Isabella Lajara
Professor Polen
Microeconomics
December 3, 2018
Chapter 4 – Where Have All the Criminals Gone?
In economic term, what was Nicolae Ceausescu’s rationale for banning abortion in Romania, i.e., how did he see banning abortion benefitting the Romanian economy?
Nicholae Ceausescu’s rationale for banning abortion in Romania is to achieve his goal of boosting Romania's population in order for Romania to strengthen quickly (106). He saw banning the abortion benefitting the Romanian economy by allowing it to increase.
Describe the incentives Ceausescu used to increase the birth rate of Romania.Were these incentives effective? Explain.
The incentives Ceausescu used to increase the birth rate of Romania is by taxing women who repeatedly failed their pregnancy test who were working. They were forced to pay “ celibacy tax ”. Sex education was banned as well as all contraceptives. Overnight adoptions were forbidden unless the woman had already four children and had a significant part in the communist party. These incentives were effective because the Romanian birth rate doubled within one year of the abortion ban (106).
As a result of Ceausescu's policies, what happened to the average quality of life in Romania? Provide an economic explanation for the change that occured.
The average quality of life in Romania decreased because romanians lived a miserable life. The increase of population caused less success in the labor market. Meaning that the increase of the population didn’t help increase other factors such as labor, resources etc causing the abortion ban to fail.
Describe the general behavior of the crime rate in the United States between 1970 and 1999, i.e., indicate whether it was increasing or decreasing from year to year.
The general behavior of the crime rate in the United States between 1970 and 1999 had increased by 80 percent. The crime rate started to decrease in the 1990s and it took some time for criminologist to detect that this was occuring (107). The crime rate had fallen back to the level it was forty years prior (108).
Explain how competition among crack dealers contributed to the decrease in crime that occured in the 1990s and Competition and economic profit.
The competition among crack dealers contributed to the decrease in crime that occured in the 1990s. The price of cocaine was decreasing as crack became more popular. Dealers would lower their prices as they saw their competitors doing the same. This resulted in dealers not making profit (122). The small profit made dealers notice that it wasn’t worth it being in the business. This cause crime to decrease by 15 percent (123).
Explain how the effect on economic profit due to the competition among crack dealers.
The effect on economic profit due to the competition among crack dealers cause a 15 percent decrease in crime. Economic profit started to decrease because competition was increasing causing dealers to decrease their prices. Also dealers instead shot their enemies instead of murdering them because it was a less severe than murder. There is still violent acts associated with crack but less than what there were before (123).
What rationale do some criminologist offer for the argument that imprisonment rates should be lowered as part of the effort to reduce crime in the U.S.? Was their logic sound? If not, what fallacy did they commit?
The argument that criminologist offer about imprisonment rates is that they are high when there is a high crime rate. When there are low imprisonment rates crime levels are low (111). This is called the “Moratorium” argument where the government has to pay $25,000 a year to keep someone in prison (112). This is not logical because when there is high imprisonment rate the has to pay a lot of money in order to keep criminals behind bars.
What does the available evidence have to say about whether increased reliance on capital punishment is a viable explanation for the drop in crime in the 1990s?
Capital punishment is executing a criminal as their punishment. The increase reliance on capital punishment has lead crime to decrease. This lead to criminals being off the streets which results in prisoners not commiting more crimes since they were stuck in prison.
Many observers maintained that the drop in crime in the 1990s was a least in part due to the adoption of innovative policing strategies. Focus on the experience in New York, what do data tell us about the likelihood of this assertion? Should we then conclude that smart policing is not a good thing? Why or why not?
Smart policing is a good thing because in between 1990 and 2000 homicide rates decreased by 73.6 percent in just 10 years (116). The NYPD grew 45 percent between the 1991 and 2001 which lead crime to decrease 18 percent in New York compared to the national average (117). After New York resulted in a decrease in crime in such a short period of time other states also had a decrease in crime. This shows that smart policing is a good thing because it caused a change regarding crime throughout the entire nation.
Did the “graying of America” help to bring down the crime rate in the 1990s? Why or why not?
The “graying of America” did not helped bring down the crime rate. Although the major population growth was among elders and they don’t commit crimes as much as the younger population but that didn’t result in less crime.
“ But a thorough look at the data reveals that the graying of america did nothing to bring down crime in the 1990s. Demographic change is too slow and a subtle process— you don’t graduate from hoodlum to senior citizen in just a few years— to even begin to explain the suddenness of the crime decline” (124).
Summarize the argument by Donahue and Levitt regarding the relationship between the drop in crime in the 1990s and the legalization of abortion as a result of Roe v. Wade. Your summary should focus on such factors as the characteristics of the average criminal (e.g., average age, home life), what happen in the states that legalized abortion prior to the decision in Roe v. Wade, and the type of woman who is likely to take advantage of Roe v. Wade.
The average criminal were children who were resented as a baby and lived in bad home. This is a result of a denied abortion. “Even when controlling for the income, age, education, and health of the mother, the researchers found that these children too were more likely to become criminals” (124). To add on, children who grew up in poverty and raised by a single-parent were also likely to become criminals. In the states where abortion was legalized prior to the decision of Row v. Wade 13 percent of crime had decrease in those states that abortion was legalized compared to other states between 1994 and 1997. Also the percent of murder decreased by 23 percent compared to other states (128). The women who would take advantage of Roe v. Wade were usually unmarried, teens or poor and could be all three. These women believed that they weren’t cable of providing a child a home environment as well as raising a healthy child (126).