Chapters four and five of Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, discuss two interesting cases. In the beginning of chapter four, Steven Levitt starts off by arguing that the legalization of abortion played a big role in the sudden reduction in the crime rate in the United States approximately twenty years later. He then goes into the next chapter where he establishes a correlation between how a child is raised and later test scores. Furthermore, in his book he states many reasons for his argument and correlation. In Romania, the abortion rates were very high until Nicolae Ceausescu became the communist dictator of the country. His goal was to increase Romania’s population, so he banned abortions. He thought that if the population grew, then it would …show more content…
In his book, Steven Levitt gave a few reasons why. However, he says that only three of the reasons had something to do with the drop in crime. In the book he also mentions that the main cause for the crime drop is not even mentioned in the newspaper at all. One of the reasons he gives is, the strong economy. Although he did prove that it had nothing to do with the crime fall. He then states that another reason for the crime fall is, imprisonment. This, however, did have a significant impact on the fall of crime, because imprisonment was a good punishment for criminals and it led them to stop doing crimes. Since, executions hardly ever happened in the United states, the death penalty did not impact the fall in crime. Death penalty was mostly only given for homicide, rather than other violent crimes as well. The punishment was not serious enough for criminals to change their behavior and stop them from what they are doing. Levitt continues to state other reasons for the fall in crime are; the rise of police in cities, the increase in gun laws, and demographic change. However, the one big demographic change that led to crime fall is the legalization of abortion. January 22,1973, the Roe v. Wade law was passed. It legalized abortion throughout the entire
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Show MoreWritten by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics is built upon three major philosophies: incentives are the fundamentals of life, experts on a subject use their knowledge as an advantage to serve their own wellbeing, and orthodox wisdom is wrong most of the time. This book goes into detail to explain the mindsets of humans, from school teachers to sumo wrestlers, through statistics. Levitt and Dubner claim that when the data is closely examined it can relate to more concepts than originally hypothesized. The style of this informative piece is very precise yet, at the same time, very concise and to the point. The tone carried throughout the book is informative and knowledgeable. The authors use distinct tactics to get points across
Freakonomics is an economist’s viewpoint on the events and issues that we encounter and hear about every day. Levitt uses his many years of experience as an economist to address topics ranging from abortion to the power of information. He looks at the statistics behind each topic and makes an informed analysis, generally not following popular belief about it. Levitt foresees and counters arguments that people may have against what he is stating. His counter arguments are filled with data and statistics to make them rock solid and very hard to dispute. Levitt’s approach on the world is very different from the average person’s, he looks at everything from what statistics and data tells him. He states “The conventional wisdom is often wrong…”
Summary In chapter one of Freakonomics, the beginning portion of the chapter discusses information and the connection it shares with the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents. The Ku Klux Klan was founded right after the Civil War, in order to persecute and subdue the slaves that were newly freed. The popularity of the Klan increased in the early 20th century, around the time of World War I. In the late 19th century, the Klan had only discriminated, persecuted, and subdued Blacks, but in the 20th century they did these things to Blacks, Jews, and Gypsies.
In the later half of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, many states adopted laws against abortion because abortions were performed in unsanitary conditions, which made the operation dangerous for women. Plus, society believed killing a possible life was immoral. However, as time progressed and morals changed, people begin to question weather or not the government had the right to interfere with peoples’ carnal matters.
Baby Thesis: One of the reason the 18th amendment was repealed was due to the fact that the crime rate increased massively.
Could it be that the government’s intervention by legalizing abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision lead to the dramatic reduction in crime? Did the government inadvertently save my life by preventing the birth of criminals? This paper will first explore the generally accepted theories advanced as to why the crime drop has occurred. Secondly, explain the theories behind Levitt and Dubner’s reasoning for the crime drop due to the legalization of abortion. And lastly, explain how researchers have used statistical data to negate Levitt and Dubner’s abortion theory, and assert that the crime drop was due to a confluence of events which when taken as whole all played a role in reducing crime in the United States.
This chapter's main idea is that the study of economics is the study of incentives. We find a differentiation between economic incentives, social incentives and moral incentives. Incentives are described in a funny way as "means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing", and in this chapter we find some examples public school teachers in Chicago, sumo wrestling in Japan, take care center in Israel and Paul Feldman's bagel business of how incentives drive people and most of the time the conventional wisdom turns to be "wrong" when incentives are in place.
Many people view economics as a dry and uninteresting subject. In the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, co-authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner shows that the tools of economic research can be put to use in the study of almost anything. Levitt explains, “ since the science of economics is primarily a set of tools, as opposed to a subject matter, then no subject, however offbeat, need be beyond its reach.” (Levitt & Dubner 14) In Freakonomics, Levitt and co-author, Stephen Dubner, show how “Freakonomics” can be applied to some of the most interesting research topics that Levitt has tackled during his career. The authors
Until the mid 1800s, abortion was unrestricted and unregulated in the United States. The justifications for criminalizing it varied from state to state. One big reason was population control, which addressed fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly ...
Freakonomics is a non-fiction book that talks about how everything has a hidden side to it. Steven D. Levitt and Stephan J. Dubner are both economist and authors’ of the book. Published in 2005 the book was made into a controversy due to its view points and was even a New York Times Bestseller.
For over two hundred years, abortion has been apart of the United States culture. During the 1700’s, Americans viewed abortion merely as a means of ridding women of pregnancies that resulted from illicit relationships. Birthrates in the U.S. were extremely high at the end of the eighteenth century, so consequently the Americans wanted to lower birth rates. This social trend is best cited as “induced abortions became such a popular method of fertility control that it becomes a kind of epidemic” (qtd in Omran). Abortion went from a marginal practice of the desperate few to being a significant factor in the effort of American women to regulate their own fertility. In the 1830’s the use of new contraceptive techniques became available, but for a short while, the abortion rate increases with the new introduction to contraceptives. This is due to the idea that people thought that they could have more sex, which they did, but most of the general public did not master the use of contraceptives, so many “mistakes” occurred. Even when contraceptives were used correctly, the quality of contraceptive devices was not very good. After contraception devices became more mainstream, the abortion rate lowered(Sachdev 150-151).
If you are ever in need of an entertaining read, I would highly recommend Freakonomics for many reasons. I enjoyed reading Freakonomics, and I think you would too. Freakonomics is a book written by economists, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, that “explores the hidden side of everything.”
A number one bestseller many say is grasping in amazement: Freakonomics is said to unravel the untold stories of life. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner break common misconceptions of economics by revealing its true science. Freakonomics shatters the view of economics being an arid study of finance and markets. They pull in information to make inferences on past occurrences subtly influence on the present. Freakonomics packs punches with its countless number of tables and figures, serving as concrete data to make their assumptions. Levitt & Dubner in the beginning identify the fundamental Latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc in the sentence, “…just because two things are correlated does not mean that one causes the other”, due to their entire novel being based on correlation. Freakonomics’ explicit exploration of the hidden side of everything captivate economist with unmentioned inferences backed up with reasoned correlation, linking compelling topics to shatter misconceptions about controversial stories, ending with a brief consensus of economic pattern limitations.
According to the National Abortion Federation, abortion has been practiced for thousands for years in countless civilizations. In America specifically, around the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions rates were on the rise because the procedure was both commonly advertised and performed during that time period. Abortion first became controversial in the United States during the mid-to-late 1800s when states began passing laws making abortion illegal. Each state had different motives for creating these laws outlawing abortion; though due to the time period, one of the most prevalent reasons countrywide revolved around the fear that the population would be dominated by the children of immigrants due to American-born children being terminated in the womb. Another reason was due to the rising death rate of the time, as legislators feared that abortions would lower the birth rates and both factors would decrease the overall population of the country. (Nation Abortion Federation) Years la...
Donohue and Levitt’s argument with legal abortions in the 1970s explain half the fall in the crime rate during the 1990s. Yet a closer look at the data on both abo...