The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

Freakonomics says crime dropped in NY from the 1980s-1990s because of abortions.

The Tipping Point says crime dropped in the same time period because they cracked down on lesser offenses. Freakonomics addresses this point specifically and says it was a minor reason.

Does anyone have more knowledge on this or an educated opinion on which might be more true?

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

i have been meaning to read both of these books for a while now, so i am going to d/l them and i'll try to read the relevant chapters today.

the position taken by the tipping point is pretty much the party line of giuliani types here in NYC, i don't think it's particularly scientific, and i'm sure there are other demographic and economic factors in play.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

I've only read the tipping point theory behind this.

What is the Freakonomics reasoning behind it?

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

I've heard it argued in politics that other cities had tried to crack down on lesser offenses prior to the nineties and their results were poor. Furthermore, the crime drop in the nineties was nationwide, whereas the Giuliani lesser crime crackdown was specific to NY.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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I've only read the tipping point theory behind this.

What is the Freakonomics reasoning behind it?

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The reasoning is that people who have abortions are in the same demographics that produce criminals, and that a lower birthrate amongst these people produced less criminals. The reason it took 20 odd years after roe v wade for this to happen is that 9 year olds tend to not be very good at carjacking.

wiki on it

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

reading freakonomics right now, one thing that i think is very poor about the chapter is his reliance on something resembling rational choice theory. he assumes that humans - even criminals and other deviants - respond to incentives with full understanding of the reasons for their actions, and that they gather all available info on potential outcomes and analyze it rationally. little or no mention of other influences on human behavior, such as culture, mass media, biology, social structure, etc.

his citations are also woefully inadequate, and poorly organized. i have written undergraduate term papers with more thorough references.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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reading freakonomics right now, one thing that i think is very poor about the chapter is his reliance on something resembling rational choice theory. he assumes that humans - even criminals and other deviants - respond to incentives with full understanding of the reasons for their actions, and that they gather all available info on potential outcomes and analyze it rationally. little or no mention of other influences on human behavior, such as culture, mass media, biology, social structure, etc.

his citations are also woefully inadequate, and poorly organized. i have written undergraduate term papers with more thorough references.

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Isn't it basically a footnote of economics that people often don't act rationally, but assuming rationality creates the most accurate predictive models?

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

one thing that freakonomics correctly points out is that much of the crime drop in NYC began as much as 4 years before rudy took office and continued after bratton quit as police commissioner. he also points out that the size of the NYPD grew by 45% during the same time, and that this probably accounts for a good chunk of the decline in violent crime.

(many of those new cops were hired by david dinkins, btw)

there is some data that makes the abortion argument compelling. the nationwide drop in crime came about 17 years after roe v. wade - right around the time that about 1.6 million babies a year stopped being born. states that legalized abortion prior to roe v. wade experienced an earlier drop in crime than those that didn't. comparing abortion rates and crime rates, and controlling for other demographic factors like state economies and police resources, revealed a similar correlation.

i haven't reviewed levitt's sources for this argument, but even if one accepts it you have to look at several things

1. even in his intepretation, abortion only accounts for a fraction of the crime drop

2. attitudes about abortion and legal struggles related to abortion may or may not reflect demographic / economic circumstances in states where these changes took place, and those circumstances may have had a more significant impact overall than abortion alone.

judging by how poorly this chapter is referenced i have no reason to trust levitt's methodology. however, even if he is overstating his case i think there is some merit to his argument, and i don't buy much into the giuliani 'broken window' theory in the tipping point.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Isn't it basically a footnote of economics that people often don't act rationally, but assuming rationality creates the most accurate predictive models?

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i'm not an expert on economics, so i won't dispute this claim... but when you exit the realm of economics and start looking at human behavior and psychology, assuming rationality is a serious error at times.

where crime falls on that spectrum is debatable.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Isn't it basically a footnote of economics that people often don't act rationally, but assuming rationality creates the most accurate predictive models?


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In some fields, certainly. In decision theory, certainly not.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

I hoped this thread would be about Tipping [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

Freakonomics doesn't give all the details but the abortion argument is about the crime rate dropping for the whole country. Some of the better things supporting it:

Crime rates dropping earlier in states that allowed abortions earlier.

The states with the highest abortion rates had the greatest drops in crime rates during this period.

In states with the highest abortion rates the decline in crime was only in crimes committed by youths. Older people committed crimes at the same rates as before the drop in crime.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

I've seen that drop in crime attributed to everything from abortions to banning leaded gasoline. The leaded gasoline one was actually pretty interesting, since they added some biochemical data about lead poisoning promoting violence in people.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Isn't it basically a footnote of economics that people often don't act rationally, but assuming rationality creates the most accurate predictive models?


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In some fields, certainly. In decision theory, certainly not.

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Probably true, but basing laws and policies off irrational behavior assumes that people are idiots and don't know what they want, which is pretty insulting to the sovereign of our nation.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

I am reading The Tipping Point right now (well not right now) but I read the relevant chapter last night and had a long discussion with my gf about it. Basically the conclusion we reached was that you cannot isolate social change to one variable.

Was it abortions? Was it cracking down on petty crime? In reality it was most likely both, but I'm not entirely sure that you could 'prove' that. I've seen theoretical models where seemingly inocuous changes have huge results. So at least theoretically it makes sense that you could apply this to social situations. Of course that last part is my own mental derailment while reading 'The Tipping Point' about whether or not human behavior could ever be fully described mathematically.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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but basing laws and policies off irrational behavior assumes that people are idiots and don't know what they want

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I disagree with this strongly. The term rational as applied to economics is extremely limiting and assumes that people simply try to maximise their material gain while [censored] everyone else over in a heartbeat. Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

Also economists basically assume that people have unlimited processing power to apply to any problem. The fact that when I have 50 brands of toothpaste to choose from I pick one at random doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I'd be an idiot if I tried to make the best decision.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Was it abortions? Was it cracking down on petty crime? In reality it was most likely both, but I'm not entirely sure that you could 'prove' that.

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The thing is, crime fell *everywhere* in the US, not just in cities/states that made huge efforts in cracking down on petty crime. While not every city/state cracked down on crime in the 90's, all states had lived with legalized abortions for the previous 20 years.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

The main problem with the freakonomics idea is that the author is suggesting that correlation leads to causation.

His paper has been peer reviewed, and a lot of his theories on abortion rates affecting crime rates have been put into question.

I believe the author has also conducted a lot more research into his idea after the publication of the book and has come to some newer conclusions. But it has been a couple years since I researched what those were.

Either way, both of these books are a very entertaining read, and provide a pretty easy to grasp simple overview of economics and psychology.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Isn't it basically a footnote of economics that people often don't act rationally, but assuming rationality creates the most accurate predictive models?

[/ QUOTE ]

i'm not an expert on economics, so i won't dispute this claim... but when you exit the realm of economics and start looking at human behavior and psychology, assuming rationality is a serious error at times.

where crime falls on that spectrum is debatable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Economics can be defined as the study of rational behavior.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

Whenever I see this discussed I recommend this bok that was written by my favorite prof.

http://tinyurl.com/2bodmm

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

With no knowledge of either book...

The biggest factor for the crime rate tends to be the size of the male population aged 19-25. That I gues supports the abortion theory, but I kinda doubt there were enough to actaully swing things.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

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why is it so hard for people to understand that care for other people's utility can simply and easily be factored into your own utility? you don't have to treat them separately.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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The biggest factor for the crime rate tends to be the size of the male population aged 19-25.

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That seems to me to be a textbook example of confounding factors. Its not like being 22 pushes one towards crime.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

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why is it so hard for people to understand that care for other people's utility can simply and easily be factored into your own utility? you don't have to treat them separately.

[/ QUOTE ]

In principle it can, in practise it is not in normative economics, and creating mathematical models where it is is a massive challenge.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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[ QUOTE ]
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Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

[/ QUOTE ]

why is it so hard for people to understand that care for other people's utility can simply and easily be factored into your own utility? you don't have to treat them separately.

[/ QUOTE ]

In principle it can, in practise it is not in normative economics, and creating mathematical models where it is is a massive challenge.

[/ QUOTE ]

no semantics arguments in OOT for me. (he said irrational behavior not incomplete models).

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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The biggest factor for the crime rate tends to be the size of the male population aged 19-25.

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That seems to me to be a textbook example of confounding factors. Its not like being 22 pushes one towards crime.

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No, it's just that most crime is committed by this group and that if there's more of them, more crime.

Not rocket science really.

Also I'm pretty sure poverty is a huge indicator as well. No idea how that factors into all of them. It's been a long time since college.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

[/ QUOTE ]

why is it so hard for people to understand that care for other people's utility can simply and easily be factored into your own utility? you don't have to treat them separately.

[/ QUOTE ]

In principle it can, in practise it is not in normative economics, and creating mathematical models where it is is a massive challenge.

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5-year plan, anybody? I've read neither book, but the first thing I learned in Intro to Econ was that "these models apply only in theory."

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

[/ QUOTE ]

why is it so hard for people to understand that care for other people's utility can simply and easily be factored into your own utility? you don't have to treat them separately.

[/ QUOTE ]

In principle it can, in practise it is not in normative economics, and creating mathematical models where it is is a massive challenge.

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no semantics arguments in OOT for me. (he said irrational behavior not incomplete models).

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His post implied 'irrational' in the economic sense, which typically means contrary to the concept of rationality presented in normative economics. If that was not his intention then I misunderstood, though I probably still disagree. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

[/ QUOTE ]

why is it so hard for people to understand that care for other people's utility can simply and easily be factored into your own utility? you don't have to treat them separately.

[/ QUOTE ]

In principle it can, in practise it is not in normative economics, and creating mathematical models where it is is a massive challenge.

[/ QUOTE ]

no semantics arguments in OOT for me. (he said irrational behavior not incomplete models).

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His post implied 'irrational' in the economic sense, which typically means contrary to the concept of rationality presented in normative economics. If that was not his intention then I misunderstood, though I probably still disagree. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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i should have just said "i dont think empathy has anything to do with this thread" and left it at that. that way at least i would have known what i was arguing about.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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The biggest factor for the crime rate tends to be the size of the male population aged 19-25.

[/ QUOTE ]
That seems to me to be a textbook example of confounding factors. Its not like being 22 pushes one towards crime.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it's just that most crime is committed by this group and that if there's more of them, more crime.

Not rocket science really.

Also I'm pretty sure poverty is a huge indicator as well. No idea how that factors into all of them. It's been a long time since college.

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The explanation offered is that the subset of 19-25 year old boys who would have been born if not for abortion (more likely to be poor and unwanted) were much more likely to be criminals.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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I disagree with this strongly. The term rational as applied to economics is extremely limiting and assumes that people simply try to maximise their material gain while [censored] everyone else over in a heartbeat. Assuming that people have qualities like compassion, decency, solidarity, self-sacrifice, etc. is not treating them like idiots.

Also economists basically assume that people have unlimited processing power to apply to any problem. The fact that when I have 50 brands of toothpaste to choose from I pick one at random doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I'd be an idiot if I tried to make the best decision.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think rational in economics is any decision a person makes to try to maximize their happiness. This can include doing things to help other people. In the economics sense an irrational decision is an oxymoron.

I don't think economists assume unlimited processing power. Opportunity cost is probably one of the most important and simple ideas in economics. That is why you don't sit there pondering which is the best toothpaste forever. Somebody else could probably explain this better since I am bad at making points in text form.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

pwnsall,

No, you did it pretty well.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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I think rational in economics is any decision a person makes to try to maximize their happiness. This can include doing things to help other people. In the economics sense an irrational decision is an oxymoron.

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The main problem I have with this is that if you loosen your definitions that far, allowing utility to be defined purely by whatever value judgments people make, you are not left with a discipline that has any predictive power. And without that economics is fundamentally uninteresting imo.

I can also construct situations where even this broad a concept of maximizing utility gives 'bad' results, though. Take a happy guy who has a pretty decent life. He's put in a situation where he can save 50 strangers, but at the cost of his own life. Some people will do this. It clearly doesn't maximize their happiness because the guilt isn't going to last for too long, life goes on, and they likely know this. They do it because they believe in something higher than themselves. I have a problem with calling that irrational or 'idiotic'.

I like economics and I think it's interesting, but on the whole I don't think that 'maximizing EV' is a good theory of human behaviour. And I don't accept Kyleb's negative portrayal of that as something that's 'wrong' with people.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

Re: Rational behavior and predictive models.

A single, individual person will not always follow the path a predictive model using rational assumptions says he will. Sometimes an individual will not respond to incentives the way you think he will (and after all, the fundamental point of economics is that people respond to incentives, amirite?).

HOWEVER

When studying large groups, almost always you can use the predictive power and rational assumptions. If taxes on cigars are raised, not every single person will buy fewer cigars, but the population as a whole will for sure buy fewer cigars (all other things equal). The laws of statistics help us out here. One outlier may ignore the tax, but a group of 500,000 is so unlikely to ignore the tax that we can effectively ignore the possibility, the same way we can ignore the possibility of a comet hitting us in the head. It ain't gonna happen.

So when talking about 1.6 million abortions a year, we can be pretty sure it had an effect, given that these abortions were concentrated in households more likely to produce criminals.

Rationality is a tricky assumption, but when talking about large numbers and large groups, it's much safer to say the group will act rationally and respond to incentives.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

Has anyone here become pro-choice after reading this book or hearing this theory?

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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Rationality is a tricky assumption, but when talking about large numbers and large groups, it's much safer to say the group will act rationally and respond to incentives.

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I can easily find counterexamples to this tho. IIRC when the US started paying for blood, both the frequency of donoations and the quality of blood went down and stayed there.

I do take your point about groups behaving more in line with normative assumptions than individuals. However there will be exceptions, either because the theory fails or because people have inadequate information. I think it's better to realize this and adapt to it than to dismiss it as people being idiots and work as if the theory were true.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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The main problem I have with this is that if you loosen your definitions that far, allowing utility to be defined purely by whatever value judgments people make, you are not left with a discipline that has any predictive power. And without that economics is fundamentally uninteresting imo.

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This is a great paragraph. I think many economists use this same reasoning for their complex analysis even tho the simpler answers are much better. Economics really isn't too tough. Occam's razor.

Back on topic, was it actually shown that the number of births were reduced by abortions? I always thought it was possible if abortions are legal there would just be a lot more pregnancies so the affect may not be what one would expect.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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I can easily find counterexamples to this tho. IIRC when the US started paying for blood, both the frequency of donoations and the quality of blood went down and stayed there. [ QUOTE ]


There's nothing inherently irrational about this. Read the Freakonomics chapter on the Israeli day-care centers for a similar example. Non-financial incentives can sometimes trump financial ones.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

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I can easily find counterexamples to this tho. IIRC when the US started paying for blood, both the frequency of donoations and the quality of blood went down and stayed there.

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There's nothing inherently irrational about this. Read the Freakonomics chapter on the Israeli day-care centers for a similar example. Non-financial incentives can sometimes trump financial ones.

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I agree. If you read the thread again that's actually the point I've been making. It is however contrary to the concept of rational behaviour in normative economics, which Danny was defending and I was arguing is flawed.

Re: The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime
 

My big problem with all of these theories is they fail to take into account natural cultural maturation. The black communities (let's be honest what we're talking about here) in all the major cities in the country have steadily growing up out of a fairly chaotic situation since the great migration to cities from the rural south. It only makes sense that the situation will become more stable over time.

Another cultural maturation is racial relations. Which no matter what anyone says are improving all the time as more and more communities become integrated, and more and more blacks make it to the middle class. And stuff like the Rodney King riots make everyone take a step back and reflect on how to avoid a repeat.

Also common sense suggests to me the stabilization of the crack situation is the biggest single contributor to this particular crime drop. Crack hit NYC hard in the mid 80s. You have crackheads going nuts and gangsters fighting over new turf and distribution channels. By the 90s most of the crackheads are dead, in jail or reformed, and the stream of new crackheads coming online is nothing compared to the 80s. And the gangsters have established turf and distribution.

And finally didn't the economy improve a ton by the mid 90s? And hasn't this been historically the single biggest factor in crime levels?