Subject: Re: Special report on NBER's Health Care Program for NBER Reporter
From: Philip Cook (pcook@duke.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 13 2005 - 14:44:44 EST
Alan,
one paper that may be of some interest was published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association. It's attached. It deals with prior criminal
record as a risk factor for homicide commission.
(Ludwig and I are both NBER associates, but couldn't distribute this paper
through the working paper series and still hope to publish it in JAMA.)
The paper is motivated by the question of whether guns are only dangerous
to others when in the hands of criminals, or whether there exist so-called
"virgin killers" who look like you and me before the homicide event. The
answer has obvious relevance to the regulation of guns. All of this is
relevant to health since homicide is one of the leading causes of death for
youths, especially youthful black males.
The paper may seem a bit remote since it has little in the way of economic
content. But given the prominence of JAMA, perhaps it's worth a mention in
your report. Ludwig and I are continuing to conduct research on gun
violence, and have just distributed our paper on underground gun markets
through NBER.
Another paper I distributed as an NBER working paper is coming out any day
now in the American Economic Review (officially dated May 2005!). It deals
with the question of whether a tax on alcohol would have a positive or
negative effect on mortality rate of middle aged people, given the U-shaped
all-cause mortality curve. I attach the page proofs -- the pdf file also
includes a lot of other material about reprints etc., but the proofs are
there.
Best wishes,
Phil Cook
--On Saturday, November 12, 2005 9:06 AM -0500 Alan Garber
<garber@pcor2.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> The NBER Reporter features a program report each issue. The purpose of
> the report is to let non-specialists know what the program has been up
> to. It is widely disseminated -- thousands of people receive hard
> copies of the Reporter, and many more access the version posted on the
> web. The health care program's turn has come up; the last one was
> nearly 5 years ago, and the new one will be due by he end of this year.
> Although I will be working from a list of the working papers of program
> members, it is easy to overlook some of the excellent work that program
> members have done. To ensure that I don't overlook your work, please
> let me know if there is anything that you would like me to highlight in
> the report. And also let me know what makes it important in terms that
> I can use to describe it to non-specialists. Including abstracts or
> some background text would be most helpful. Your prompt reply would be
> greatly appreciated. To be included, I will need the material by
> December 15. Thanks,
>
>
> Alan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Philip J. Cook
ITT/Sanford Professor of Public Policy
Duke University, Box 90245
Durham, NC 27708
V: 919/613-7360
