Surviving a mass shooting

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bharadwaj, Prashant; Bhuller, Manudeep; Loken, Katrine, V; Wentzel, Mirjam
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; University of Oslo; Statistics Norway; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104469
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Mass shooting; test scores; labor markets

摘要

We use data on all middle and high school aged children who survived a mass shooting incident on July 22, 2011 in Utoya, Norway, to understand how such events affect survivors, their families, and their peers. Using a difference-in-differences design to compare survivors to a matched control group, we find that in the short run children who survive have substantially lower GPA (nearly 0.5 SD) and increased utilization of health care services and more mental health diagnoses. In the medium run, survivors have fewer years of schooling completed and lower labor force participation. Parents and siblings of survivors are also impacted, experiencing substantial increases in doctor visits and mental health diagnoses. However, there appear to be limited impacts on school aged peers of survivors. While this event affected the entire country, we show that survivors and their families bear significant costs despite robust social safety nets and universal access to healthcare. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.