Publications [#266566] of Philip J. Cook

Journal Articles

1. Cook, PJ; Ludwig, J, The social costs of gun ownership, Journal of Public Economics, vol. 90 no. 1-2 (January, 2006), pp. 379-391, Elsevier BV [doi]
   (last updated on 2025/07/31)

   Abstract:
   This paper provides new estimates of the effect of household gun prevalence on homicide rates, and infers the marginal external cost of handgun ownership. The estimates utilize a superior proxy for gun prevalence, the percentage of suicides committed with a gun, which we validate. Using county- and state-level panels for 20 years, we estimate the elasticity of homicide with respect to gun prevalence as between +0.1 and +0.3. All of the effect of gun prevalence is on gun homicide rates. Under certain reasonable assumptions, the average annual marginal social cost of household gun ownership is in the range $100 to $1800. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.