Like so many, I was dismayed by this story. So, I decided to see what economics had contributed to our understanding of DV. To assess, I searched NBER for “domestic violence” in the title/abstract. I didn’t expect to find much. I didn’t. But what was there is powerful. Thread…
2. My search turned up six papers. I completely acknowledge the limitations of this search.
3. The first two (from 1985 and 1994) were from a pair of women economists, Helen Tauchen and Ann White, joined by Sharon Long on the first.
4. Their 1985 @nberpubs WP “Domestic Violence: A Non-random Affair” appeared in IER. I was impressed by the nuanced theory treatment. They model the interplay between labor market outcomes and intimate relationships in which one partner might have a preference for violence.
5. They followed this up with a study of a Mpls program that was early to adopt mandatory arrest in DV incidents. They conclude “For Minneapolis, static models produced the result `arrest works.' The dynamic model suggests a different conclusion `arrest buys us a little time.'”
6. The next WP is Pollak 2002 (pubd in J Pop Econ). He builds an intergenerational model of behavior transmission to match what data show about patterns of DV in families.
7. @RadhaKIyengar's 2007 WP (pubd in J Pub Econ) re-examined the Minneapolis program and raised concerns that the mandatory arrest law may have the unintended consequence of increasing partner homicides.
8. I knew Carrell and @TAMU Hoekstra’s 2008 WP (pubd AEJEcon) demonstrating the negative spillovers of home violence to peers in the classroom…
9. …and @NWPapageorge and co-authors have a new study on health shocks and DV, which he can summarize better.
10. My takeaways: 1. Some key early work done by women. 2. Much work published very well. And 3. Econ had some important things to say, even on this complex and challenging subject, that are unique and helped move the policy conversation forward.
