Causation

The next book I buy will be Steven Levitt's Freakonomics. In the proud tradition of Thomas Sowell (although apparently without the pious undertones) Levitt applies the hard science of economics to the squishy questions of American life.

Steven Landsburg highlights some of the puzzles that Levitt solves in his review of the book. Like the patterns of test score data that prove certain Chicago public-school teachers guilty of inflating their students standardized test scores. Most importantly, Levitt applies the scientific method to reach objective, indisputable conclusions, based on causation and not merely correlation.

Other of life's little puzzles are addressed by Mr. Levitt, such as "why do so many drug dealers live with their mothers" and which parenting strategies work and which don't?" (The teaser on this last one is "it turns out that reading to your children has no appreciable effect on their academic success.") But the issue that really grabbed my attention is related to a favorite topic on these pages of late - Roe v. Wade.

Why, Levitt wondered, did crime rates fall precipitously in the 1990's, just 18 years after the Roe decision? As Landsburg summarizes, "Did crime fall because hundreds of thousands of prospective criminals had been aborted? Once again, the pattern by itself is not conclusive, but once again Mr. Levitt piles pattern on pattern until the evidence overwhelms you. The bottom line? Legalized abortion was the single biggest factor in bringing the crime wave of the 1980s to a screeching halt."

So-called "pro-life" activists argue that every infant should be born because there is a loving and caring home waiting for him somewhere in the world. But what about the millions who are born into disfunctional families of one sort or another, and have the additional misfortune of being "unwanted?" Each is at much greater risk for anti-social behavior in his later years, including the casual sex that breeds future generations like himself.

Some people may not "like" the conclusions that a method like this comes to but as Landsburg says, "economics is about what is true, not what ought to be true." If you genuinely want to do something about one of reality's problems it is indispensably helpful to know what that reality is.

Economics and Markets Posted by JohnGalt at April 17, 2005 11:30 AM