Fewer guns, less crime: Evidence from Brazil

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Black Males ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Substitution Effect ◽  
Gunshot Wounds ◽  
Gun Violence ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Wide Margin ◽  
Gun Carrying ◽  
High Crime ◽  
The Right

Abstract This paper studies the effects of legislation in Brazil that banned the right to carry guns and provided for a voter referendum regarding whether to ban the sale of all firearms. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that gun-related homicides decreased by 12.2% and gunshot wounds that were ‘intended to kill’ by 16.3%, with the reduction of the former being especially pronounced in high-crime areas and among black males. There is no evidence of substitution effect as non-gun-related homicides were not affected. Two pieces of evidence suggest that the mechanism explaining this result is a decrease in the number of people carrying guns in response to the legislation: first, the number of cases of illegal gun carrying decreased and second, only gun-related homicides taking place outside the residence were reduced. Analysis of the subsequent voter referendum, which was defeated by a wide margin, shows stronger support for the complete firearms ban in the areas more affected by gun violence.

scholarly journals Primary elections and electoral outcomes: evidence from the Spanish Socialist Party

SERIEs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Ciacci ◽  
Ana Garcia-Hernandez ◽  
Jorge García-Hombrados ◽  
Laura Gismera ◽  
Antonio Núñez-Partido
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
The Right

AbstractUsing a regression discontinuity design and primary elections to select Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) mayoral candidates as a case study, this paper investigates the causal link between primary elections and electoral outcomes. The results suggest that selecting the PSOE’s mayoral candidate through primary elections has no effect on the percentage of votes and total votes received by the PSOE’s candidate in local elections, the probability of gaining the mayorship and the local government’s stability. On the other hand, the results suggest that PSOE’s primary elections result in increased votes for competing political parties to the right of the PSOE and in reduced votes for competing parties to the left of the PSOE.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of a Power Factor Correction Policy in Improving the Energy Efficiency of Large-Scale Electricity Users in Ghana

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 2582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Lotsu ◽  
Yuichiro Yoshida ◽  
Katsufumi Fukuda ◽  
Bing He
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Power Factor ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Power Factor Correction ◽  
Energy Crisis ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
The Government ◽  
Power Factor Improvement ◽  
The Impact

Confronting an energy crisis, the government of Ghana enacted a power factor correction policy in 1995. The policy imposes a penalty on large-scale electricity users, namely, special load tariff (SLT) customers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), whose power factor is below 90%. This paper investigates the impact of this policy on these firms’ power factor improvement by using panel data from 183 SLT customers from 1994 to 1997 and from 2012. To avoid potential endogeneity, this paper adopts a regression discontinuity design (RDD) with the power factor of the firms in the previous year as a running variable, with its cutoff set at the penalty threshold. The result shows that these large-scale electricity users who face the penalty because their power factor falls just short of the threshold are more likely to improve their power factor in the subsequent year, implying that the power factor correction policy implemented by Ghana’s government is effective.

How Much of the Incumbency Advantage is Due to Scare-Off?

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew B. Hall ◽  
James M. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Previous Election ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
State Legislative

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the degree to which incumbents scare off challengers with previous officeholder experience. The estimates indicate a surprisingly small amount of scare-off, at least in cases where the previous election was nearly tied. As Lee and others have shown (and as we confirm for our samples) the estimated party incumbency advantage in these same cases is quite large—in fact, it is about as large as the average incumbency advantage for all races found using other approaches. Drawing from previous estimates of the electoral value of officeholder experience, we thus calculate that scare-off in these cases accounts for only about 5–7 percent of the party incumbency advantage. We show that these patterns are similar in elections for US House seats, statewide offices and US senate seats, and state legislative seats.

scholarly journals Does Energy Consumption Respond to Price Shocks? Evidence from a Regression-Discontinuity Design

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-278
Author(s):  
Paulo Bastos ◽  
Lucio Castro ◽  
Julian Cristia ◽  
Carlos Scartascini
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Price Shocks
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