Editing Steven Levitt (section)

=== The impact of legalized abortion on crime ===
{{main|Legalized abortion and crime effect}}

Revisiting a question first studied empirically in the 1960s, [[John J. Donohue III|Donohue]] and Levitt argued that the legalization of abortion could account for almost half of the reduction in crime witnessed in the 1990s.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Donahue and Levitt|date=May 2001|title=The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime|url=http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf|journal=[[The Quarterly Journal of Economics]]|volume=CXVI, Issue 2|issue=2|pages=379–420|doi=10.1162/00335530151144050}}</ref> Their 2001 paper sparked much controversy, to which Levitt has said
<blockquote>". . . John Donohue and I estimate maybe that there are 5,000 or 10,000 fewer homicides because of it. But if you think that a fetus is like a person, then that's a horrible tradeoff. So ultimately I think our study is interesting because it helps us understand why crime has gone down. But in terms of policy towards abortion, you're really misguided if you use our study to base your opinion about what the right policy is towards abortion"<ref>{{Cite web|last=Lapinski|first=Zack|title=Abortion and Crime, Revisited (Ep. 384)|url=https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion/|access-date=2021-04-10|website=Freakonomics|language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

In 2003, Theodore Joyce argued that legalized abortion had little impact on crime, contradicting Donohue and Levitt's results.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Joyce|first=Ted|date=2004-01-01|title=Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?|url=http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XXXIX/1/1|journal=Journal of Human Resources|language=en|volume=XXXIX|issue=1|pages=1–28|doi=10.3368/jhr.XXXIX.1.1|s2cid=12900426 |issn=0022-166X}}</ref> In 2004, the authors published a response,<ref>{{cite web |author=John J. Donohue III & Stephen D. Levitt |publisher=The Journal of Human Resources |year=2004 |url=http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittReply2004.pdf |title=Further Evidence that Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime: A Reply to Joyce |access-date=2008-12-03}}</ref> in which they claimed Joyce's argument was flawed due to [[omitted-variable bias]].

In November 2005, [[Federal Reserve Bank of Boston]] economist Christopher Foote<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bostonfed.org/economic/econbios/foote.htm|title=Christopher Foote – Federal Reserve Bank of Boston|first=Federal Reserve Bank of|last=Boston|access-date=5 December 2016}}</ref> and his research assistant Christopher Goetz, published a paper,<ref name="Christopher L. Foote & Christopher F. Goetz">{{cite web |author=Christopher L. Foote & Christopher F. Goetz |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of Boston |date=2008-01-31 |url=http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/wp/wp2005/wp0515.pdf |title=The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment |access-date=2008-05-12 |archive-date=2009-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090930144027/http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/wp/wp2005/wp0515.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> in which they argued that the results in Donohue and Levitt's paper were due to statistical errors made by the authors. When the corrections were made, Foote and Goetz argued that abortion actually increased violent crime instead of decreasing it.

In January 2006, Donohue and Levitt published a response,<ref>{{cite web |author=John J. Donohue III & Stephen D. Levitt |date=January 2006 |url=http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/ResponseToFooteGoetz2006.pdf |title=Measurement Error, Legalized Abortion, the Decline in Crime: A Response to Foote and Goetz |access-date=2008-12-03}}</ref> in which they admitted the errors in their original paper, but also pointed out that Foote and Goetz's correction was flawed due to heavy [[Regression dilution|attenuation bias]]. The authors argued that, after making necessary changes to fix the original errors, the corrected link between abortion and crime was now weaker but still statistically significant.

In 2019, Levitt and Donohue published a new paper to review the predictions of the original 2001 paper.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Donohue|first1=John J.|last2=Levitt|first2=Steven D.|date=2019-05-20|title=The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime over the Last Two Decades|series=Working Paper Series |doi=10.3386/w25863 |url=https://www.nber.org/papers/w25863|language=en}}</ref> The authors concluded that the original predictions held up with strong effects.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Law|date=2019-05-20|title=New paper by Donohue and Levitt on abortion and crime|url=https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/new-paper-by-donohue-and-levitt-on-abortion-and-crime.html|access-date=2021-04-10|website=Marginal REVOLUTION|language=en-US}}</ref> "We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s."