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This paper examines the relationship between the legalization of abortion and subsequent decreases in crime. In a current study, researchers estimate that the legalization of abortion explains over half of the recent decline in national crime rates. The association is identified by correlating changes in crime with changes in the abortion ratio weighted by the proportion of the criminal population exposed to legalized abortion. In this paper, I use an alternative identification strategy. I analyze changes in homicide and arrest rates among teens and young adults born before and after 1970 in states that legalized abortion prior to Roe v. Wade. I compare these changes with variation in homicide and arrest rates among cohorts from the same period but who were unexposed to legalized abortion. I find little evidence to support the claim that legalized abortion caused the reduction in crime. I conclude that the association between abortion and crime is not causal, but most likely the result of confounding from unmeasured period effects such as changes in crack cocaine use and its spillover effects.

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The 'Illegitimacy Bonus,' part of 1996 welfare reform legislation, awarded $100 million in each of five years to the five states with the greatest reduction in the nonmarital birth ratio. Three states -- Alabama, Michigan, and Washington DC -- won bonuses four or more times each, claiming nearly 60% of award monies. However, in none of these three states was the decline in the nonmarital birth ratio linked to increases in proportions married, and only in Michigan was it linked to declines in nonmarital (relative to marital) fertility within demographic groups, behavioral changes that the Illegitimacy Bonus was presumably intended to reward. Shifts in the racial composition of births accounted for 1/3 (Michigan), 2/3 (DC) or all (Alabama) of the decline in the nonmarital birth ratio. The non-marital birth ratio fell most in DC, averaging 1.5 percentage points per year over the award period. However, the number of black children born in DC fell by nearly one half from 1991 to 2001. Changes in population composition alone primarily a decline in the number of black women aged 15 to 34 can account for the entire decline in the nonmarital birth ratio in DC between 1990 and 2000.

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As part of welfare reform efforts in the 1990s, twenty-three states implemented family caps, provisions that deny or reduce cash assistance to welfare recipients who have additional births. We use birth and abortion records from 24 states to estimate effects of family caps on birth and abortion rates. We use age, marital status and completed schooling to identify women at high risk for use of public assistance, and parity (number of previous live births) to identify those most directly affected by the family cap. In family cap states, birth rates fell more and abortion rates rose more among high-risk women with at least one previous live birth compared to similar childless women, consistent with an effect of the family cap. However, this parity-specific pattern of births and abortions also occurred in states that implemented welfare reform with no family cap. Thus, the effects of welfare reform may have differed between mothers and childless women, but there is little evidence of an independent effect of the family cap.

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This collection of Michael Grossman's most important papers adds essential background and depth to his work on economic determinants of public health. Each of the book's four sections includes an introduction that contextualizes the issues and addresses the larger stakes of his work. An afterword discusses the significance of Grossman's approach for subsequent research on health economics, as well as the work others have done to advance and extend his innovative perspective.Determinants of Health explains how the economic choices people make influence health and health behaviors. It begins with a section on the theoretical underpinnings and empirical results of Grossman's groundbreaking health economics model, first introduced in the 1970s, followed by essays on the relationship between health and schooling; determinants of infant health, with a special emphasis on public policies and programs; and the economics of unhealthy behaviors. Grossman treats health as a form of human capital. He shows that public policies and programs that determine the price and availability of key inputs have critical effects on outcomes ranging from birth weight and infant mortality to cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, illegal drug use, and obesity. Grossman's approach has led to a major stream of literature in the field, sparking contributions by the world's leading health economists, including Joseph Newhouse, Jonathan Gruber, Amy Finkelstein, Michael Greenstone, and David Cutler. His clarity on the role that economics play in people's good and bad health choices is immensely valuable to the debate over how we legislate and spend on health.

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