IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwm/wpaper/158.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firearms and the Decline of Violence in Europe: 1200-2010

Author

Listed:
  • Carlisle E. Moody

    (Department of Economics, The College of William and Mary)

Abstract

Personal violence, has declined substantially in Europe from 1200-2010. The conventional wisdom is that the state’s monopoly on violence is the cause of this happy result. I find some evidence that does not support this hypothesis. I suggest an alternative hypothesis that could explain at least some of the reduction in violence, namely that the invention and proliferation of compact, concealable, ready-to-use firearms caused potential assailants to recalculate the probability of a successful assault and seek alternatives to violence. I use structural change models to test this hypothesis and find breakpoints consistent with the invention of certain firearms.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlisle E. Moody, 2015. "Firearms and the Decline of Violence in Europe: 1200-2010," Working Papers 158, Economics Department, William & Mary.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:158
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp158.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bai, Jushan, 1997. "Estimating Multiple Breaks One at a Time," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 315-352, June.
    2. Elliott, Graham & Rothenberg, Thomas J & Stock, James H, 1996. "Efficient Tests for an Autoregressive Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 813-836, July.
    3. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    4. Perron, P, 1993. "Erratum [The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock and the Unit Root Hypothesis]," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 248-249, January.
    5. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. González-Álvarez, María A. & Montañés, Antonio, 2023. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth: Determining the stability of the 3E relationship," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    2. Marta Gómez-Puig & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2015. "“On the bi-directional causal relationship between public debt and economic growth in EMU countries”," IREA Working Papers 201512, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised May 2015.
    3. Gómez-Puig, Marta & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2015. "The causal relationship between debt and growth in EMU countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 974-989.
    4. Bruce E. Hansen, 2001. "The New Econometrics of Structural Change: Dating Breaks in U.S. Labour Productivity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 117-128, Fall.
    5. Jesús Lucindo & Marisa Feijóo & María A. González-Álvarez, 2024. "Is Europe prepared to live without emissions? A dynamic analysis of the energy transition in economic sectors," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 73(2), pages 671-730, August.
    6. Marcus Box & Karl Gratzer & Xiang Lin, 2020. "Destructive entrepreneurship in the small business sector: bankruptcy fraud in Sweden, 1830–2010," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 437-457, February.
    7. Kocenda, Evzen, 2005. "Beware of breaks in exchange rates: Evidence from European transition countries," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 307-324, September.
    8. Mohitosh Kejriwal, 2020. "A Robust Sequential Procedure for Estimating the Number of Structural Changes in Persistence," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(3), pages 669-685, June.
    9. Alexeev, Vitali & Maynard, Alex, 2012. "Localized level crossing random walk test robust to the presence of structural breaks," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(11), pages 3322-3344.
    10. Atanu Ghoshray & Issam Malki & Javier Ordóñez, 2022. "On the long-run dynamics of income and wealth inequality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 375-408, February.
    11. Wang‐Sheng Lee & Sandy Suardi, 2010. "The Australian Firearms Buyback And Its Effect On Gun Deaths," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(1), pages 65-79, January.
    12. Mostafa Raeisi Sarkandiz & Robabeh Bahlouli, 2019. "The Stock Market between Classical and Behavioral Hypotheses: An Empirical Investigation of the Warsaw Stock Exchange," Econometric Research in Finance, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, vol. 4(2), pages 67-88, December.
    13. Mohitosh Kejriwal & Claude Lopez, 2013. "Unit Roots, Level Shifts, and Trend Breaks in Per Capita Output: A Robust Evaluation," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(8), pages 892-927, November.
    14. Zied Ftiti & Slim Chaouachi, 2018. "What Can We Learn About the Real Exchange Rate Behavior in the Case of a Peripheral Country?," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(3), pages 681-707, September.
    15. Giorgio Canarella & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller & Stephen K. Pollard, 2019. "Unemployment rate hysteresis and the great recession: exploring the metropolitan evidence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 61-79, January.
    16. Travaglini, Guido, 2007. "The U.S. Dynamic Taylor Rule With Multiple Breaks, 1984-2001," MPRA Paper 3419, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2007.
    17. Paulo M.M. Rodrigues & A. M. Robert Taylor, 2009. "The Flexible Fourier Form and Local GLS De-trended Unit Root Tests," Working Papers w200919, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    18. Noriega, Antonio E. & de Alba, Enrique, 2001. "Stationarity and structural breaks -- evidence from classical and Bayesian approaches," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 503-524, December.
    19. Marcos José Dal Bianco, 2008. "Argentinean real exchange rate 1900-2006, test purchasing power parity theory," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 35(1 Year 20), pages 33-64, June.
    20. Nicholas Apergis, 2024. "Euro area inflation in the era of COVID‐19: A permanent or a transitory phenomenon?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 92(3), pages 231-245, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    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:cwm:wpaper:158. 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: Nathaniel Throckmorton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decwmus.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.