Preferences for Firearms and Their Implications for Regulation

Sarah Moshary, Bradley Shapiro and Sara Drango

No 30934, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper estimates consumer demand for firearms with the aim of predicting the likely impacts of firearm regulations on the number and types of guns in circulation. We first conduct a stated-choice-based conjoint analysis and estimate an individual-level demand model for firearms. We validate our estimates using aggregate moments from observational data. Next, we use our estimates to simulate changes in the number and types of guns in circulation under alternative regulations. Importantly, we find that bans or restrictions that specifically target “assault weapons” increase demand for handguns, which are associated with the vast majority of firearm-related violence. We provide distributions of consumer surplus under counterfactuals and discuss how those distributions could be useful for crafting policy.

JEL-codes: C11 C83 H23 I18 L50 L51 M31 M38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-02
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