Suppose that you want to study whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent aga

Question

Suppose that you want to study whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent against homicide, so you compare the homicide rates between states that have the death penalty and states that do not. (a) Is this an observational study, or a controlled experiment? Explain. (b) If you find a large difference in the homicide rates between these two types of states, can you attribute that difference to the deterrent effect of the death penalty? Explain. (c) If you find no difference in the homicide rates between the two types of states, can you conclude that the death penalty has no deterrent effect? Explain.

Explanation / Answer

1. a. The given information states that there have been comparison between states with and without death penalty. But no where there is any hint that the states have been chosen randomly. Therefore, the randomization condition being not supported, the groups (states with and without death penalty) cannot be considered to be independent ones. Per definition of observational study, the researcher didnot manipulate the factors of the study, therefore, the study is an observational one.

b. The study being an observational one, the result concluded is not statistically significant.If the researcher finds a large difference in the homicide rates between the two type of states, the researcher should not conclude that the difference is due to the detterent effect of the death penalty.

c. The study fails to follow randomization condition, independence assumption, and independent group conditions, therefore, it cannot be considered an experiment. Therefore, in case, the researcher fails to find no difference in homicide rate between two states, the result might not be statistically significant, and therefore, cannot be concluded that death penalty has no detterent effect.

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