Mandatory Seatbelt Laws and Traffic Fatalities: A Reassessment

D. Mark Anderson (), Yang Liang and Joseph J. Sabia ()
Additional contact information
D. Mark Anderson: Montana State University
Joseph J. Sabia: San Diego State University

No 15843, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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.

Keywords: traffic fatalities; mandatory seatbelt laws; traffic safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 I12 K32 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-law, nep-tre and nep-ure
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Published - published in: Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2024, 39 (3), 513-521

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Working Paper: Mandatory Seatbelt Laws and Traffic Fatalities: A Reassessment (2023)
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