Citation

Leigh A, Neill C. Am. Law Econ. Rev. 2010; 12(2): 509-557.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/aler/ahq013

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth (and nearly halved the number of gun-owning households). Using differences across states, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise. The results are robust to a variety of specification checks and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate.