TY  - JOUR
AU  - Joyce,Theodore J.
TI  - Abortion and Crime: A Review
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15098
PY  - 2009
Y2  - June 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15098
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15098.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Theodore J. Joyce
Baruch College & Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Ave, 5th Fl
New York, NY 10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7960
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: theodore.joyce@baruch.cuny.edu
AB  - Ten years have passed since John Donohue and Steven Levitt initially proposed that legalized abortion played a major role in the dramatic decline in crime during the 1990s. Criminologists largely dismiss the association because simple plots of age-specific crime rates are inconsistent with a large cohort affect following the legalization of abortion. Economists, on the other hand, have corrected mistakes in the original analyses, added new data, offered alternative tests and tried to replicate the association in other countries. Donohue and Levitt have responded to each challenge with more data and additional regressions. Making sense of the dueling econometrics has proven difficult for even the most seasoned empiricists. In this paper I review the evidence. I argue that the most straightforward test given available data involves age-specific arrest and homicide rates regressed on lagged abortion rates in the 1970s or indicators of abortion legalization in 1970 and 1973. Such models provide little support for the Donohue and Levitt hypothesis in either the US or the United Kingdom.
ER  -