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Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births
John R. Lott Jr. University of Maryland Foundation, University of Maryland John E. Whitley University of Adelaide - School of Economics April 30, 2001 Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 254 Abstract: Abortion may prevent the birth of "unwanted" children, who would have relatively small investments in human capital and a higher probability of crime. On the other hand, some research suggests that legalizing abortion increases out-of-wedlock births and single parent families, which implies the opposite impact on investments in human capital and thus crime. The question is: what is the net impact? We find evidence that legalizing abortion increased murder rates by around about 0.5 to 7 percent. Previous estimates are shown to suffer from not directly linking the cohorts who are committing crime with whether they had been born before or after abortion was legal.
JEL Classifications: K4, D13, H11 Working Paper SeriesDate posted: May 16, 2001 ; Last revised: June 05, 2001Suggested Citation |
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