Ben Muse

"Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?"

Violent movies increase aggression but during the movie violent people are in the theatre watching.  They're not drinking while they watch either.  Crime rates are down during the movie and for a while after.  On balance?  Violence drops on the weekends violent blockbusters come out.

That's what Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna find in this analysis of short-run impacts: Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime? (NBER, , January 2008).   Here's the abstract:

Income and Religiosity

The most recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey report (The Pew Global Attitudes Project, October 4, 2007) has this neat graphic (click on it to see a much larger version):