Rabinson Pahiju

We know relatively little about the relationship between firearm access and youth involvement in gun crime, particularly for non-fatal crimes. This paper examines the effect of minimum legal age restrictions on handgun possession (MLAG) on juvenile and young adult gun crime. Specifically, I study the federal law that prohibits individuals under the age of 18 from possessing a handgun and exploit the sharp age-based discontinuity at age 18. The results show that the MLAG-18 restriction substantially reduces handgun-related offenses among juveniles. Moreover, combining the evidence from both MLAG-18 and MLAG-21 states suggests that extending the minimum legal age to 21 could significantly lower handgun crime among individuals aged 18–20.

We examine how intercollegiate athletics performance and NCAA violations affect university donations, using a 2008–2019 panel of 310 Division I schools. We apply LASSO and Elastic Net for specification selection and post-double-selection LASSO to address confounding. Football bowl appearances robustly predict more donors and higher alumni and non-alumni giving for up to two years, with effects roughly twice as large for giving restricted to athletics. Basketball program strength predicts giving across schools but not within them. NCAA violations show no consistent effect. The athletics–giving relationship is far stronger outside Power 5 institutions, helping reconcile divergent prior findings.

This paper examines the impact of universal free school meals on teens' criminal behavior using the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Exploiting variation in CEP adoption timing across school districts from 2015–2019, I employ a dynamic difference-in-differences design using crime data from the FBI's NIBRS. Results indicate that CEP adoption reduces overall crime among high school aged (ages 15–18) teens, driven primarily by a decline in property crime, with no significant effect on violent crime. These findings suggest that school nutrition programs generate significant spillover benefits beyond direct health outcomes, reducing criminal behavior among vulnerable youth populations.