Monday, August 13, 2007

Economic Concept of the Day: The Peltzman Effect

The Petlzman Effect:

The Peltzman Effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation.

Examples of this include wearing seat belts leading to more risky driving and bicycle helmets increasing your chances of being hit by a car.

Read Greg Mankiw's thoughts on the Petlzman effect.  Steve Levitt isn't convinced it amounts to much.  Russ Roberts disagrees.

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