The effects of state and Federal gun control laws on school shootings

School shootings are the highest profile type of murder in the United States. They are also the rarest type of murder. In 2014, there were only 17 firearm murders that were perpetrated in schools and colleges. The purpose of the present study is to determine the relationship between school shootings and state and Federal gun control laws. Using a Poisson, two-way fixed effects model, it was found that assault weapons bans reduced the number of school shooting victims by 54.4%. All other gun control laws (concealed carry laws, private sale background checks and Federal dealer background checks) had no statistically significant effects on school shootings. Although assault weapons bans may reduce the overall number of school shooting victims, the average reduction in murder victims may be less than 10 per year. Hence, it is unclear if gun control is the most appropriate policy to use to reduce the number school shooting victims.     

"SMART" GUNS: A TECHNOLOGICAL FIX FOR REGULATING THE SECONDARY MARKET

A "personalized" or "smart" gun will not fire unless it is being used by an authorized individual. Such guns have the potential to reduce the negative externalities of gun ownership while preserving the benefits. Ongoing efforts to develop practical "smart" designs make it timely to consider regulations that would favor or mandate them in the market for new guns. The likely consequences would depend on the design details, in particular the costs of transferring the "key" to firing such guns. With an "ideal" design, transferring the key would require special equipment that could be monitored by appropriate authorities. The result would be to block thefts and other transfers of such guns in the secondary market and, in the long run, reduce access by individuals who are proscribed from possessing a gun. Personalized guns, therefore, could make existing firearms regulations more effective and reduce the social costs associated with gun misuse. Though personalized guns have advantages relative to standard guns in a wide variety of situations, some of the potential benefits of personalized guns could be captured through alternative policy measures.     

The interaction between potential criminals' and victims' demands for guns

I develop a model with endogenous gun ownership and study the interaction between the demands for guns by heterogeneous potential offenders and victims. I show that the interaction depends on pervasiveness of guns, injury probabilities and, in particular, the impact of the gun on the probability of success against armed relative to unarmed adversaries. While the sanction on armed offense is maximal under plausible conditions, the sanction on unarmed offense balances direct deterrence benefits against marginal deterrence costs and corresponding net property losses. Optimal gun control policy disarms all offenders but allows the attractive potential victims to own guns. The paper also discusses the effects of enforcement and price controls on the demands for guns and welfare.     

UNDERSTANDING THE INTERSTATE EXPORT OF CRIME GUNS: A GRAVITY MODEL APPROACH

In 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives successfully traced over 145,000 guns recovered at crime scenes in the United States. Of these guns, more than 43,000 were originally sold in a different state from which they were recovered. What factors may explain the interstate movement of these crime guns? This article uses the well‐known gravity model of international trade to estimate interstate flow of crime guns. Empirical results show that, like trade of goods and services between nations, the traced movement of crime guns between states is proportionate to the economic sizes of trading partners and is inversely proportionate to the distance between them. In addition, the presence of gangs in one or both states tends to increase the flow of crime guns. Finally, differences in state gun laws tend to affect trade flows with crime guns flowing from states with “weak” gun laws to states with “strict” gun laws. (JEL K00, K42)     

The community impact of school-shootings on stress-related emergency department visits

School-shootings can enormously impact U.S. gun policy, but very little is known about the community mental health impact of school-shootings. We used difference-in-differences and event study analyses to compare stress-related ED visits in zip-codes within 5 miles (exposed) and in zip-codes 10–15 miles from (control) school-shootings before and after school-shootings using data from California, 2005–2011. School-shootings and fatal school-shootings were associated with annual increases of 0.7 and 1.5 stress-related ED visits per 1000 people, increases of 7% and 14%, respectively, compared to pre-shooting utilization. These previously unmeasured costs of school-shootings reinforce calls to prevent gun violence, especially in schools.     

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.     

DRUNK DRIVING LEGISLATION AND TRAFFIC FATALITIES: NEW EVIDENCE ON BAC 08 LAWS

This article reexamines the effectiveness of blood alcohol content (BAC) laws in reducing traffic fatalities. Differences-in-differences estimators of U.S. state-level data with standard errors corrected for autocorrelation show no evidence that lowering the BAC limits to 0.08 g/dL reduced fatality rates, either in total or in crashes likely to be alcohol related, or in states that passed BAC 08 in laws either in advance of or in response to federal pressure. Other legislations, including administrative license revocation and primary seat belt laws, are found effective in reducing fatalities in all specifications. Endogeneity tests using event analyses confirm the differences-in-differences estimates. ( JEL I18, K32)     

中国环境立法的困境与出路

在环境法律实践的过程中,通过与污染受害者沟通和交流,发现许多问题都是根源于环境立法存在的问题。也就是,环境立法中的单向的立法理念,只注重至上而下的国家力量,这会导致法律与最初目的的偏离,从保护环境利益走向保护部门利益。因此,要寻求新的出路——发展双向融合的立法理念,即注重至上而下的政府主导与至下而上的公众参与有机结合,通过公众有效参与环境立法,发现环境法律实践中的问题,及时反馈到立法领域。从而在有效的互动中完善环境法治。     

Guns and crime revisited

I focus on the effect of changes in public security (policing) on private security measures that potential victims can take. In particular, I look at the tradeoff between different types of private security measures – such as using or carrying guns, carrying less cash or keeping less valuables at home, and using burglar alarms or Lojack – and study how this tradeoff is affected by changes in public security. If private householders’ direct security expenses are strongly substitutable with public policing (e.g., for guns which may be more useful in badly policed areas), an increase in policing results in a drop in these expenses; it also results in carrying or keeping less cash (an indirect security measure which reduces the prize a criminal can seize). If, however, householders’ direct security expenses are “complementary” to policing in the sense that they are more effective when police response is rapid (e.g., for burglar alarms), more policing increases these expenses unless the efficacy of joint (public and private) security expenses on combating crime encounters very sharply diminishing returns; moreover, a rise in policing also induces carrying or keeping more cash. An increase in penalties increases the tendency to keep cash on hand, and also reduces crime, provided that as private precautions increase, with policing constant, it takes a larger increment in security spending to compensate for a specific drop in penalties. The results are consistent with some empirical trends in crime rates, policing, penalties and private precautions.     

Mother's education and child development: Evidence from the compulsory school reform in China

This paper investigates the causal impact of mother's schooling on various outcomes of adolescent development by exploiting the temporal and geographical variations in the enforcement of compulsory schooling laws in China. Using data from China Family Panel Studies, we find that mother's education increases adolescents’ school enrollment, math test scores, college aspiration, and internal locus of control related to education. Mother's education also improves adolescent mental health status and reduces the incidence of underweight. We also find considerable gender heterogeneity in the effects of mother's education. The results further indicate that mother's education leads to an increase in family resources for children and an improvement in maternal mental health and parenting, which we interpret as potential mechanisms behind our findings.     

Workplace violence and corporate policy for health care settings

Incidents of workplace violence have been of significant concern to health care employers and the public at large. Many employers now find themselves confronted with sentinel events in the workplace, such as assault; property damage; racially, ethnically, or religiously motivated violence; sexual assault; employee suicide; or homicide. Regardless of a health care agency's size or mission, when employees are unexpectedly confronted with workplace violence, they are typically overwhelmed with shock and multiple questions surrounding how the event could have occurred in the safety of the workplace. It is difficult to imagine returning to work only minutes after hearing such news and, yet, in this modern era of corporate health care, this is what usually happens. Awareness of the dynamics and issues related to workplace violence can guide policy development and related interventions to promote safety, stability, and provide a platform for adapting to the devastation of such a disturbing event.     

Trigger warning: the causal impact of gun ownership on suicide

With a growing debate over tighter firearm regulations, we consider an important social consequence of increased firearm access: increased firearm suicides. Using data from the federal criminal background check system, we consider the impact of firearm ownership on firearm suicide rates. To deal with concerns of identification, we instrument for firearm background checks with state-year-level Google search intensity for phrases that reflect fear of future gun shortages and learning about the constitutional rights of firearm owners. We find that an increase in firearm ownership has a sizable and statistically significant impact on firearm suicide rates. A 10% increase in firearm ownership increases firearm suicide rates by approximately 3%, which is five times larger than non-instrumented estimates. Furthermore, we find no effect of gun ownership on non-firearm suicide rates, suggesting our findings are not simply capturing a suicide method substitution effect. The results are consistent with a variety of validity and robustness tests. Our results make clear the link between firearm ownership and firearm suicide rates, which have increased dramatically over the last decade.     

Does the certainty of arrest reduce domestic violence? Evidence from mandatory and recommended arrest laws

Domestic violence remains a major public policy concern despite two decades of policy intervention. To eliminate police inaction in response to domestic violence, many states have passed mandatory arrest laws, which require the police to arrest abusers when a domestic violence incident is reported. Using the FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports, I find that mandatory arrest laws actually increased intimate partner homicides. I discuss two potential mechanisms for this increase in homicides: decreased reporting by victims and increased reprisal by abusers. I investigate validity of these hypotheses by examining the effect of mandatory arrest laws on different sub-groups and by analyzing family homicides where the victim is less often responsible for reporting. There appears to be consistent evidence for the reporting mechanisms. For family homicides, mandatory arrest laws appear to reduce the number of homicides. This study therefore provides evidence that these laws may have perverse effects on intimate partner violence, harming the very people they seek to help.     

Securities laws in the host countries and the capital structure of US multinationals

We examine whether securities laws in the host countries influence the capital structure choice of United States (US) multinational corporations. We develop firm-level global indices to classify each corporation in terms of its exposure to the security laws that govern the rights of security holders in the countries where it has subsidiaries. The results show that the use of long-term debt is positively related to the firm's global standing in terms of common law legal origin, burden of proof, investor protection, disclosure requirements, and public enforcement. The securities laws in a country affect the capital structure of multinational corporations that has subsidiaries in that country.     

A Gendered Model of the Peasant Household: Time poverty and Farm Production in Rural Mozambique

Using insights from a case study on the allocation of labor in subsistence households in Mozambique, this study develops a conceptual framework for examining linkages between time poverty and farm production. An unexpected event such as a health crisis increases the demand for labor provided by women, thus making them more time poor. The model and numerical simulations show that a deterioration in a woman's time constraint will have an adverse effect on agricultural output of the household. This occurs because most women respond to an increase in household work by reducing their work hours on the farm and by reducing their leisure time. The latter outcome is expected to have a negative effect on women's physical and mental health, which will then cause a decline in their productivity on the farm.     

Infant mortality,relative income and public policy

Do health outcomes depend on relative income as well as on an individual's absolute level of income? We use infant mortality as a health status indicator and find a significant and positive link between infant mortality and income inequality using cross-national data for 93 countries. Holding constant the income of each of the three poorest quintiles of a country's population, we find that an increase in the income of the upper 20% of the income distribution is associated with higher, not the lower infant mortality. Our results are robust and not just caused by the concave relationship between income and health. The estimates imply a decrease in infant mortality by 1.5% for a one percentage point decrease in the income share of the richest quintile. The overall results are sensitive to public policy: public health care expenditure, educational outcomes, and access to basic sanitation and safe water can explain the inequality–health relationship. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis of public disinvestment in human capital in countries with high income inequality. However, we are not able to determine whether public policy is a confounder or mediator of the relationship between income distribution and health. Relative deprivation caused by the income distance between an individual and the individual's reference group is another possible explanation for a direct effect from income inequality to health.     

On measuring the effects of fiscal policy in global financial crisis: Evidences from an export-oriented island economy

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Taiwan implemented various fiscal policies so that they could offset the shocks from the financial crisis. In the present study, we investigate whether these two fiscal policies alleviated the shock generated by the 2008 financial crisis on Taiwan's economy and unemployment. The findings provide that the economic and employment effects generated by the public work investment project were the most substantial in the public sector. By contrast, the economic and employment effects generated by the consumption vouchers policy were the largest in the service sector. These outcomes are closely related to Taiwan's industry structure. The fiscal multiplier of the public investment project and consumer vouchers distribution was 1.94 and 1.47. The evidence in the present study also seems to suggest that the two fiscal policies examined could not induce an effective long-term transformation of Taiwan's economic system.     

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.     

论环境保护非政府组织——第三支力量的崛起

市场手段与政府管制的环境保护策略使企业与政府成为环境保护的两支基本力量，但是二者的终极目标并非保护环境，不能从根本上维护社会及其成员的环境利益，而环境保护非政府组织则以保护环境为根本目标。在实践中，它具有推动环境法律与政策发展、维护环境污染受害者利益、提供信息与咨询服务、提高公众环境意识的积极作用。当然，环境保护非政府组织也有其消极作用，它自身的发展也面临问题。     

How corruption hits people when they are down

Using Peruvian data, I show that victims of misfortune, particularly crime victims, are much more likely than non-victims to bribe public officials. Misfortune increases victims' demand for public services, raising bribery indirectly, and also increases victims' propensity to bribe certain officials conditional on using them, possibly because victims are desperate, vulnerable, or demanding services particularly prone to corruption. The effect is strongest for bribery of the police, where the increase in bribery comes principally through increased use of the police. For the judiciary the effect is also strong, and for some misfortunes is composed equally of an increase in use and an increase in bribery conditional on use. The expense and disutility of bribing thus compound the misery brought by misfortune.