetting consumer behavior

A re-estimation of the basic Peltzman (1975) model using a richer data set strongly indicates that mandated automobile safety legislation has been important in reducing traffic fatalities. There is little or no evidence of offsetting consumer behavior.     

ALCOHOL REGULATION AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TOWARDS CHILDREN

In recent years, economists have paid much attention to the demand for alcohol and the negative externalities associated with excessive drinking. Largely ignored in the literature is the link between alcohol use and domestic violence. Given the established positive relationship between alcohol consumption and acts of violence, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role that changes in the determinants of the demand for alcohol may play in reducing the incidence of violence aimed at children. Data on violence come from the 1976 Physical Violence in American Families survey. We estimate a model in which violent outcomes are affected by the state excise tax rate on beer; illegal drug prices, and other regulatory variables such as availability measures and laws restricting the advertising of alcohol. Results show that increasing the tax on beer can be an effective policy tool in reducing violence. Laws designed to make obtaining beer more difficult also may be effective in reducing violence, while restrictions on advertising and increases in illegal drug prices have no effects.     

Traffic accidents,deaths and alcohol consumption

The main goal of this article is to analyse the relationship existing among prices of alcoholic beverages, alcohol consumption and traffic fatalities for the Spanish Autonomous Communities during the time interval 1998 to 2002. Among the main results, we highlight a positive correlation between alcohol consumption and traffic mortality rate. Basically, governments implement two kinds of policies to reduce the traffic mortality rate. One is oriented to control the supply of alcohol by increasing alcohol taxes. The other is oriented to preserve traffic security, increasing the number of sanctions for traffic rule infraction. We find evidence that both policies exert a positive influence in the reduction of traffic fatalities. There is no empirical evidence to indicate that being a novice driver increases the tendency to be involved in a mortal traffic accident.     

Marijuana and alcohol: Evidence using border analysis and retail sales data

We use retail scanner data on purchases of alcoholic beverages across US counties for 2006 to 2015 to study the link between medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and alcohol consumption. To do this, we exploit differences in the timing of marijuana laws among states and find that they are substitutes. We show that unlike traditional national-level analysis, focusing on contiguous-border county pairs provides unbiased estimates of the effect of MMLs on alcohol sales. Specifically, alcohol sales in counties located in MML states decreased by 12.4%. Results are robust to including placebo effective dates for MMLs in treated states.     

Gas prices,beer taxes and GDL programmes: effects on auto fatalities among young adults in the US

Efforts to reduce teenage driving fatalities can be categorized as: enhancing driving skills, constraining driving behaviour and limiting the exposure of young drivers to the road. This article uses state-year specific Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data on the motor vehicle fatalities of young adults aged 15–24 to estimate the effects of gasoline prices, beer taxes and the enactment of Graduated Drivers License (GDL) programmes over the 1985–2006 period. Results indicate that a 10% increase in gasoline prices reduce fatalities by 3.2–6.2%. The largest percentage reductions occurred among 15- to 17-year-old drivers. 10% higher beer taxes were estimated to reduce motor vehicle fatalities among young drivers by approximately 1.3%. In this case, there was virtually no effect on 15- to 17-year-old drivers. Finally, the introduction of more restrictive GDL programmes, those with a 6-month learner's permit phase and subsequent limits on early nighttime driving or on the number of passengers, reduced fatalities among 15- to 17-year-old drivers by 24%. The effects on 18- to 21-year-old drivers were smaller and the weakest GDL programmes had no effect on fatalities.     

The measurement of disaster risk: An example from tropical cyclones in the Philippines

What determines disaster fatalities? We develop a tool to estimate tropical cyclone‐induced fatalities in the Philippine provinces, and to explain the variability of these fatalities across provinces using an evidence‐based approach. We construct a new provincial‐level panel dataset, and use statistical methods to assess the influence of socioeconomic vulnerability (i.e., levels of economic and social development, urbanization, governance), exposure (i.e., population, topography, and geography), and hazard characteristics (i.e., rainfall volume and wind speed) on the resulting fatalities from tropical cyclones. We find strong evidence that socioeconomic development and good local governance reduces disaster fatalities, while unplanned urbanization is associated with more fatalities. Exposure, including topography, and tropical cyclone strength are likewise important determinants of fatalities. However, disaster fatalities appear to be influenced much more by socioeconomic vulnerability and exposure, than by the hazard itself. We quantify this difference in order to contribute to policy planning at national and subnational scales.     

POINTS OR PRISON? THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT SANCTIONS ON DRIVING BEHAVIOR

We compare two reforms aimed at reducing road accidents in Italy. The Penalty Points System (PPS) provides drivers with a score and curtails points after infractions. The license is temporarily suspended when points are exhausted. Losing points is easy, but the penalty is mild. The Road Homicide (RH) introduces heavy penalties in the rare event of injuries and/or fatalities. In terms of probability and intensity of the penalty the two policies are therefore diametrically opposed. We find that injuries and fatalities decrease more with PPS than with RH. Comparing costs and benefits, we conclude that strong penalties are not beneficial. (JEL D91, K14, K42, R41)     

The economic incidence of smoking laws

Although laws restricting smoking in restaurants are becoming commonplace, most research has focused on either the health benefits that laws may provide customers and workers or whether laws harm owners. But while smoking laws may directly alter profits, owners may alter prices, output, and other business attributes in ways that affect the welfare of customers and workers. This study examines whether restaurant and bar owners alter prices, entertainment, hours of operation and other business attributes in response to local smoking laws. Substantial support is found for these attribute changes in the Wisconsin hospitality industry. One implication is that an overall assessment of the desirability of smoking laws should consider economic effects imposed on owners, customers and workers, as well as health benefits that follow laws.     

Cannabis, Alcohol and Cigarettes: Substitutes or Complements?

This paper uses individual level data from the National Drug Strategy Household Surveys to estimate the price responsiveness of participation in cannabis, alcohol and cigarette use. In addition to own price effects, we estimate cross price effects and the impact of decriminalizing cannabis use. We find that participation is responsive to own prices. There is some evidence that cannabis is a substitute for alcohol and a complement to cigarettes, and that alcohol and cigarettes are complements. The liberalization of cannabis laws in South Australia may have led to a temporary increase in cannabis use among the over-30 age group.     

COMMENT—ALCOHOL ADVERTISING IN MAGAZINES AND YOUTH READERSHIP: ARE YOUTHS DISPROPORTIONATELY EXPOSED?

This article investigates the relationship between alcohol advertising in magazines and youth readership, while controlling for a set of magazine and readership variables related to the demand for advertising space. It reconstructs and reanalyzes a data set including count data for alcohol ads placed in 28 magazines in 2001-2003 that was the basis for a previous study, which concluded that alcohol advertisers do not target youths. We address the problem of collinearity in that data set and add an explanatory variable to explicitly model the hypothesis that alcohol advertising is preferentially directed to a young adult audience. We find that the number of alcohol advertisements in magazines increases significantly with the proportion of youth readers, even after controlling for young adult readership. Our results indicate that youths are disproportionately exposed to alcohol advertising and that reducing youth exposure to alcohol advertising remains an important public policy concern. ( JEL L82, L66, M37)     

A note on the effect of minimum drinking age laws on youth alcohol consumption

This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the effect of minimum drinking age laws (MDALs) on youth alcohol consumption. Two considerations motivated the analysis. First, results from previous studies provide conflicting evidence of the effect of MDALs on alcohol consumption. Second, all previous studies of the effects of MDALs on alcohol consumption have failed to control for unmeasured time-varying state effects. This study addresses this latter issue by using a difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) methodology. The results of this study were mixed. On the one hand, a preponderance of estimates of the effect of MDALs on alcohol consumption are negative, although many are not significantly different from zero. On the other hand, estimates of the effect of MDALs differ by gender and exhibit some variation across samples and methods. In the end, I believe the estimates presented in this article are not sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion and suggest the need for additional research.     

Are There Differential Effects of Price and Policy on College Students’Drinking Intensity?

This article investigates the impact of campus bans on alcohol use and the price of alcohol on college students'drinking intensity. The impact of a campus ban on drinking appears to depend on the ability of students to substitute off-campus access to alcohol for on-campus access. Where few off-campus alternatives exist, campus bans reduce the odds that a student becomes a heavy drinker but have no impact on the odds of transitioning from abstainer to drinker. Where off-campus alternatives are more plentiful, campus bans are less effective. Increasing the price of alcohol appears to be equally effective at reducing the likelihood of drinking and heavy drinking. (JEL)     

The causal effect of compulsory voting laws on turnout: Does skill matter?

A very important, yet unsettled, question is whether mandatory voting affects political participation. This paper exploits a natural experiment to assess the causal impact of compulsory voting on turnout and, more importantly, to test whether the impact is different across skill groups. I find that compulsory voting increases voter turnout by 18 percentage points (28%) and the increase is twice as much in the unskilled citizens than that in the skilled citizens. This study is the first to show, with rigorous empirical evidence, that compulsory voting laws are effective in reducing the skill/socioeconomic gap in political participation. Furthermore, by shaping the electorate, these laws have relevant consequences in terms of the economic policies applied.     

Dumping in a Linder Model of Trade with Multiple Retail Channels

The last decade has witnessed an accelerating adoption of AD laws by LDCs and their increasing usage against developed countries. Our model of third degree price discrimination with heterogenous consumers that have differing preferences for quality in the two countries suggests that this is likely to continue. Duopolistic interaction may yield bilateral dumping, or unilateral dumping in either direction, under free trade. Even when dumping is unidirectional, there is a compelling basis for the introduction of AD laws by both governments. This mitigates competition, which is beneficial for both firms, and portends pessimism for an abatement of this recent proliferation of AD laws and complaints.     

An empirical re-examination of extreme tail behavior: testing the assumptions of the power laws and the generalized Pareto distribution on the financial series

This study investigates whether the power laws and the associated generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) exist in the extreme tail behavior of financial return series. We include 10 series of five major financial categories over the period 1971–2018 for empirical analysis. For the former assumption, we test three representative power-law distributions. For the latter, we employ an innovative bootstrap goodness-of-fit test of GPD modeling. We also discuss the relationship between both assumptions. The empirical outcomes indicate that both assumptions do not necessarily hold for all tail series due to the outlying observations. The rejection of the power laws assumption leads to the rejection of the GPD assumption. This rejection does not promise the non-rejection of power laws either. However, the non-rejection of either assumption does not imply non-rejection of the other assumption. Power-law distribution and exponential distribution outperform log-normal distribution in tail fitting. GPD fits better at the 1% quantile level than at the 5% level. Overall, we need to acknowledge the considerable gap between the goodness-of-fit testing outcomes of both the power laws and GPD assumptions.     

论全面禁止烟草广告政策的无效性

世界各地都有相应的法律控制香烟的消费,其中重要的手段就是全面禁止烟草广告。本文从成本收益的角度分析了全面禁止烟草广告政策的无效性,并对在社会上如何开展禁烟工作提出了一些意见。     

THE AUSTRALIAN FIREARMS BUYBACK AND ITS EFFECT ON GUN DEATHS

The 1996-1997 National Firearms Agreement (NFA) in Australia introduced strict gun laws, primarily as a reaction to the mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996, where 35 people were killed. Despite the fact that several researchers using the same data have examined the impact of the NFA on firearm deaths, a consensus does not appear to have been reached. In this paper, we reanalyze the same data on firearm deaths used in previous research, using tests for unknown structural breaks as a means to identifying impacts of the NFA. The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates. (JEL C22, K19)