Freakonomics Revised and Expanded Edition

by Steven D. Levitt

  THE VARIOUS DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF CRACK are discussed in Roland G. Fryer Jr., Paul Heaton, Steven D. Levitt, and Kevin Murphy, “The Impact of Crack Cocaine,” University of Chicago working paper, 2005.

  4. WHERE HAVE ALL THE CRIMINALS GONE?

  NICOLAE CEAUşESCU’S ABORTION BAN: Background information on Romania and the Ceauşescus was drawn from a variety of sources, including “Eastern Europe, the Third Communism,” Time, March 18, 1966; “Ceauşescu Ruled with an Iron Grip,” Washington Post, December 26, 1989; Ralph Blumenthal, “The Ceauşescus: 24 Years of Fierce Repression, Isolation and Independence,” New York Times, December 26, 1989; Serge Schmemann, “In Cradle of Rumanian Revolt, Anger Quickly Overcame Fear,” New York Times, December 30, 1989; Karen Breslau, “Overplanned Parenthood: Ceauşescu’s Cruel Law,” Newsweek, January 22, 1990; and Nicolas Holman, “The Economic Legacy of Ceauşescu,” Student Economic Review, 1994. / 106 The link between the Romanian abortion ban and life outcomes has been explored in a pair of papers: Cristian Pop-Eleches, “The Impact of an Abortion Ban on Socio-Economic Outcomes of Children: Evidence from Romania,” Columbia University working paper, 2002; and Cristian Pop-Eleches, “The Supply of Birth Control Methods, Education and Fertility: Evidence from Romania,” Columbia University working paper, 2002.

  THE GREAT AMERICAN CRIME DROP: As noted earlier, this material is drawn from Steven D. Levitt, “Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990’s: Four Factors That Explain the Decline and Six That Do Not,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 163–90. / 108 James Alan Fox’s “intentional overstatement”: See Torsten Ove, “No Simple Solution for Solving Violent Crimes,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 1999.

  POLITICIANS WERE GROWING INCREASINGLY SOFTER ON CRIME: This and a number of related issues are discussed in Gary S. Becker and Guity Nashat Becker, “Stiffer Jail Terms Will Make Gunmen More Gun-Shy,” “How to Tackle Crime? Take a Tough, Head-On Stance,” and “The Economic Approach to Fighting Crime,” all in The Economics of Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), pp. 135–44; the chapters were adapted from Business Week articles by the same authors.

  INCREASED RELIANCE ON PRISONS: Concerning the fifteenfold increase in drug-crime prisoners, see Ilyana Kuziemko and Steven D. Levitt, “An Empirical Analysis of Imprisoning Drug Offenders,” Journal of Public Economics 88, nos. 9–10 (2004), pp. 2043–66. / 111 What if we just turn all the prisoners loose? See William Nagel, “On Behalf of a Moratorium on Prison Construction,” Crime and Delinquency 23 (1977), pp. 152–74. / 111 “Apparently, it takes a Ph.D….”: See John J. DiIulio Jr., “Arresting Ideas: Tougher Law Enforcement Is Driving Down Urban Crime,” Policy Review, no. 75 (Fall 1995).

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: For a full report on New York State’s failure to execute a single criminal, see “Capital Punishment in New York State: Statistics from Eight Years of Representation, 1995–2003” (New York: The Capital Defender Office, August 2003), which is available as of this writing at nycdo.org/8yr.html. More recently, New York’s Court of Appeals found the death penalty itself unconstitutional, effectively halting all executions. / 113 Executing 1 criminal translates into 7 fewer homicides: See Isaac Ehrlich, “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death,” American Economic Review 65 (1975), pp. 397–417; and Isaac Ehrlich, “Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Evidence,” Journal of Political Economy 85 (1977), pp. 741–88. / 113 “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death”: From Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s dissenting opinion in a 1994 Supreme Court decision denying review of a Texas death-penalty case: Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1141 (1994); cited in Congressional Quarterly Researcher 5, no. 9 (March 10, 1995). It should be noted that American juries also seem to have lost their appetite for the death penalty—in part, it seems, because of the frequency with which innocent people have been executed in recent years or exonerated while on death row. During the 1990s, an average of 290 criminals were given the death sentence each year; in the first four years of the 2000s, that number had dropped to 174. See Adam Liptak, “Fewer Death Sentences Being Imposed in U.S.,” New York Times, September 15, 2004.

  DO POLICE ACTUALLY LOWER CRIME? See Steven D. Levitt, “Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime,” American Economic Review 87, no. 3 (1997), pp. 270–90; Steven D. Levitt, “Why Do Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or Measurement Error?” Economic Inquiry 36, no. 3 (1998), pp. 353–72; and Steven D. Levitt, “The Response of Crime Reporting Behavior to Changes in the Size of the Police Force: Implications for Studies of Police Effectiveness Using Reported Crime Data,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 14 (February 1998), pp. 62–81. / 114–15 The 1960s as a great time to be a criminal: See Gary S. Becker and Guity Nashat Becker, The Economics of Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), pp. 142–43.

  NEW YORK CITY’S CRIME “MIRACLE”: The “Athenian period” quote came from an author interview with former police captain William J. Gorta, one of CompStat’s inventors. / 116 The broken window theory: See James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety,” Atlantic Monthly, March 1982. / 118 Bratton hiring more police in Los Angeles: See Terry McCarthy, “The Gang Buster,” Time, January 19, 2004.

  GUN LAWS: Concerning the fact that the United States has more guns than it has adults, see Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig, Guns in America: Results of a Comprehensive Survey of Gun Ownership and Use (Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation, 1996). / 119 The gun-crime link: See Mark Duggan, “More Guns, More Crime,” Journal of Political Economy 109, no. 5 (2001), pp. 1086–1114. / 119 Guns in Switzerland: See Stephen P. Halbrook, “Armed to the Teeth, and Free,” Wall Street Journal Europe, June 4, 1999. / 120 The impotent Brady Act: See Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook, “Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated with Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act,” Journal of the American Medical Association 284, no. 5 (2000), pp. 585–91. / 120 Felons buying black-market guns: See James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1986). / 121 The gun-for-psychotherapy swap: See “Wise Climb-Down, Bad Veto,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1994. / 121 Why gun buybacks don’t work: See C. Callahan, F. Rivera, and T. Koepsell, “Money for Guns: Evaluation of the Seattle Gun Buy-Back Program,” Public Health Reports 109, no. 4 (1994), pp. 472–77; David Kennedy, Anne Piehl, and Anthony Braga, “Youth Violence in Boston: Gun Markets, Serious Youth Offenders, and a Use-Reduction Strategy,” Law and Contemporary Problems 59 (1996), pp. 147–83; and Peter Reuter and Jenny Mouzon, “Australia: A Massive Buyback of Low-Risk Guns,” in Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence, ed. Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003). /121 John Lott’s right-to-carry theory: See John R. Lott Jr. and David Mustard, “Right-to-Carry Concealed Guns and the Importance of Deterrence,” Journal of Legal Studies 26 (January 1997), pp. 1–68; and John R. Lott Jr., More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). / 121 John Lott as Mary Rosh: See Julian Sanchez, “The Mystery of Mary Rosh,” Reason, May 2003; and Richard Morin, “Scholar Invents Fan to Answer His Critics,” Washington Post, February 1, 2003. / 121–22 Lott’s gun theory disproved: See Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III, “Shooting Down the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis,” Stanford Law Review 55 (2003), pp. 1193–1312; and Mark Duggan, “More Guns, More Crime,” Journal of Political Economy 109, no. 5 (2001), pp. 1086–1114.

  THE BURSTING OF THE CRACK BUBBLE: For a discussion of crack’s history and particulars, see Roland G. Fryer Jr., Paul Heaton, Steven Levitt, and Kevin Murphy, “The Impact of Crack Cocaine,” University of Chicago working paper, 2005. / 122 More than 25 percent of homicides: See Paul J. Goldstein, Henry H. Brownstein, Patrick J. Ryan, and Patricia A. Bellucci, “Crack and Homicide in New York City: A Case Study in the Epidemiology of Violenc
e,” in Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, ed. Craig Reinarman and Harry G. Levine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 113–30.

  THE “AGING POPULATION” THEORY: See Steven D. Levitt, “The Limited Role of Changing Age Structure in Explaining Aggregate Crime Rates,” Criminology 37, no. 3 (1999), pp. 581–99. Although the aging theory has by now been widely discounted, learned experts continue to float it; see Matthew L. Wald, “Most Crimes of Violence and Property Hover at 30-Year Low,” New York Times, September 13, 2004, in which Lawrence A. Greenfield, director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, says, “There is probably no single factor explanation for why the crime rates have been going down all these years and are now at the lowest level since we started measuring them in 1973. It probably has to do with demographics, and it probably has to do with having a lot of very high-rate offenders behind bars.” / 123 “There lurks a cloud”: See James Q. Wilson, “Crime and Public Policy,” in Crime, ed. James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1995), p. 507.

  THE ABORTION-CRIME LINK: For an overview, see John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, no. 2 (2001), pp. 379–420; and John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt, “Further Evidence That Legalized Abortion Low ered Crime: A Response to Joyce,”Journal of Human Resources 39, no. 1 (2004), pp. 29–49. / 124 Abortion studies in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia: See P. K. Dagg, “The Psychological Sequelae of Therapeutic Abortion—Denied and Completed,” American Journal of Psychiatry 148, no. 5 (May 1991), pp. 578–85; and Henry David, Zdenek Dytrych, et al., Born Unwanted: Developmental Effects of Denied Abortion (New York: Springer, 1988). / 125 The Roe v. Wade opinion: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). / 126 One study has shown that the typical child: See Jonathan Gruber, Philip P. Levine, and Douglas Staiger, “Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who Is the ‘Marginal Child’?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114 (1999), pp. 263–91. / 126 Strongest predictors of a criminal future: See Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, “Family Factors as Correlates and Predictors of Juvenile Conduct Problems and Delinquency,” Crime and Justice, vol. 7, ed. Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); also, Robert Sampson and John Laub, Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). / 127 So does having a teenage mother: See William S. Comanor and Llad Phillips, “The Impact of Income and Family Structure on Delinquency,” University of California–Santa Barbara working paper, 1999. / 127 Another study has shown that low maternal education: Pirkko Räsänen et al., “Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Risk of Criminal Behavior Among Adult Male Offspring in the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort,” American Journal of Psychiatry 156 (1999), pp. 857–62. / 127 Infanticide fell dramatically: See Susan Sorenson, Douglas Wiebe, and Richard Berk, “Legalized Abortion and the Homicide of Young Children: An Empirical Investigation,” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 2, no. 1 (2002), pp. 239–56. / 129 Studies of Australia and Canada: See Anindya Sen, “Does Increased Abortion Lead to Lower Crime? Evaluating the Relationship between Crime, Abortion, and Fertility,” unpublished manuscript; and Andrew Leigh and Justin Wolfers, “Abortion and Crime,” AQ: Journal of Contemporary Analysis 72, no. 4 (2000), pp. 28–30. / 129 Many of the aborted baby girls: See John J. Donohue III, Jeffrey Grogger, and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Teen Childbearing,” University of Chicago working paper, 2002. / 130 Abortion worse than slavery: See Michael S. Paulsen, “Accusing Justice: Some Variations on the Themes of Robert M. Cover’s Justice Accused,” Journal of Law and Religion 7, no. 33 (1989), pp. 33–97. / 130 Abortion as “the only effective crime-prevention device”: See Anthony V. Bouza, The Police Mystique: An Insider’s Look at Cops, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System (New York: Plenum, 1990). / 130 $9 million to save a spotted owl: See Gardner M. Brown and Jason F. Shogren, “Economics of the Endangered Species Act,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 3 (1998), pp. 3–20. / 130 $31 to prevent another Exxon Valdez –type spill: See Glenn W. Harrison, “Assessing Damages for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” University of Central Florida working paper, 2004. / 130–31 Body-part price list: Drawn from the state of Connecticut’s Workers’ Compensation Information Packet, p. 27, available as of this writing at wcc.state.ct.us/ download/acrobat/info-packet.pdf.

  5. WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PARENT?

  THE EVER CHANGING WISDOM OF PARENTING EXPERTS: Ann Hulbert, Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children (New York: Knopf, 2003), is an extremely helpful compendium of parenting advice. / 134 Gary Ezzo’s “infant-management strategy” and sleep deprivation warning: See Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, On Becoming Babywise (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1995), pp. 32 and 53. / 134 T. Berry Brazelton and the “interactive” child: T. Berry Brazelton, Infants and Mothers: Difference in Development, rev. ed. (New York: Delta/Seymour Lawrence, 1983), p. xxiii. / 134 L. Emmett Holt’s warning against “undue stimulation”: L. Emmett Holt, The Happy Baby (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1924), p. 7. / 134 Crying as “the baby’s exercise”: L. Emmett Holt, The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children’s Nurses (New York: Appleton, 1894), p. 53.

  A GUN OR A SWIMMING POOL? See Steven Levitt, “Pools More Dangerous than Guns,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 28, 2001.

  PETER SANDMAN ON MAD-COW DISEASE AND OTHER RISKS: See Amanda Hesser, “Squeaky Clean? Not Even Close,” New York Times, January 28, 2004; and “The Peter Sandman Risk Communication Web Site,” at http:// www.psandman.com/index.htm.

  HOW MUCH DO PARENTS REALLY MATTER? See Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (New York: Free Press, 1998); for a Harris profile that also provides an excellent review of the nature-nurture debate, see Malcolm Gladwell, “Do Parents Matter?” The New Yorker, August 17, 1998; and Carol Tavris, “Peer Pressure,” New York Times Book Review, September 13, 1998. / 141 “‘Here we go again’”: See Tavris, “Peer Pressure.” / 141 Pinker called Harris’s views “mind-boggling”: Steven Pinker, “Sibling Rivalry: Why the Nature/Nurture Debate Won’t Go Away,” Boston Globe, October 13, 2002, adapted from Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2002).

  SCHOOL CHOICE IN CHICAGO: This material is drawn from Julie Berry Cullen, Brian Jacob, and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of School Choice on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Chicago Public Schools,” Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming; and Julie Berry Cullen, Brian Jacob, and Steven D. Levitt, “The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2003.

  STUDENTS WHO ARRIVE AT HIGH SCHOOL NOT PREPARED TO DO HIGH SCHOOL WORK: See Tamar Lewin, “More Students Passing Regents, but Achievement Gap Persists,” New York Times, March 18, 2004.

  THE BLACK-WHITE INCOME GAP TRACED TO EIGHTH-GRADE TEST SCORE GAP: See Derek Neal and William R. Johnson, “The Role of Pre-Market Factors in Black-White Wage Differences,” Journal of Political Economy 104 (1996), pp. 869–95; and June O’Neill, “The Role of Human Capital in Earnings Differences Between Black and White Men,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 4, no. 4 (1990), pp. 25–46. / 146 “Reducing the black-white test score gap”: See Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, “America’s Next Achievement Test: Closing the Black-White Test Score Gap,” American Prospect 40 (September–October 1998), pp. 44–53.

  “ACTING WHITE”: See David Austen-Smith and Roland G. Fryer Jr., “The Economics of ‘Acting White,’” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2003. / 146 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Peter Knobler, Giant Steps (New York: Bantam, 1983), p. 16.

  THE BLACK-WHITE TEST SCORE GAP AND THE ECLS: This material was drawn from Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt, “Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School,” Review of Eco
nomics and Statistics 86, no. 2 (2004), pp. 447–64. While this paper contains little discussion of the correlation between test scores and home-based factors (television viewing, spanking, etc.), a regression of those data is included in the paper’s appendix. Regarding the ECLS study itself: as of this writing, an overview of the study was posted at nces.ed.gov/ecls/.

  ADOPTIVE PARENTS WITH HIGHER IQS THAN BIRTH MOTHER: See Bruce Sacerdote, “The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2000.

  FINNISH LITERACY: SEE LIZETTE ALVAREZ, “EDUCATORS FLOCKING TO FINLAND, AND OF LITERATE CHILDREN,” New York Times, April 9, 2004.

  A BOOK FOR EVERY TOT: See John Keilman, “Governor Wants Books for Tots; Kids Would Get 60 by Age 5 in Effort to Boost Literacy,” Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2004.

  THE INFLUENCE OF ADOPTIVE PARENTS: See Sacerdote, “The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes.”

  6. PERFECT PARENTING, PART II; OR: WOULD A ROSHANDA BY ANY OTHER NAME SMELL AS SWEET?

  THE STORY OF LOSER LANE: Drawn from author interviews and from Sean Gardiner, “Winner and Loser: Names Don’t Decide Destiny,” Newsday, July 22, 2002.