Economic Valuation of Gun Control: Measuring Responsiveness to Economic Valuation Information

Gun control is an issue that is at the center of U.S. politics. With increased attention on the topic of gun violence, there is a surge in academic literature surrounding the effectiveness of gun control. Despite the increase in literature devoted to gun control issues, little of this literature has studied the topic through an economic lens. A few studies have attempted to estimate the economic value of gun control, as has been done with many non-market goods. However, a review of the literature identified an important gap; to our knowledge there is currently no literature examining how effective the metrics used to value gun control are in altering people’s views or attitudes. This research seeks to determine how people’s views and attitudes towards gun regulation change when given information regarding the economic value of gun control. This study uses an experimental framework to determine whether citizens' exposure to valuation information might influence individual contribution to gun control advocacy group. The study is implemented with 250 participants through the use of MTurk. Participants are randomly assigned a treatment condition. The control group received a description of gun violence in the US, while the treatment group received a description of gun violence in the US in addition to information regarding the economic impact incurred due to gun violence. All participants were then given the opportunity to donate to a gun control advocacy group. Furthermore, willingness to be taxed for a policy that decreases gun violence was also measured.