Griffin Edwards

University of Alabama at Birmingham | UAB · Department of Marketing, Industrial Distribution and Economics

The effects of policies aimed to restrict firearm ownership and usage is a heavily debated topic in modern social science research. While much of the debate has focused on right-to-carry laws, less research has focused on other policies which affect firearm ownership and use, in particular wait periods between the purchase and delivery of a firearm...

Using a quasi-maximum likelihood Poisson estimator with fixed effects, this paper tests a theory presented in Rubin (1973) that organized criminal firms extract monopoly rents from victim firms that gain monopoly power through the offering of goods and services in a non-native language. Using a US state panel and data on federal racketeering cases...

While there is a well-documented link between violence and mental health, there is substantially less known about the relationship between mental health laws and violence. One policy in particular that may have an effect on crime is based on the mental health professional’s ability to involuntarily detain a patient who is deemed dangerous. It is un...

Identification of, and policies to discourage, discrimination have long been prevalent in academic research. While the evidence surrounding the consequences, efficacy, and desirability of affirmative action policies remains mixed, one area that remains unexplained is the workplace advantages gained to the discriminated group when affirmative action...

The effects of alcohol Prohibition in the United States have been the subject of debate and research since the laws were enacted. Due to a lack of data, one question that remains unanswered is the effect Prohibition had on the actual production of alcohol. This paper attempts to answer this question by estimating Prohibition's impact on the yields...

State duty to warn (DTW) laws have long been the subject of much commentary. From their onset in 1976 with the seminal ruling of Tarasoff v Regents, the state mandated breach of confidentiality required of psychologists when a patient makes a credible threat to the life of another has been the subject of a “cottage industry of commentary”. Recent w...

The ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council dramatically changed how judges rule in favor of federal administrative agencies. Previous research has found both theoretically and empirically that Chevron favors agencies and their interpretation of statutes, but the magnitude of Chevron’s impact remains unclear due to possible selection...

The purpose of this work is to catalog the current state of each state’s law regarding the duty mental health professionals have to warn third parties of potential danger discovered in through the act of therapeutic treatment. The hallmark case, Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (1976) set as precedence that a special relationship...

The seminal ruling of Tarasoff v. Regents enacted a duty that required mental health providers to warn potential victims of any real threat to life made by a patient. Many have theorized that this required breach of confidentiality may have adverse effects on effective psychological treatment - but the question remains unanswered empirically. Due t...