Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/93513 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics No. 33-2013
Publisher: 
Philipps-University Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Marburg
Abstract: 
When attempting to measure gun ownership in the United States, the problem of missing administrative data arises, making it necessary to find a valid proxy. Several such proxies are employed in economic studies, one of which is the fraction of suicides by firearm of all suicides (FSS). My work validates this proxy from out-of-sample data, namely, Austrian administrative data on firearm licenses. I also reevaluate, with appropriate statistical methods, a result on firearms and suicide from the medical that is often used for public policy advocacy. This result is, unfortunately, heavily biased due to ignoring a well-known fallacy and thus can be only partially confirmed.
Subjects: 
Gun Ownership
Suicide
Ratio Fallacy
Spurious Correlation
JEL: 
C15
C51
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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