IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/9198.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Social and Economic Impact of Native American Casinos

Author

Listed:
  • William N. Evans
  • Julie H. Topoleski

Abstract

In the late 1980s, a series of legal rulings favorable to tribes and the subsequent passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 legalized gaming operations on reservations in many states. Today, there are over 310 gaming operations run by more than 200 of the nations' 556 federally-recognized tribes. Of these operations, about 220 are Las Vegas' style casinos with slot machines and/or table games. We use a simple difference-in-difference framework where we compare economic outcomes before and after tribes open casinos to outcomes over the same period for tribes that do not adopt or are prohibited from adopting gaming. Four years after tribes open casinos, employment has increased by 26 percent, and tribal population has increased by about 12 percent, resulting in an increase in employment to population ratios of five percentage points or about 12 percent. The fraction of adults who work but are poor has declined by 14 percent. Tribal gaming operations seem to have both positive and negative spillovers in the surrounding communities. In counties where an Indian-owned casino opens, we find that jobs per adult increase by about five percent of the median value. Given the size of tribes relative to their counties, most of this growth in employment is due to growth in non-Native American employment. The increase in economic activity appears to have some health benefits in that four or more years after a casino opens, mortality has fallen by 2 percent in a county with a casino and an amount half that in counties near a casino. Casinos do, however, come at some cost. Four years after a casino opens, bankruptcy rates, violent crime, and auto thefts and larceny are up 10 percent in counties with a casino.

Suggested Citation

  • William N. Evans & Julie H. Topoleski, 2002. "The Social and Economic Impact of Native American Casinos," NBER Working Papers 9198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9198
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9198.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bonomo, Vittorio A & Johnson, Dana J & Thompson, G Rodney, 1995. "The Impact of the," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 30(1), pages 23-40, February.
    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. Ashleigh Shelby Rosette & Shirli Kopelman & JeAnna Lanza Abbott, 2014. "Good Grief! Anxiety Sours the Economic Benefits of First Offers," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 629-647, May.
    2. Boris Rumanko & Zuzana Lušňáková & Monika Moravanská & Mária Šajbidorová, 2021. "Succession as a Risk Process in the Survival of a Family Business—Case of Slovakia," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-20, September.
    3. Claudio Agostini & Mariel C. Siravegna, 2009. "Efectos de la Exención Tributaria a las Ganancias de Capital en el Precio de las Acciones en Chile," ILADES-UAH Working Papers inv233, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business.
    4. Olivier Brossard & Stéphanie Lavigne & Mustafa Erdem Sakinç, 2013. "Ownership structures and R&D in Europe: the good institutional investors, the bad and ugly impatient shareholders," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 22(4), pages 1031-1068, August.
    5. Juin-Jen Chang & Ching-Chong Lai & Ping Wang, 2010. "Casino regulations and economic welfare," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(3), pages 1058-1085, August.
    6. James B. Davies, 1995. "Distributional Effects of the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption: Single vs. Multi-Year Analysis," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 21(s1), pages 159-173, November.
    7. van de Walle, Dominique & Gunewardena, Dileni, 1998. "How dirty are"quick and dirty"methods of project appraisal?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1908, The World Bank.
    8. Ingmar Geiger, 2014. "Media Effects on the Formation of Negotiator Satisfaction: The Example of Face-to-Face and Text Based Electronically Mediated Negotiations," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 735-763, July.
    9. Verdonk-Kleinjan, Wendy M.I. & Knibbe, Ronald A. & Tan, Frans E.S. & Willemsen, Marc C. & de Groot, Henk N. & de Vries, Hein, 2009. "Does the workplace-smoking ban eliminate differences in risk for environmental tobacco smoke exposure at work?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(2-3), pages 197-202, October.
    10. Juin-Jen Chang & Ching-Chong Lai & Ping Wang, 2017. "A Tale of Two Cities: Cross-Border Casino Competition Between Detroit and Windsor," NBER Working Papers 23969, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Sascha Alavi & Johannes Habel & Marco Schwenke & Christian Schmitz, 2020. "Price negotiating for services: elucidating the ambivalent effects on customers’ negotiation aspirations," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 165-185, March.
    12. Jaime Ramirez-Fernandez & Jimena Y. Ramirez-Marin & Lourdes Munduate, 2018. "I Expected More from You: The Influence of Close Relationships and Perspective Taking on Negotiation Offers," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 85-105, February.
    13. Karina Lloyd & Diana Boer & Joshua Keller & Sven Voelpel, 2015. "Is My Boss Really Listening to Me? The Impact of Perceived Supervisor Listening on Emotional Exhaustion, Turnover Intention, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 509-524, September.
    14. Lake, Amy & Deller, Steven, 1996. "The Socioeconomic Impacts of a Native American Casino," Staff Papers 200584, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    15. Michael Ahearne & Yashar Atefi & Son K. Lam & Mohsen Pourmasoudi, 2022. "The future of buyer–seller interactions: a conceptual framework and research agenda," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 22-45, January.
    16. Parvin Sultana & Paul Thompson & Colin Green, 2008. "Can England Learn Lessons from Bangladesh in Introducing Participatory Floodplain Management?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 22(3), pages 357-376, March.
    17. Gary C. Anders, 1998. "Indian Gaming: Financial and Regulatory Issues," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 556(1), pages 98-108, March.
    18. Paul, Eugene, 0. "The Realities Of Agricultural Policy - A Producer Persepective," Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies, Farm Foundation.
    19. Goldberg, Abbie E. & McCormick, Nora & Frost, Reihonna & Moyer, April, 2021. "Reconciling realities, adapting expectations, and reframing “success”: Adoptive parents respond to their children’s academic interests, challenges, and achievement," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    20. Van Poucke, Dirk & Buelens, Marc, 2002. "Predicting the outcome of a two-party price negotiation: Contribution of reservation price, aspiration price and opening offer," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 67-76, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

    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:9198. 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.