The Effect of Fraternity Moratoriums on Alcohol Offenses and Sexual Assaults

Abstract

I exploit variation in timing from 44 temporary university-wide halts on all fraternity activity with alcohol (moratoriums) across 37 universities over 2014-2019. I construct a novel data set, merging incident-level crime logs from university police departments to provide the first causal estimates of the effect of moratoriums on reports of alcohol offenses and sexual assaults. In particular, I find robust evidence that moratoriums decrease alcohol offenses by 26%. Additionally, I find suggestive evidence that moratoriums decrease reports of sexual assault on the weekends by 29%. However, I do not find evidence of long-term changes once the moratorium is lifted.