Fatal school shootings have lasting impact on local economies

School shootings in the United States have become a shockingly regular occurrence, with 573 on record between 2013 and 2021 — nearly one school shooting every week, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. Beyond the immediate tragedy, fatal school shootings can have far-reaching and less obvious economic consequences, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame.

The first large-scale empirical evidence that fatal school shootings can impact routine consumption behaviors like grocery shopping and dining out, “How Fatal School Shootings Impact a Community’s Consumption” is forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Research from John Costello, assistant professor of marketing at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. Costello, along with his co-authors from Indiana University, the University of California-Davis, Georgia Institute of Technology and Texas A&M University, analyzed household grocery purchases from 63 fatal school shootings between 2012 and 2019, matching NielsenIQ's Homescan market research to school shooting records from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. They noticed a measurable decline in consumer activity for up to six months in communities following a fatal school shooting. The authors found reductions in spending of over two percent at grocery stores, eight percent in restaurants and bars, and three percent in overall food and beverage retailers. “Our controlled experiments provide evidence that this decrease primarily is driven by heightened anxiety about safety in public spaces following these tragedies,” Costello said. Consistent with this, the team’s grocery data shows that consumers not only decrease spending following these incidents, but also the number of grocery trips. The authors find that consumers also purchase from fewer departments, potentially to limit time spent in public settings based on their feelings of anxiety. And the economic impact is stronger in liberal rather than conservative-leaning counties. In liberal-leaning counties, grocery spending dropped by 2.4 percent, compared to 1.3 percent for their conservative counterparts. Consistent with the grocery data, findings in the authors' experiments uncovered that political liberals reported higher levels of anxiety and greater intentions to avoid public spaces following these events. The disparity is attributed to differing perceptions about the causes of gun violence, but Costello says the study shows one thing is clear. “Retailers cannot simply resume business as usual in the aftermath of these tragedies,” Costello said. Typically, policy responses to school shootings focus on the psychological distress of direct victims, improving protections and increasing gun control and mental health support in schools. This research suggests local governments may also need to help counteract economic losses. Suggestions include direct financial support, grants, or low-interest loans to help local retailers manage the fallout, and tax breaks or other financial incentives to businesses to help them remain operational. Costello says the findings could offer a better path to change. “Our results show the consequences of fatal school shootings are broader than we thought and may be helpful in policy discussions,” he said. “While the death of children has naturally been the primary driver, progress toward lasting change has failed. As they do in natural disasters, politicians could underscore these profound economic consequences to elicit public support.” Contact: John Costello, 574-631-5171, jcostel4@nd.edu