Evidence for the suicide by firearm: Proxy for gun ownership from Austria

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics ; No. 33-2013

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Statistical Simulation Methods: General ; Model Construction and Estimation ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
• Subject: Gun Ownership ; Suicide ; Ratio Fallacy ; Spurious Correlation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Westphal, Christian
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Philipps-University Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics
• (where): Marburg
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/93513
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET