The Impact of Abortion on Crime and Crime-Related Behavior

Randi Hjalmarsson, Andreea Mitrut and Cristian Pop-Eleches

No 13800, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: The 1966 abolition and 1989 legalization of abortion in Romania immediately doubled and decreased by about a third the number of births per month, respectively. To isolate the link between abortion access and crime while abstracting from cohort and general equilibrium effects, we compare birth month cohorts on either side of the abortion regime. For both the abolition and legalization of abortion, we find large and significant effects on the level of crime and risky-behavior related hospitalization, but an insignificant effect on crime and hospitalization rates (i.e. when normalizing by the size of the birth month cohort). In other words, the Romanian abortion reforms did affect crime, but all of the effect appears to be driven by cohort size effects rather than selection or unwantedness effects.

Keywords: Abortion; Crime; Risky behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J13 J18 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The impact of abortion on crime and crime-related behavior (2021)
Working Paper: The Impact of Abortion on Crime and Crime-Related Behavior (2019)
Working Paper: The Impact of Abortion on Crime and Crime-Related Behavior (2019)
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