Mandatory Seatbelt Laws and Traffic Fatalities: A Reassessment

D. Mark Anderson, Yang Liang and Joseph J. Sabia

No 30851, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for the period 1983-1997, Cohen and Einav (Review of Economics and Statistics 2003; 85(4): 828–843) found that mandatory seatbelt laws were associated with a 4 to 6 percent reduction in traffic fatalities among motor vehicle occupants. After successfully replicating their two-way fixed effects estimates, we (1) add 22 years of data (1998-2019) to capture additional seatbelt policy variation and observe a longer post-treatment period, (2) employ the interaction-weighted estimator proposed by Sun and Abraham (2021) to address potential bias due to heterogeneous and dynamic treatment effects, and (3) estimate event-study models to investigate pre-treatment trends and explore lagged post-treatment effects. Consistent with Cohen and Einav (2003), our updated estimates show that primary seatbelt laws are associated with a 5 to 9 percent reduction in fatalities among motor vehicle occupants. Estimated effects of secondary seatbelt laws are smaller in magnitude and sensitive to model choice.

JEL-codes: I12 K32 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-law, nep-tre and nep-ure
Note: EH LE PE
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Published as D. Mark Anderson & Yang Liang & Joseph J. Sabia, 2024. "Mandatory seatbelt laws and traffic fatalities: A reassessment," Journal of Applied Econometrics, vol 39(3), pages 513-521.

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Working Paper: Mandatory Seatbelt Laws and Traffic Fatalities: A Reassessment (2022)
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