A few days ago, I posted on Steven Levitt’s work and his thesis that legalising abortion diminishes crime rates. The promised symposium at Crooked Timber, with a contribution by John Quiggin and a response to the debate by Levitt is now up. I like these Crooked Timber symposiums - expert contributors engaging directly with an author and their response is a distinct contribution the blogosphere can make above and beyond the value of book reviews.
Elsewhere: Over at Troppo, Nicholas Gruen also likes the symposium.
Too right.
A clarification though.
Levitt’s thesis is I hope that legalising abortion diminisheD crime rates. Not that it diminishes them. That is a rather bigger claim.
But wouldn’t the former imply the latter if the correlation is causal?