Do you believe economists can "commit" sociology? I wasn't sure I believed it but I just read an example thereof from The New York Times. Economist Pascual Restrepo gets a hunch about violence in the U.S. and Canada, involving the role of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Mounties in making the Canadian frontier a less violent, more orderly place than its U.S. equivalent.
What is fun is that he finds an intriguing way to test that hypothesis using the distribution of RCMP "forts" across the Canadian west, and comparing modern day hockey players who come from towns near those posts and regions far removed therefrom.
Hockey, as even non-fans know, is a violent sport. It is a rare hockey player who retires with all of his teeth in place. However, violence is penalized with minutes in the penalty box, and statistics about such minutes per year for pro players are available.
Restrepo determined players from regions far afield from the nearest frontier-days Mountie post rack up an additional 0.4 minutes of penalty time per game, or 100 more minutes per career, as compared with players from locales near a Mountie post. This is true today one hundred years later although the Mounties have long since expanded their reach to all parts of the Canadian hinterland.
Restrepo argues regions of the Canadian west with no Mountie presence developed the same honor-based code of behavior involving violent defense of one's rights that prevailed in much of the American West. And, he suggests, once developed such codes persist over time, become an enduring part of the local culture.
My observation: in places like Wyoming it is a safe bet whoever you are talking to is armed, if not on his person, certainly in his car or home. Hence there is a tendency to be polite as being New York-style rude could get you gut-shot. Statistically, we have very little homicide and most of that "little" is directed at ex-wives.
