Freakonomics Page #7

Don't you see what a mistake it would be to ... throw it away?

The trouble, of course, is that life isn't like the movies.

For so many children who without "Roe V. Wade"

would have been born in 1973,

their lives might not have been a wonderful life

that've been born in a loving family, in yesterday's small town America.

Rather, they'd be a far harder road -

been born into a potentially unwanted household

in American's crumbling little cities, or forsaken heartland.

Levitt's conclusion: "As much as half of the 1990s crime drop,

was an unintended consequence of Roe V. Wade."

The theory behind it was quite simple,

Unwanted children, have been shown to be at high risk for crime.

With legalized abortion, fewer unwanted children were born.

Therefore, the theory would be that there'd be less crime in 15-20 years later.

When those quahogs reach their peak crime ages

And the data support that hypothesis,quite strongly.

If you follow the data,

there were 5 states that legalized abortions, 3 years before "Roe Vs. Wade"

and about 15 years later, their crimes begins to fall,

Then if you look at states where abortion was not just legal,

but is available to people who wanna get them ...

... 16, 17 years after "Roe Vs. Wade"

you see a 30% difference

between the states doing a lot of abortions and ones that are doing very few.

Finally, all of the effect we see in a in a diverse in crime,

all of that is concentrated among people under the age of 25.

People young enough to have been exposed to legalized abortion.

People older than 25,

here's no difference whatsoever

between the high abortion state and the low abortion states.

And I think in some way that's the best evidence we have,

that legalized abortions is responsible for a big chunk of the decline in crime.

Levitt's controversal theory has provoked strong reactions among critics.

Is he, for example, avocating abortions as a crime fighting tool.

In no way, would I take this as advocacy in favor of legalized abortion.

I don't think anyone's opinion about whether abortion should be legal or not

should be affected by our result.

Some of Levitt's critics suggested that

his theory holds what might have been classed a racial implications.

He argues though that raising class has nothing to do with the matter.

That his theory targets no specific group,

other than mothers-to-bes of all backgrounds.

And since, as Levitt points out, women who're led to abort

go on to become child bearers consistent

with the general populations.

Levitt's argument could thus be undertood to suggest that

legalized abortion does not so much prevent birth,

as delay it.

This turns an unwanted birth by a too young mother, for example

into a wanted birth by that mother

when she feels more ready.

So, if Levitt is not advocating abortion as a crime fighting tool,

what is he advocating?

Well, whether one is pro-life, pro-choice or somewhere in between

there's a meaningful and today unpeached connection

between giving women the right to choose

and the reduction in crime.

We started offin a normal interview post

and now you're lying down, swinging a pillow aaround

What ... What's going on here?

If I give you a slice of juicy fruit, will you say whatever I want

No

No?!

Wait, I heard that you'll do anything for a slice of juicy fruit

No matter how smart you are,

and I kind of think they're pretty smart,

you come up with some incentive scheme that you think is a perfect one

to enties the behavior you have in mind.

And you send an army of people with nothing to do all day

but to figure out how to beat this incentive scheme

-and absolutely it'll be beaten -Well, tell me about ...

... about Amdanda

This is a long story

I'll give you an example, so

We were trying to potty train Amanda

and my wife went books and did all the things you're told to do

Amanda had been potty trained

and she just decided she wouldn't use the toilet ... anymore.

And this went on for months, my wife was frusttrated.

And I said, I'm an economist, I understand I'll take over.

And I got right down on Amanda's level on my knees and I knew what ...

she likes more than anything else, she's about 3 years old, were MMs.

And I said,"If you go pee pee in the potty, I'll give you a bag of MMs."

she said,"Right now?", I said "Yeah".

said,"Ok"; and she hopped on the potty went, went to the bathroom

I turned to my wife and said,"Let the economist handle it, you know."

And indeed, for the next couple of days, it worked to perfection.

And everytime she has to go bathroom, she announced it.

She went to the bathroom, we gave her the MMs.

Everything had gone great.

But 3 days later, she said "I have to go to the bathroom"

She went and took a lot of few drops, I gave her the MMs

She got off, she said "I have to go again"

She sat down the potty,

taking a few more drops, I gave her the MMs.

"Got to go again"

Basically, in 3 days she's gone from someone with no blatter control

to a pro that she can complete control the flow at a whimp

And had a 3 year old had basically come up with

a way to beat the incentive scheme I had developed ...

... within 3 days. In a million years I would never have imagined.

If an economist can't trick a 3 year old for more than 3 days,

What hope does an economist have tricking the whole country for even 3 hours?

So, that's kind of the beauty of incentives

You don't really know what works and government think

they know what works and they spend a huge amount of resources

establishing incentives

and they gonna do all these things seem to make lots of sense

it sounds really great and may work out well in some measure

But they're gonna backfire in so many different ways

That we can't predict yet.

And people will claugh and people will cry. And that's what incentives are.

CAN A 9TH GRADER BE BRIBED TO SUCCEED?

ITE103

What you guys putting in this?

Get it right over there, you wanna do it right now.

Right now you stupid ass.

Clear!

It's going

That was nothing

Make another one.

I know I can do good in school but I don't

I have a reputation of bad child

Parents are way too uptight in kids' business, like ...

Where you gonna go? What you doing? When are you coming home?

It maybe like "Hey you have homework?" and I'll say "No"

or "I forget my books, I'll do it in the morning."

-That works? -Ah huh

Gets them off my dick

What's up?

Hopefully, I'll mkae it to highschool if I fail

I guess I'll try to get a GED through the millitary or something

I have no clue

ITE104

In the modern economy, not graduating from highschool,

is like an economic death sentence.

When you talking about highschool kids,

what matters to them is what happens today,

a month from now or 6 months from now.

You have a very forward looking mindset

I think ... most kids are dull

In designing incentives to help kids get through school,

we've got to have that conundrum in mind

The idea was for the University of Chicago to see if

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