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IN his bestseller, Freakonomics, Stephen Levitt famously argued that increases in abortion rates in the US are causally linked to reductions in crime rates. Indeed, Levitt claims that a one-standard deviation increase in the abortion rate lowers homicide rates by 31% and can explain upwards of 60% of the recent decline in murder in the US. If one accepts Levitt's statement, legalised abortion has saved more than 51,000 lives between 1991 and 2001, at a total saving of $105bn.
According to Ted Joyce of the City University of New York, "the policy implications [of Levitt's claim] go beyond crime. If abortion lowers homicide rates by 20% to 30%, then it's likely to have affected an entire spectrum of outcomes associated with well-being: infant health, child development, schooling, earnings and marital status. Other interventions that affect fertility control - contraception or sexual abstinence - have huge potential payoffs."
Not surprisingly, in a paper published last month, Joyce put Levitt's claim to new empirical tests, analysing changes in abortion rates before and after Roe v Wade - the court ruling that legalised abortion. He found "little support for a credible association between legalised abortion and crime". Looking at age-specific crime and abortion rates between 1971 and 1974 in the 45 states that legalised abortion, Joyce reported that "the association between legalised abortion and crime rates is weak and inconsequential."
As we economists say: "If you torture data long enough, it will confess."
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