Restricting Kid's Access to Violent Video Games

The Supreme Court is taking on a case in which California is restricting kids from purchasing violent video games so as to protect children. The counter-argument is that this is an infringement in first amendment protections of free speech. This is slightly off topic for this blog, but I will indulge in some self-promotion as this is an area in which I have done some research.

Ward, Michael R. “Video Games and Adolescent Fighting,” Journal of Law and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Psychologists have found positive correlations between playing violent video games and violent and antisocial attitudes. However, these studies typically do not control for other covariates, particularly sex, that are known to be associated with both video game play and aggression. This study exploits the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) that includes questions on both video game play and fighting, as well as basic demographic information. With both parametric and non-parametric estimators, as more demographic covariates are accounted for, the video game effects become progressively weaker. The overall video-game-to-fighting link is modest and not statistically significant. The remaining positive association appears only for individuals who play four or more hours per day.

Ward, Michael R. "Video Games and Crime," Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming.
Abstract:
Psychological studies of the effects of playing video games have found emotional responses and physical reactions associated with reinforced violent and antisocial attitudes. These markers may be associated with increases in one's preferences for antisocial behaviors or may indicate that one's desire for actual antisocial behaviors are partially sated. I investigate whether video game play is associated with observed antisocial behavior outcomes. The incidences of various reported crimes are related to a proxy for increased gaming, the number of game stores, from a panel of US counties from 1994 to 2004. With fixed county and year effects, I find that more game stores are associated with significant declines form most types of crimes. Analogous proxies for other youth related leisure activities - sports and movie viewing - do not have a similar effect. I find that mortality rates, especially mortality rates stemming from injuries, also are negatively related to the number of game stores. These results are robust to various alternative specifications.

Ongoing research with co-authors Scott Cunningham and Ben Engelstaetter examines the role of violence in video games on crime.