Measurement Error, Legalized Abortion, and the Decline in Crime: A Response to Foote and Goetz

S-Tier
Journal: Quarterly Journal of Economics
Year: 2008
Volume: 123
Issue: 1
Pages: 425-440

Authors (2)

John J. Donohue III (not in RePEc) Steven D. Levitt (University of Chicago)

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We are grateful to Foote and Goetz for noting that the final table of Donohue and Levitt (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116 (2001), 379–420) inadvertently omitted state-year interactions. Correcting our mistake does not alter the sign or statistical significance of our estimates, although it does reduce their magnitude. Using a more carefully constructed measure of abortion that better links birth cohorts to abortion exposure (by using abortion data by state of residence rather than of occurrence, by adjusting for cross-state mobility, and by more precisely estimating birth years from age of arrest data), we present new evidence that abortion legalization reduces crime through both a cohort-size and a selection effect.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:qjecon:v:123:y:2008:i:1:p:425-440.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25