Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: L H Kahane
Author-Name-First: L H
Author-Name-Last: Kahane
Author-Name: D Paton
Author-Name-First: D
Author-Name-Last: Paton
Author-Name: R Simmons
Author-Name-First: R
Author-Name-Last: Simmons
Title: The abortion-crime link: evidence from England and Wales
Abstract: We use panel data from 1983 to 1997 for the 42 police force areas in England and Wales to test the hypothesis that legalizing abortion contributes to lower crime rates.  We provide an advance on previous work by focusing on the impact of possible endogeneity of effective abortion rates with respect to crime.  Our use of U.K. data allows us to exploit regional differences in the provision of free abortions to identify abortion rates.  When we use a similar model and estimation methodology, we are able to replicate the negative association between abortion rates and reported crime found by Donohue and Levitt for the U.S.  However, when we allow for the potential endogeneity of effective abortion rates with respect to crime, we find no clear connection between the two.
Creation-Date: 2005
File-URL: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/economics/working-papers/AbortionCrime.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Number: 574044
Classification-JEL: 
Keywords: abortion, crime, fertility
Handle: RePEc:lan:wpaper:574044