IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22980.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Blind Tigers and Red-Tape Cocktails: Liquor Control and Homicide in Late-Nineteenth-Century South Carolina

Author

Listed:
  • Howard Bodenhorn

Abstract

In 1893 South Carolina prohibited the private manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol and established a state monopoly in wholesale and retail alcohol distribution. The combination of a market decline in the availability of alcohol, reduced variety, and monopoly pricing at state-operated outlets encouraged black markets in alcohol. Because black market participants tend to resort to extra-legal mechanisms for dispute resolution, including violence, one result of South Carolina’s alcohol restriction was an increase in homicide. A continuous-treatment difference-in-difference approach reveals that homicide rates increased by about 30 to 60 percent in counties that more vigorously enforced the law.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard Bodenhorn, 2016. "Blind Tigers and Red-Tape Cocktails: Liquor Control and Homicide in Late-Nineteenth-Century South Carolina," NBER Working Papers 22980, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22980
    Note: DAE LE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22980.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miron, Jeffrey A, 1999. "Violence and the U.S. Prohibitions of Drug and Alcohol," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 1(1-2), pages 78-114, Fall.
    2. Steven D. Levitt & Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, 2000. "An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 755-789.
    3. Emily G. Owens, 2014. "The American Temperance Movement and Market-Based Violence," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 16(2), pages 433-472.
    4. Di Tella, Rafael & Edwards, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto (ed.), 2010. "The Economics of Crime," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226153742, December.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & David H. Autor & David Lyle, 2004. "Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(3), pages 497-551, June.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 1999. "Why Is There More Crime in Cities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 225-258, December.
    7. John Knowles & Nicola Persico & Petra Todd, 2001. "Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(1), pages 203-232, February.
    8. Emily Greene Owens, 2011. "Are Underground Markets Really More Violent? Evidence from Early 20th Century America," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 13(1), pages 1-44.
    9. Flores, Daniel, 2016. "Violence and law enforcement in markets for illegal goods," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 77-87.
    10. Livingston, Brendan, 2016. "Murder and the black market: Prohibition's impact on homicide rates in American cities," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 33-44.
    11. Caulkins Jonathan P & Reuter Peter & Taylor Lowell J, 2006. "Can Supply Restrictions Lower Price? Violence, Drug Dealing and Positional Advantage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-20, January.
    12. Jeffrey A. Miron & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 1995. "The Economic Case against Drug Prohibition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 175-192, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David S Jacks & Krishna Pendakur & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2021. "Infant Mortality and the Repeal of Federal Prohibition," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 2955-2983.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.
    2. Francis-Tan, Andrew & Tan, Cheryl & Zhang, Ruhan, 2018. "School spirit: Exploring the long-term effects of the U.S. temperance movement on educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 162-169.
    3. Lindo, Jason M. & Padilla-Romo, María, 2018. "Kingpin approaches to fighting crime and community violence: Evidence from Mexico's drug war," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 253-268.
    4. Edward M. Shepard & Paul R. Blackely, 2010. "Economics of Crime and Drugs: Prohibition and Public Policies for Illicit Drug Control," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Nicholas Ajzenman, Sebastian Galiani, and Enrique Seira, 2014. "On the Distributed Costs of Drug-Related Homicides - Working Paper 364," Working Papers 364, Center for Global Development.
    6. Nicolas Ajzenman & Sebastian Galiani & Enrique Seira, 2015. "On the Distributive Costs of Drug-Related Homicides," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4).
    7. Caulkins, Jonathan P. & Reuter, Peter, 2006. "Illicit drug markets and economic irregularities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-14, March.
    8. Barron, Kai & Parry, Charles D.H. & Bradshaw, Debbie & Dorrington, Rob & Groenewald, Pam & Laubscher, Ria & Matzopoulos, Richard, 2022. "Alcohol, Violence and Injury-Induced Mortality: Evidence from a Modern-Day Prohibition," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Online Ea, pages 1-44.
    9. Flores, Daniel, 2016. "Violence and law enforcement in markets for illegal goods," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 77-87.
    10. Kuziemko, Ilyana & Levitt, Steven D., 2004. "An empirical analysis of imprisoning drug offenders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2043-2066, August.
    11. Barron, Kai & Bradshaw, Debbie & Parry, Charles D. H. & Dorrington, Rob & Groenewald, Pam & Laubscher, Ria & Matzopoulos, Richard, 2021. "Alcohol and Short-Run Mortality: Evidence from a Modern-Day Prohibition," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 273, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Michael Clemens, Çaglar Özden, and Hillel Rapoport, 2014. "Migration and Development Research Is Moving Far beyond Remittances - Working Paper 365," Working Papers 365, Center for Global Development.
    13. Jacks, David S. & Pendakur, Krishna & Shigeoka, Hitoshi, 2023. "Urban mortality and the repeal of federal prohibition," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Dorothy Kronick, 2020. "Profits and Violence in Illegal Markets: Evidence from Venezuela," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(7-8), pages 1499-1523, August.
    15. Abdul Munasib & Genti Kostandini & Jeffrey L. Jordan, 2018. "Impact of the Stand Your Ground law on gun deaths: evidence of a rural urban dichotomy," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 527-554, June.
    16. Paolo Buonanno & Daniel Montolio & Paolo Vanin, 2009. "Does Social Capital Reduce Crime?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 145-170, February.
    17. Fafchamps, Marcel & Minten, Bart, 2006. "Crime, Transitory Poverty, and Isolation: Evidence from Madagascar," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 579-603, April.
    18. Golz, Michael & D'Amico, Daniel J., 2018. "Market concentration in the international drug trade," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 28-42.
    19. Mounu Prem & Juan F. Vargas & Daniel Mejía, 2023. "The Rise and Persistence of Illegal Crops: Evidence from a Naive Policy Announcement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 344-358, March.
    20. Mayra Buvinic & Monica Das Gupta & Ursula Casabonne & Philip Verwimp, 2013. "Violent Conflict and Gender Inequality: An Overview," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 110-138, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • N41 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22980. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.