Economics in everything: "School Shootings and Student Performance"

Occasionally an economics paper is written that transcends the limited remit of "globalisation and the environment". This paper appears to say alot about the thinking of economists - I make no further comment.

I can imagine many members of the general public up in arms shouting "how could they" and other similar phrases.

The results seem reasonable though. In a seminar I would be tempted to ask for the "policy implications" of these results. Given the relatively infrequent number of school shootings, knowing the impact on exam results may not be considered of the utmost importance.

Why would young men be affected more than young women?

"School Shootings and Student Performance"

CESifo Working Paper Series No. 3114
PANU POUTVAARA, University of Helsinki - Department of Economics, Helsinki Center of Economic Research (HECER), CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research), Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

OLLI TAPANI ROPPONEN, University of Helsinki - Department of Economics

In this paper, we study how high school students reacted to the shocking news of a school shooting. The shooting coincided with national high-school matriculation exams. As there were exams both before and after the shooting, we can use a difference-in-differences analysis to uncover how the school shooting affected the test scores compared to previous years. We find that the average performance of young men declined due to the school shooting, whereas we do not observe a similar pattern for women.

.