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The book Freakonomics has a chapter that analyses the sharp fall of homicide that followed a sharp rise. It makes for an interesting read. Its topical given the
by srean 4y ago
The book Freakonomics has a chapter that analyses the sharp fall of homicide that followed a sharp rise. It makes for an interesting read. Its topical given the recent overturning of Roe Vs Wade.
The authors present many potential explanations that were put forward at that time to explain the phenomena. These included, more cops on the ground, stringent sentences, broken-window policy and so on. In the author's assessment all these hypotheses turned out to be wrong.
According to the author's analysis the likely cause was the ratification of the Roe-Wade judgement.
The causal chain is as follows, legalized abortion resulted in the reduction of the number of people who were likely to get very little parental support and social support while growing up. Arguably, this population is more predisposed towards crime and its relative reduction led to a fall that aligned with the timeline -- around the time the newborns would have hit the late teens.
Attributing an irrefutable cause is hard.
- drewrv 4y agoCrime data is messy and can take decades of debate without ever coming to any conclusions. Beyond the abortion argument, I’ve heard convincing claims that the cause of a decline in crime was due to phasing out leaded gasoline. For 2020, I blame Tiger King for glamorizing a life of crime. I’m prepared to put together some infographics about it and the theory will be as convincing as any other.
- srean 4y agoIndeed. I am familiar with the leaded gas hypothesis. Inferring causality from observations without randomizing the intervention is hard to neigh impossible. In Levitt's defense, he uses natural experiments, where natural variation does the work of random assignment of a subject to 'treatment group' and 'control group' and does the causal analysis. This is over and above accounting for the known hypotheses that purport to explain the phenomenon. Short of RCT it doesnt get much better than that.