Mandatory Seatbelt Laws and Traffic Fatalities: A Reassessment

Arbeitspapier

Using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for the period 1983-1997, Cohen and Einav (Review of Economics and Statistics 2003; 85(4): 828–843) found that mandatory seatbelt laws were associated with a 4 to 6 percent reduction in traffic fatalities among motor vehicle occupants. After successfully replicating their two-way fixed effects estimates, we (1) add 22 years of data (1998-2019) to capture additional seatbelt policy variation and observe a longer post-treatment period, (2) employ the interaction-weighted estimator proposed by Sun and Abraham (2021) to address potential bias due to heterogeneous and dynamic treatment effects, and (3) estimate event-study models to investigate pre-treatment trends and explore lagged post-treatment effects. Consistent with Cohen and Einav (2003), our updated estimates show that primary seatbelt laws are associated with a 5 to 9 percent reduction in fatalities among motor vehicle occupants. Estimated effects of secondary seatbelt laws are smaller in magnitude and sensitive to model choice.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 15843

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Estimation: General ; Health Behavior ; Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law ; Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
• Subject: mandatory seatbelt laws ; traffic fatalities ; traffic safety

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Anderson, D. Mark ; Liang, Yang ; Sabia, Joseph J.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/272470
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET