The Economics of Firearm Markets, Crime, and Gun Violence

The firearm homicide rate in the US hit its 21st century low — 3.5 deaths per 100,000 persons — in 2014, but peaked just seven years later at 6.3 in 2021. Much of the increase coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, when the rate rose 35 percent in just two years. While victimization is concentrated among young Black men, the homicide burden is widely shared. The firearm suicide rate — over 8 per 100,000 in 2023 — has been rising steadily for several decades. Death rates, while widely discussed, capture only a fraction of the social cost of gun violence, which also includes low investment and property values in impacted communities, distorted choices about where and how to live, and residual anxiety with measurable effects on child development.

To better understand the determinants of gun violence and gun-related crime, as well as the impact of a range of public policies on these outcomes, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), with the support of Arnold Ventures, will convene an in-person research conference on Friday, October 10, 2025 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The meeting will be organized by NBER affiliates Marcella Alsan (Harvard University), Philip Cook (Duke University), and Sara Heller (University of Michigan).

Research on a wide range of firearm-related issues drawing on various sub-fields of economics, including industrial organization, labor, law and economics, health, and public finance, is welcome. Particular topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• The consequences and social costs of gun violence — violent crime, suicide, political violence, or mass shootings — for communities, children, policy preferences, residential and commercial location decisions, property values, health, and quality of life.
• The effects of regulations, taxes, and insurance rules on legal and secondary firearm markets, gun carrying, crime, suicide, and self-defense.
• The role of law enforcement in preventing gun crime and potentially misusing firearms.
• The effects of social programs on gun violence.
• The sources of firearms used in crime and suicide, including legal sale, illicit transactions, theft, and private manufacture.
• The dynamics of gun violence, with a particular focus on the epidemics associated with crack cocaine and more recently COVID. 

The organizers welcome submissions of both empirical and theoretical research, including papers by scholars who are early in their careers, who are not NBER affiliates, and who are from groups that are under-represented in the economics profession.

Completed papers, as well as work in progress that could be presented in a short paper session, may be submitted. Research presented at NBER conferences may not make policy recommendations.

To be considered for inclusion on the program, upload papers by 11:59pm ET on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.

Please do not submit papers that have been accepted for publication and that will be published by October 2025. Authors chosen to present papers will be notified in late June.  

The conference will be held in person, with a livestream video feed available on YouTube. The NBER will cover the travel costs for two authors per paper, subject to NBER travel reimbursement regulations. All additional authors are welcome to attend at their own expense. Questions about this conference may be addressed to confer@nber.org.