Simultaneous estimation of complementary political economic models: an application to concealed-carry handgun legislation

Abstract

The present note provides an extension of the Mixon and Gibson (2001) study of the retention of various types of concealed gun laws across the 50 states of the US by developing a simultaneous system of demand (interest group) and supply (legislative) equations as a ‘market for laws’. This construct follows theoretical foundations laid in the public choice literature by Crain (1979) and Benson and Engin (1988). Full information maximum likelihood results presented here suggest the importance of the property rights and the Second Amendment (of the US constitution) movement on the demand side and legislator characteristics on the supply side as determinants of the prescence of unrestricted right-to-carry laws across states.