Spring Forward at Your Own Risk: Daylight Saving Time and Fatal Vehicle Crashes | Zendy

Austin C. Smith | Zendy

AI Assistant Blog Pricing

Home ZAIA Blog

Open Access

Spring Forward at Your Own Risk: Daylight Saving Time and Fatal Vehicle Crashes

Author(s) -

Austin C. Smith

Publication year - 2016

Publication title -

american economic journal applied economics

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 12.996

H-Index - 82

eISSN - 1945-7782

pISSN - 1945-7790

DOI - 10.1257/app.20140100

Subject(s) - daylight , demographic economics , spring (device) , economics , natural resource economics , business , geography , demography , environmental science , engineering , physics , sociology , mechanical engineering , optics

Daylight Saving Time (DST) impacts over 1.5 billion people, yet many of its impacts on practicing populations remain uncertain. Exploiting the discrete nature of DST transitions and a 2007 policy change, I estimate the impact of DST on fatal automobile crashes. My results imply that from 2002-2011 the transition into DST caused over 30 deaths at a social cost of $275 million annually. Employing four tests to decompose the aggregate effect into an ambient light or sleep mechanism, I find that shifting ambient light only reallocates fatalities within a day, while sleep deprivation caused by the spring transition increases risk. (JEL I12, Q48, R41)

The content you want is available to Zendy users.

Already have an account? Click here to sign in.

Having issues? You can contact us here

Accelerating Research