Seminar Series: The Consequences of High-Fatality School Shootings for Surviving Students

This event is co-sponsored by the UW–Madison Center for Demography and Ecology.

Phillip Levine is the Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Wellesley College. His research applies statistical methods to address social issues like college access, abortion and births, early childhood education, gun violence, and more broadly, to evaluate policies designed to improve the well-being of disadvantaged youth.

Levine’s talk is titled, “The Consequences of High-Fatality School Shootings for Surviving Students.” The talk will examine the impact of high-fatality school shootings on the subsequent outcomes of the survivors of those events. We focus specifically on the shootings at Columbine High School (Littleton, CO), Sandy Hook Elementary (Newtown, CT), and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, FL). We assess the subsequent educational record, including attendance and test scores, and the long-term health consequences of surviving students. In all analyses, we treat the timing and location of these events as random, enabling us to identify causal effects. Our results indicate that these high-fatality school shootings led to substantial reductions in attendance and test scores. These educational effects appear to be larger than the effects of shootings with fewer fatalities estimated by others. Children who survived the Columbine shooting were more likely to die by age 30, particularly among boys. They experienced higher levels of suicide and accidental poisonings (overdoses).

The La Follette School Seminar Series engages participants in discussion of a range of public policy issues and showcases the research of faculty from the La Follette School, other UW–Madison departments, and outside the UW–Madison community. Faculty, students, and visitors take part in lively dialogue about topics such as poverty and welfare, health, education, international affairs, trade and finance, and the environment. For more information, email Professor Tim Smeeding.