4 ms·

Are there countries, or locations in the USA that could be used as a control for this hypothesis? Places that didn't get rid of lead.

• enf 13y ago
  The control is Australia, which got rid of it about a decade later than the US.
  • api 13y ago
    Are there places that still use it?
    • enf 13y ago
      Wikipedia says it is still available in "Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, and possibly Afghanistan."
      • lingben 13y ago
        also Iran
  • klipt 13y ago
    South Africa only phased it out completely in 2006: http://www.southafrica.info/services/consumer/clean_fuel081205.htm http://www.southafrica.info/services/consumer/clean_fuel0812...
• stormbrew 13y ago
  I think there are still places that are within the 20 year window of the abolishment of lead, but they'd be disappearing pretty fast. Since we can probably assume that there is no place in the world that will or would indefinitely allow the use of lead in gasoline (and if they would, obtaining meaningful crime reporting numbers out of them might be tricky), comparing the time lag across jurisdictions is the best control we'll probably get.
• adwf 13y ago
  There are places that got rid of lead much later than others, they also showed a corresponding later decline in crime levels. What's even more interesting is that the decline occurs regardless of criminal policy (eg. zero tolerance or rehabilitation, shorter/longer sentences).