Alcohol Use and Assault: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from the Minimum Legal Drinking Age
by Maggie Hu
Abstract
While it has long been observed that alcohol consumption is a risk factor for violence, the economics literature has up until recently provided minimal persuasive evidence regarding the causal nature of this relationship. In this study, we employ a regression discontinuity (RD) framework to examine how arrest and victimization rates from assault change at age 21, the U.S. minimum legal drinking age (MLDA-21). Utilizing annual FBI arrest data from the past 36 years since 1988, when the last states adopted the MLDA-21, we estimate that for both males and females, reaching the MLDA increases arrest rates for aggravated and other simple assaults by 5 – 8%, with the aggravated assault effect for females restricted to the latter half of the sample period. Analogous effects at slightly older ages are small and insignificant, as well as the effects for demographic and population characteristics expected to trend smoothly across the MLDA-21 threshold. We extend our analysis of assault-related violence by assessing victimization outcomes, particularly the effect of the MLDA-21 nonfatal injury, by leveraging emergency department (ED) data from the CDC’s Web-based Injury Statistics and Query Reporting System (WISQARS) spanning the period 2001–2022. Notably, we observe that ED visits for “struck by or against” assaults rise significantly by 7–10%, indicating increased participation in violent altercations and increased risk of victimization upon obtaining legal access to alcohol. Taken together, these results suggest that alcohol use increases aggression and violent behavior, the consequences of which thereby represent criminal justice and public health costs that would be exacerbated by lowering the MLDA.
Professor Jeffrey DeSimone, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: I18, I12, K0, K32
Keywords: Health Economics, Alcohol Policy, Education and Welfare
A Two-Stage Analysis Considering Gun Theft & Overall Crime: Evidence from Child Access Prevention Laws
by Ronan Brew
Abstract
Child Access Prevention Laws (CAP) came to prominence in the early 1990s in the wake of the highest recorded rate of overall and adolescent firearm deaths seen in the United States at that time, placing mandatory firearm storage requirements on adults living in a home with children. While the primary – and perhaps sole – intention behind these policies are to prevent adolescent gun death, I contend CAP laws have the added function of reducing the rate of firearms stolen from homes due to the legal incentives against improper firearm storage. In the first of a two-stage analysis, CAP laws are proven to substantially reduce the rate of household firearm theft based on the ascending stringency of different CAP law storage requirements. The scope of the study is then widened in the second stage of analysis, where I demonstrate the overall impact illicitly-obtained firearms have on predicting increased firearm homicides.
Professor John DeSimone, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C23, K00, K42
