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Article: Oops-onomics; Economics focus.(Economics focus: Abortion, crime and econometrics)(credibility of claims made in "Freakonomics")
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- December 3, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Did Steven Levitt, author of "Freakonomics", get his most notorious paper wrong?
ABORTION cuts crime. That claim--first demonstrated by John Donohue, of Yale Law School, and Steven Levitt, of the University of Chicago, in an academic article in 2001*--is the kind of provocative and surprising conclusion that has made Mr Levitt's book, "Freakonomics", such a runaway success this year. Unwanted children, the story goes, are more likely to become criminals in later life. Abortion, legalised throughout the United States by the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade ruling in 1973, prevents unwanted pregnancies from becoming unwanted children. Higher abortion rates from the 1970s ...