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Levitt’s First B+ Since High School?

…conclusions are often eye-opening (say it ain’t so, Sato!) and sometimes eye-popping (his theory that high abortion rates help reduce crime probably won’t get him invited to the White House…



Dangerous Ideas

…and me on legalized abortion and crime. I’m not saying these ideas necessarily originated with economists, but that, at a minimum, economists often find themselves on the “wrong” side of…



Acemoglu wins Clark Medal

…some parallels to the idea that legalized abortion in the 1970s helps explain why crime fell in the 1990s. In another paper, Acemoglu and co-authors challenge the conventional wisdom that…




The Unintended Consequence of "Son Preference"

abortion of female fetuses in favor of sons — an illegal but widespread practice — means there are more eligible bachelors than potential brides, allowing women and their parents to…



More Commentary From Gary Langer

Today, ABC News director of polling and Freakonomics.com guest blogger Gary Langer offers an interesting breakdown of recent poll numbers on a particularly timely topic: Whether a pro-abortion stance by…



On the Legalization — or Not — of Marijuana

…who oppose taking protective steps to reduce risk of climate change. There is no debate, merely theater. Discussing drug policy is like discussing gun control or abortion: facts are irrelevant….



Ask Your Freakonomics Questions

…elsewhere. Maybe you want to know how Levitt first thought of the abortion/crime link, or what kind of blackjack player he is, or how he goes about selecting a bottle…




Answer Interruptus

…6) Education Morals/Family values Foreign policy (TIED FOR No. 7) Environment Abortion Social Security Taxes (TIED FOR No. 8) Federal budget deficit Housing/Mortgages Global warming Iran/Situation in Iran Guns/Gun control…



Medicine and Statistics Don’t Mix

abortion or to a baby with terrible birth defects. The only silver lining on this terrible result is that the latter test had a false positive rate of 10 percent,…



How Much Do Protests Matter? A Freakonomics Quorum

…of would-be allies in government, suggesting there might be advantages in pressing for new positions on climate change, abortion, or gay marriage. No savvy politician will admit to changing direction…



The downside of blogs

To all who enjoy this blog, I apologize for the onslaught of comments from Steve Sailer and the various pseudonyms he operates under. Apparently he believes that if he says…






Will “Freakonomics” Be Banned?

…with The Things They Carried, Beloved, and The Awakening. “One part of Freakonomics that raised her ire,” reports the Daily Herald, “hypothesizes that legalized abortion could lower the homicide rate.”…




Emily Oster, Girl Genius?

…one of the main causes of the huge gender gap, along with the more nefarious (and commonly cited) causes like selective abortion, selective infanticide, and various other forms of misogyny….



FREAK-est Links

The debate continues on whether talent matters. American teen birth, abortion and AIDS rate much higher than Dutch, what are they doing right? Coffee and women: first it was less…



Free “Freakonomics” for District 214 Students

…them was Freakonomics. The board member, Leslie Pinney, objected to the various books for various reasons, including pornography, vulgarity, and in the case of Freakonomics, the argument that legalized abortion



Another Explanation for Sex Selection in China?

In a podcast called “Misadventures in Baby-Making,” we explored China’s one-child policy as a cause of sex-selective abortion and, therefore, skewed male-female sex rations. A new working paper (abstract; PDF)…




Dick Gregory and the Old Reverse-Incentive Trick

…Planned Parenthood turned abortion protestors into a fund-raising scheme; a comedian used this same “pledge-a-picket” tactic against the Westboro Baptist Church. Photo: Rep. Keith Ellison I recently ran across an…



Terrorism, Part II

On the very first day that our blog was hosted by the New York Times, I wrote a post that generated the most hate mail I’ve gotten since the abortion-crime…



Why Do Animated Films Use Such Famous Voices?

…to have any parents, although he did have a grandma who would yell for him from time to time. It made me think of the unwanted children/abortion argument in Freakonomics….




Our Daily Bleg: Book-Club Questions Needed

…bringing 10 questions that’ll prompt discussion about the book. Based on the argument that broke out at our last meeting when I merely mentioned the idea behind the abortion/crime bits…




Life (and Death) in the Fast Lane

…is priceless and cannot be sacrificed no matter what the circumstances (the left wants to abolish the death penalty; the right wants to abolish abortion), politicians of all stripes make…