Christopher L. Foote (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and University of Maryland) Christopher F. Goetz (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and University of Maryland)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
This comment makes three observations about Donohue and Levitt's paper on abortion and crime (Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(1) (2001), 249-275). First, there is a coding mistake in the concluding regressions, which identify abortion's effect on crime by comparing the experiences of different age cohorts within the same state and year. Second, correcting this error and using a more appropriate per capita specification for the crime variable generates much weaker results. Third, earlier tests in the paper, which exploit cross-state rather than within-state variation, are not robust to allowing for differential state trends based on statewide crime rates that predate the period when abortion could have had a causal effect on crime. (c) 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)