Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data and a State-Level Synthetic Control Analysis

John Donohue, Abhay Aneja and Kyle D. Weber

No 23510, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper uses more complete state panel data (through 2014) and new statistical techniques to estimate the impact on violent crime when states adopt right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws. Our preferred panel data regression specification, unlike the statistical model of Lott and Mustard that had previously been offered as evidence of crime-reducing RTC laws, both satisfies the parallel trends assumption and generates statistically significant estimates showing RTC laws increase overall violent crime. Our synthetic control approach also strongly confirms that RTC laws are associated with 13-15 percent higher aggregate violent crime rates ten years after adoption. Using a consensus estimate of the elasticity of crime with respect to incarceration of 0.15, the average RTC state would need to roughly double its prison population to offset the increase in violent crime caused by RTC adoption.

JEL-codes: K0 K14 K4 K40 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
Note: LE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published as John J. Donohue & Abhay Aneja & Kyle D. Weber, 2019. "Right‐to‐Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data and a State‐Level Synthetic Control Analysis," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, vol 16(2), pages 198-247.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23510.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23510

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23510

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().