Freakonomics Chapter 4

In this chapter the author discusses the trend in criminal activity in the United States and what the possible causes are for it's decrease in the early 1990's.  They discuss several theories of why the crime rates have decreased including, increased numbers of policeman, stricter gun laws, changes in drug markets, and abortion laws.  The chapter does a good job of evaluating the various theories that economists and others have about why the crime rates decreases.  The author brings up some interesting points that make you think differently about something that may seem obvious.  He also discusses at length how abortion has an effect on crime rates.  Most people would not think that there would be a relationship between crime and abortion however he brings up a good theoretical point that makes us think that it could be possible. 

The author states that babies that a mother would have aborted but didn't receive less attention and care than a wanted baby.  Therefore, they grow up in worse conditions and may be more prone to criminal activity than a baby growing up in a loving and healthy environment.  Something that I thought was interesting was his critique on whether or not Rudy Giuliani really had the huge impact that people thought he did on crime in New York City.  He points out that the man that was mayor before him actually implemented a lot of things at the same time as crime rates were decreasing.  He says that crime rates started to go down before Giuliani was even in office.  I would argue that although this may be true, there could have been other factors that cause crime rates to go down.  Possibly his strong leadership presence, initiative, knowledge, and dedication played a large role in reducing crime as well.  I think the author may be looking too strongly into the numbers and concrete facts of these scenarios rather than immeasurable aspects such as the ones I just listed that can also have effects on certain things like the crime rate. 

Research Paper Summary

The research that I did for my paper looked at the link between poverty and population size in urban settings.  My hypothesis was that as cities grow, so too do their poverty rates.  I collected data from 17 different cities over a 30 year period.  Other factors that I thought would effect poverty rates outside of population were level of education by citizens of those populations and median family income.  My two measures of education were the number of people that completed high school and the number of people that completed college or more.  I also included the years to see if there was a relationship over time between population and poverty. 

The results that I got were somewhat what I had expected.  I did find a very statistically significant relationship between poverty rates and population though there was not a very large coefficient on the variable population, the t-stat was highly significant.  I was also pleased to find that my measure of education, specifically the college or more variable, effected poverty rates in a negative way.  There was a negative correlation between whether a person gets a college degree and poverty rates, which was nice to see because that's what I expected to happen.  The same was true for median family income.  The coefficient was negative, meaning it decreased poverty rates as it increased and it was very statistically significant.  However, the opposite was true for those people who received less than a high school education.  As the number of people with this level of education increases, so too did poverty rates.  Though it was not statistically significant at a high level, it did suggest an upward trend between the two variables. 

Overall, the findings were interesting to see and I was pleased because it was what I was expecting to happen.  After writing a rough draft, I think there are still some things I can change around a little and look at more closely to try to get a better model.