How Dangerous Are Drinking Drivers?

Levitt, Steven D.; Porter, Joseph H.

doi:10.1086/323281

Cited by 177 publications

(197 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…13 Also related is the literature that studies the connection between risk taking behavior (speeding, drunk driving) and accidents (see Levitt and Porter 2001). A paper by Ashenfelter and Greenstone (2004) uses changes in the speed limit across US states to estimate the value of a statistical life.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns

Eeckhout

Persico

Todd

2010

American Economic Review

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Police often engage in "crackdowns" on crime, which are intermittent periods of high intensity policing. This paper develops a theoretical framework for modeling police monitoring behavior and individuals' decisions to engage in crime. Within this framework, we show that there are situations where it will be optimal for a crime-minimizing police agency to engage in random crackdowns. When they occur, crackdowns also provide a way of estimating the deterrence effect of policing. We illustrate the application of the model in analyzing a speed deterrence program used by police in Belgium. In particular, we estimate the deterrence effect of additional resources spent on ticketing speeders and assess whether the current level of deterrence is socially optimal.Two features characterize our notion of random crackdowns. First, they are arbitrary, in the sense that they subject certain groups (identified by presence in a particular time or place, or by other observable characteristics) that are not notably different from other groups in criminal propensities, to higher intensity police monitoring. Second, they are publicized, i.e., those who are subjected to crackdowns are informed about them before they engage in criminal activity. 1Crackdowns are employed in a number of policing situations. Some examples include drunk driving interdiction accomplished using sobriety checkpoints, crackdowns on speeding achieved through announced greater police presence on certain highways, or crackdowns on drug trafficking aimed at particular neighborhoods. 2Criminologists sometimes rationalize the use of crackdowns by appealing to psychological theories according to which the impression created by the temporary show of force (the crackdown) is a psychological "bluff" that leads potential criminals to overestimate the risk of 1 Our definition of crackdown is different from the conventional use of the term in the literature on policing (see, e.g., Rafael Di Tella and Ernesto Schargrodsky 2002, 2004) because we require that crackdowns be arbitrary. We will return to this point when we discuss the related literature.2 For example, operation "safe streets" in Philadelphia, which puts heavy law enforcement on particular city blocks, received extensive media coverage. Other examples of crackdowns include the NHTSA campaign "You Drink and Drive. You Lose," which instituted highly visible enforcement against drunk driving. Another example is "Checkpoint Tennessee," Tennessee's statewide sobriety checkpoint program. A Theory of Optimal Random CrackdownsBy Jan Eeckhout, Nicola Persico, and Petra E. Todd* Philadelphia, PA 19104 (e-mail: petra@athena.sas.upenn.edu). We are grateful to Larry Samuelson for useful discussions. We are also grateful to the Belgian police department for sharing the data and for their assistance in its interpretation.

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confidence: 99%

A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns

Eeckhout

Persico

Todd

2010

American Economic Review

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“…In dollar values, the externality associated with each incident of drunk driving may be as high as $8,000 (Levitt and Porter, 2001). This paper o¤ers evidence concerning the e¤ectiveness of punishments and sanctions as deterrents to recidivism among drunk drivers, …nding evidence that having a BAC above either .08 DUI threshold or the .15 aggravated DUI is associated with reduced recidivism both in the short and long term.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving

Hansen¹

2014

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Traditional economic models of criminal behavior have straightforward predictions: raising the expected cost of crime via apprehension probabilities or punishments decreases crime. I test the effect of harsher punishments on deterring driving under the influence (DUI). In this setting, punishments are determined by strict rules on Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) and previous offenses. Regression discontinuity derived estimates suggest that having a BAC above the DUI threshold reduces recidivism by up to 2 percentage points (17 percent). Likewise having a BAC over the aggravated DUI threshold reduces recidivism by an additional percentage point (9 percent). The results suggest that recent recommendations to lower the BAC limit to .05 would save relatively few lives, while increasing marginal punishments and sanctions monotonically along the BAC distribution would more effectively deter the drunk drivers most likely to be involved in fatal crashes.

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“…Other costs associated with alcohol consumption include an increase in suicide (Chatterji et al 2004), poor labor market outcomes (Mullahy andSindelar 1993, 1996), higher assault rates (Markowitz 2005), domestic violence (Markowitz 2000), higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (Klick and Stratmann 2003), and an increase in automobile fatalities (Levitt and Porter 2001). language passed by the state legislatures themselves.…”

Section: Mental Health Parity Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subsidizing Addiction: Do State Health Insurance Mandates Increase Alcohol Consumption?

Klick

Stratmann

2006

The Journal of Legal Studies

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A model of addiction in which individuals are forward looking implies that as the availability of addiction treatment options grows, individuals will consume more of an addictive good.We test this implication using cross-state variation in the adoption of mental health parity mandates that include substance abuse treatments. We examine the effects of these mandates on the consumption of alcohol and find that parity legislation leads to an increase in alcohol consumption. To account for the possible endogeneity of the adoption of mental health parity mandates, we perform an instrumental variables analysis and find that the ordinary least squares estimation significantly underestimates the insurance effect on alcohol consumption.

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How Dangerous Are Drinking Drivers?

Cited by 177 publications

References 22 publications

A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns

A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns

Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving

Subsidizing Addiction: Do State Health Insurance Mandates Increase Alcohol Consumption?

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