Economics

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Childhood Environment and Adult Aggression: Evidence from the National Football League
(2020) Wujciak, Joseph; Owens, David M.
This paper examines the relationship between adolescent upbringing and adulthood aggression by analyzing player-season and player-career level data from defensive players in the National Football League. American football in particular is an excellent laboratory to examine individual behavior as players compete under a shared set of rules. The results from negative binomial regressions suggest a positive correlation between the violent crime rate of an individual's hometown and his propensity to commit aggressive penalties. This link is robust to alternative measures of crime, player position controls, and team and season fixed effects. Previous literature supports a strong connection between childhood experiences and adult outcomes. Ultimately, my research will bolster these findings by observing how an individual's adolescent environment shapes his behavior in a professional setting.