Working Paper: NBER ID: w26024
Authors: Randi Hjalmarsson; Andreea Mitrut; Cristian Popeleches
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; Romania; policy; socioeconomic outcomes
JEL Codes: J13; K42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Abolition of abortion in 1966 (J13) | Increase in number of births (J13) |
| Increase in number of births (J13) | Increase in crime levels (K42) |
| Legalization of abortion in 1989 (J13) | Decrease in number of births (J11) |
| Decrease in number of births (J11) | Decrease in crime levels (K42) |
| Cohort size (C92) | Crime levels (K42) |
| Cohort size (C92) | Crime rates (K42) |
| Abortion reforms (J13) | Socio-economic characteristics of cohorts (J11) |