Why does Mr. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dunbner not like realtors? In a book filled with so many interesting questions, this would be the one I would ask the authors directly. This book by economist Steven D. Levitt, co-authored with Stephen J. Dubner, fuses together stories, anecdotes, data analyses, and discussions of unusually linked phenomena as it ask its readers to think more critically about the things that occur in everyday life. Things like how birth control has stemmed the crime rate, or how being named Shithead will decrease your job prospects, and ever so important, why you are being cheated by your real-estate agent. The insightful and provocative look of how these things are linked make this one of my favorite reads in a while. It starts off by introducing the rise in crime in the early 1990s, and how the American criminologists, political scientists, and other forecasters were calling for a
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115). They delve into the theories that were given by most of the crime experts, and then expand on the crime and abortion correlation previously discussed. Starting with the rise of crime in Romania post a ban on abortion, they discuss each of the most highly held explanations, including innovative policing, increased reliance on prisons, and an aging population, to tougher gun control. While it may be more comforting to believe that the crime drop was due to intense policing or gun control, it was legalized abortion that undoubtedly had the most dramatic effect on the crime rate. In the wake of Roe v. Wade, millions of American women had abortions by the 1980’s. The type of woman likely to take advantage of legalized abortion were the underprivileged, uneducated, and unskilled, so had these children been born, they would have been 50 percent more likely to live in poverty, and thus extremely likely to have a criminal
115). They delve into the theories that were given by most of the crime experts, and then expand on the crime and abortion correlation previously discussed. Starting with the rise of crime in Romania post a ban on abortion, they discuss each of the most highly held explanations, including innovative policing, increased reliance on prisons, and an aging population, to tougher gun control. While it may be more comforting to believe that the crime drop was due to intense policing or gun control, it was legalized abortion that undoubtedly had the most dramatic effect on the crime rate. In the wake of Roe v. Wade, millions of American women had abortions by the 1980’s. The type of woman likely to take advantage of legalized abortion were the underprivileged, uneducated, and unskilled, so had these children been born, they would have been 50 percent more likely to live in poverty, and thus extremely likely to have a criminal