The impact of earlier pub closing hours on emergency calls to the police during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden

• On 20 November 2020, the government of Sweden banned on-premise alcohol sales after 10:30 p.m. and then after 8 p.m. on December 24. This study aims to estimate the impact of earlier pub closing hours on emergency calls to the police. We use a quasi-experimental hybrid differences-in-differences design, drawing on data for emergency calls in Sweden. The primary outcome measure is the daily number of emergency calls to the police in Sweden 70 days before the intervention and 70 days after the intervention. The primary control series is the daily number of emergency calls to the police in Sweden during the preceding year, 70 days before the intervention and 70 days after the intervention. We fail to find an effect on daily emergency calls, or nighttime emergency calls to the police, from the restrictions on the sale of alcohol. There is, however, some evidence indicating that weekend emergency calls may have been affected, but that potential effect does not translate into an overall effect. While our study is limited in its focus, it contributes to using a wide range of time windows and a large geographical area (the whole of Sweden) to inform on displacement effects, as well as in considering a broader set of robustness checks. We suggest that our results and future work should be seen in light of our limitations and our contribution, respectively.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Alcohol policy

closing hours

natural experiments

crime

Business Administration

Företagsekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)