Benjamin Hansen (economist)

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Benjamin Hansen
CitizenshipUnited States
Institution University of Oregon
FieldEconomics
Social economics
Drug policy
Alma mater Brigham Young University
University of California at Santa Barbara
Doctoral
advisor		Peter Kuhn, Douglas Steigerwald
Information at IDEAS / RePEc
Website https://pages.uoregon.edu/bchansen/

Benjamin Hansen is an American economist and the W. E. Miner Professor of Economics at University of Oregon. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow at IZA, and a Research Affiliate at the University of Chicago Crime Lab. [1] He has contributed to the scientific study of cannabis and alcohol policy, as well as crime and labor economics.

Contents

Education and career

Benjamin Hansen received his B.A. in Economics from Brigham Young University in 2004, his master's in economics from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2005 and PhD in economics from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2009. He has also worked with the University of Chicago Crime Lab as a Research Affiliate. [1]

Research and academic work

Hansen has published over a dozen articles in peer reviewed academic journals since graduating with his PhD in 2009. These articles have primarily focused on alcohol policy, cigarette policy, cannabis policy, and policing. His work on cannabis policy, in particular, was some of the first studies using natural experiments to investigate the causal impact that medical marijuana legislation had on other types of risky behavior such as drunk driving. Hansen along with D. Mark Anderson and Daniel Rees found that the availability of medical marijuana in a state was apparently associated with a causal reduction in alcohol-related driving and fatalities, suggesting that individuals had been previously using alcohol for self medication. In addition, this suggested that cannabis policy had unintended positive effects due to its substitutability for other types of worse forms of risky behaviors. He, again along with Anderson and Rees found little evidence that marijuana availability from medical marijuana legislation was resulting in increases in adolescent use, suggesting that it was possible for prohibition to be relaxed without spilling over to vulnerable populations. [2]

Much of Hansen's work relates to all forms of risky behaviors, including as mentioned alcohol policy. In an article published in the American Economic Review , Hansen studied the causal effect of driving while intoxicated (DWI) arrests, proxied by blood alcohol content of 0.08 or greater, had on rearrest using a regression discontinuity strategy. He found evidence that stiffer penalties for DWI could in effect reduce rearrest, thus suggesting that alcohol use (or at least, DWIs) were somewhat sensitive to increased penalty, providing one of the few pieces of evidence in support of such a hypothesis. [3]

Hansen has also studied race-based statistical discrimination among prisoner re-entry programs, like ban the box. Former prisoners in many cities must inform potential employers during the job application phase whether they have ever been arrested or convicted. Evidence suggests that these kinds of questions pose major hurdles for prisoners as they attempt to re-enter the labor market. As a result, many states and cities, as well as the federal government, prohibit firms including such questions on applications, requiring such information to be collected later in the application process. Jennifer Doleac and Hansen found that ban-the-box has the unintended effect of introducing statistical discrimination among potential employers. Lacking information on an applicant's criminal background, many employers appear to simply guess at the background using demographic averages, notably race and gender. Doleac and Hansen found strong evidence that the law, while well intentioned, may be reducing employment opportunities among young, low-skilled, black males. [4]

Finally, consistent with his work on alcohol deterrence, Hansen and Gregory DeAngelo produced one of the only studies finding that police are capable of deterrence among drivers through the issuing of speeding tickets. The authors used a natural experiment where the size of the police population shrank as a result of state budgetary constraints. The subsequent decrease in police force resulted in a reduction in police enforcement which caused a statistically significant increase in injuries and highway fatalities. The authors estimated that a single highway fatality can be prevented with approximately $300,000 expenditures on state police. [5]


Related Research Articles

Drunk driving is the act of operating a motor vehicle with the operator's ability to do so impaired as a result of alcohol consumption, or with a blood alcohol level in excess of the legal limit. For drivers 21 years or older, driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or higher is illegal. For drivers under 21 years old, the legal limit is lower, with state limits ranging from 0.00 to 0.02. Lower BAC limits apply when operating boats, airplanes, or commercial vehicles. Among other names, the criminal offense of drunk driving may be called driving under the influence (DUI), driving while intoxicated or impaired (DWI), operating [a] vehicle under the influence of alcohol (OVI), or operating while impaired (OWI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Driving under the influence</span> Driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of an impairing substance

Driving under the influence (DUI) is the offense of driving, operating, or being in control of a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or other drugs, to a level that renders the driver incapable of operating a motor vehicle safely.

This article is intended to give an overview of several arguments for and against drug prohibition.

The gateway drug effect is a comprehensive catchphrase for the often observed effect that the use of a psychoactive substance is coupled to an increased probability of the use of further substances. Possible causes are biological alterations in the brain due to the earlier substance exposure and similar attitudes of people who use different substances across different substances. In 2020, the National Institute on Drug Abuse released a study backing allegations that marijuana is a "gateway" to more dangerous substance use, though not for the majority of people who use substances. A literature review by the United States Department of Justice found no conclusive evidence that the link is causal.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Field experiment</span>

Field experiments are experiments carried out outside of laboratory settings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis (drug)</span> Psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant

Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various traditional medicines for centuries. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive component of cannabis, which is one of the 483 known compounds in the plant, including at least 65 other cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis can be used by smoking, vaporizing, within food, or as an extract.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States</span> Legalization of marijuana in the United States

In the United States, the non-medical use of cannabis is legalized in 21 states and decriminalized in 10 states as of November 2022. Decriminalization refers to a policy of reduced penalties for cannabis offenses, typically involving a civil penalty for possessing small amounts, instead of criminal prosecution or the threat of arrest. In jurisdictions without penalty the policy is referred to as legalization, although the term decriminalization is sometimes used for this purpose as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drug liberalization</span> Process of reducing drug prohibition laws

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The U.S. state of Maryland has various policies regarding the production, sale, and use of different classes and kinds of drugs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Long-term effects of cannabis</span> Overview of long-term effects of the consumption of cannabis

The long-term effects of cannabis have been the subject of ongoing debate. Because cannabis is illegal in most countries, clinical research presents a challenge and there is limited evidence from which to draw conclusions. In 2017, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report summarizing much of the published literature on health effects of cannabis, into categories regarded as conclusive, substantial, moderate, limited and of no or insufficient evidence to support an association with a particular outcome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alcohol-related crime</span> Criminal activities that involve alcohol use

Alcohol-related crime refers to criminal activities that involve alcohol use as well as violations of regulations covering the sale or use of alcohol; in other words, activities violating the alcohol laws. Underage drinking and drunk driving are the most prevalent alcohol‐specific offenses in the United States and a major problem in many, if not most, countries worldwide. Similarly, arrests for alcohol-related crimes constitute a high proportion of all arrests made by police in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Ban the Box is the name of an American campaign by advocates for ex-offenders aimed at removing the check box that asks if applicants have a criminal record from hiring applications. Its purpose is to enable ex-offenders to display their qualifications in the hiring process before being asked about their criminal records. The premise of the campaign is that anything that makes it harder for ex-offenders to find a job makes it likelier that they will reoffend, which is bad for society.

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Robin Burgess, is a Professor of Economics, Co-founder and Director of the International Growth Centre, as well as Co-Founder and Director of the Economics of Energy and the Environment (EEE) program at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The economics of digitization is the field of economics that studies how digitization, digitalisation and digital transformation affects markets and how digital data can be used to study economics. Digitization is the process by which technology lowers the costs of storing, sharing, and analyzing data. This has changed how consumers behave, how industrial activity is organized, and how governments operate. The economics of digitization exists as a distinct field of economics for two reasons. First, new economic models are needed because many traditional assumptions about information no longer hold in a digitized world. Second, the new types of data generated by digitization require new methods for their analysis.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis and impaired driving</span> Overview of the relationship between the use of Cannabis and impaired driving ability

Two main questions arise in the law surrounding driving after having ingested cannabis: (1) whether cannabis actually impairs driving ability, and (2) whether the common practice of testing for THC is a reliable means to measure impairment. On the first question, studies are mixed. Several recent, extensive studies–including one conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and one conducted by the American Automobile Association (AAA)–show that drivers with detectable THC in their blood are no more likely to cause car crashes than drivers with no amount of THC in their blood. Others show that cannabis can impair certain abilities important to safe driving –but no studies have been able to show that this increases the actual risk of crashing, or that drivers with THC in their blood cause a disproportionate number of crashes. On the second question, the studies that have been conducted so far have consistently found that THC blood levels and degree of impairment are not closely related. No known relationship between blood levels of THC and increased relative crash risk, or THC blood levels and level of driving impairment, has been shown by single-crash or classic-control studies. Thus, even though it is possible that cannabis impairs driving ability to some extent, there are currently no reliable means to test or measure whether a driver was actually impaired.

Occupational health concerns over the use of cannabis among workers are becoming increasingly important as cannabis becomes legal in more areas of the US. Of note, employers have concerns of workers either coming to work acutely impaired or recent use of cannabis still being detected in the body. Employment issues such as ADA law as it relates to accommodations for cannabis, paying unemployment benefits or paying out workers compensation benefits and disability claims are all important issues. While federal law still prohibits use, employers in different states have taken different stances based on whether they are federal contractors, perform safety sensitive work or whether the cannabis use is acutely impairing the employee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Doleac</span> American economist

Jennifer Doleac is an American economist and associate professor at Texas A&M. She also directs the Justice Tech Lab, hosts the Probable Causation podcast, is a research affiliate of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and serves on the board of editors of he Journal of Economic Literature. In October 2022, Vox named her to their "Future Perfect 50," a list of "scientists, thinkers, scholars, writers, and activists building a more perfect future," writing, "Doleac looks at criminal justice policy through the lens of causal factors on a society-wide level."

References

  1. 1 2 "Benjamin Hansen: Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  2. ↑ Mark Anderson, D.; Hansen, Benjamin; Rees, Daniel I. (2013). "Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption". The Journal of Law and Economics. 56 (2): 333–369. doi:10.1086/668812. S2CID   154800922.
  3. ↑ Hansen, Benjamin (2015). "Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving". American Economic Review. 105 (4): 1581–1617. doi:10.1257/aer.20130189.
  4. ↑ Doleac, Jennifer L.; Hansen, Benjamin (2017). "Moving to Job Opportunities? The Effect of "Ban the Box" on the Composition of Cities". American Economic Review. 107 (5): 556–559. doi:10.1257/aer.p20171002.
  5. ↑ Deangelo, Gregory; Hansen, Benjamin (2014). "Life and Death in the Fast Lane: Police Enforcement and Traffic Fatalities". American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. 6 (2): 231–257. doi:10.1257/pol.6.2.231.
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