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The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime
Abstract
We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly eighteen years after abortion legalization. The five states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.
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Citations
Cited by
The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions
Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2002) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/340778 · Cited by 1,389
Almond, D. (2006) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/507154 · Cited by 1,190
High-Dimensional Methods and Inference on Structural and Treatment Effects
Belloni, A., Chernozhukov, V., & Hansen, C. (2014) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.28.2.29 · Cited by 722
Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply
Levitt, S. D. (2002) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/00028280260344777 · Cited by 392
Self-citationWhy have child maltreatment and child victimization declined?
Finkelhor, D., & Jones, L. (2006) · Journal of Social Issues · doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2006.00483.x · Cited by 351
Metadata
- Authors
- Donohue, J. J., & Levitt, S. D.
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2001-05-01
- Volume
- 116
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 379-420
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- OpenAlex
- W2889639449
- Cited by
- 591
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 43.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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