Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't by John Jr. (books that read to you TXT) 📕

for better bedside manner fulfills Melnick’s mission,” Physician Executive, July-August 2004 (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0843/is_4_30/ai_n6133525) and Anthony M. Alleman and Al F. Al-Assaf, “Have you Wondered About Your Colleague’s Surgical Skills?” American Journal of Medical Quality (March/April 2005): 78-82 (http://ajm.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/20/2/78.pdf).

70 This also explains why the length of the time requirements gradually increase over time. As a profession’s overall quality falls, professionals keep expanding school requirements in order to discourage increasing numbers of ambitious aspirants from joining the profession. As the quality of existing professionals declines, hardworking, ambitious students become more serious threats as potential competitors in the field. Of course, testing also plays an important role by maintaining a floor on the quality of entrants. Professions may run into trouble if the quality of new entrants declines too much.

71 This discussion is based upon Robert G. Hansen and John R. Lott, Jr., “Regulating Indoor Air Quality: The Economist’s View,” The EPA Journal, vol. 19, no. 4 (October-December, 1993): 30-31.

72 Http://miltonfriedman.blogspot.com.

Chapter Four: Crime and Punishment

1 Robert E. McCormick and Robert D. Tollison, “Crime on the Court,” Journal of Political Economy 1984, 223-235.

2 The original work on this point was done by Brian Goff, William Shughart, and Robert Tollison, “Batter Up!: Moral Hazard and the effects of the designated hitter rule on hit batsmen,” Economic Inquiry, July 1997. See also John C. Bradbury and Douglas J. Drinen, “Crime and Punishment in Major League Baseball.” Economic Inquiry, 2007.

3 Michael E. Staten and John Umbeck, “Information Costs and Incentives to Shirk: Disability Compensation of Air Traffic Controllers,” American Economic Review, December 1982, 1023-1037.

4 Larry L. Bailey, David J. Schroeder, and Julia Pounds, “The Air Traffic Control Operation Error Severity Index: An Initial Evaluation,” U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, April 2005. Http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/2000s/media/0505.pdf.. See also Staten and Umbeck, “Information Costs,” 1034-1035. The “Operation Error Severity Index” is based on a number of factors: vertical and horizontal separation distances, relative flight paths, cumulative closure rates, as well as the air traffic controller’s awareness of the problem. If controllers want to increase their error rate without actually causing more accidents, errors should occur during relatively light traffic volumes, not primarily when the controller is “overloaded.” And indeed, Staten and Umbeck cite evidence for this.

5 Eric Ferkenhoff, Darnell Little and David Mendell, “Murders in Illinois jump by 10%,” Chicago Tribune, June 30, 2002, C1.

6 The data were obtained from the FBI UCR data: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm.

7 Lynette Clemetson, “The Gospel According to John,” Newsweek, February 12, 2001, 25.

8 Valerie Pottie Bunge, Holly Johnson, and Theirno Balde, “Exploring Crime Patterns in Canada,” Crime and Justice Research Paper Series, Statistics Canada, Ministry of Industry, 2005. Canada had a smaller percentage drop in its murder rate than did America in the 1990s, but it already had a lower murder rate when the decade began. Canada registered a lower murder rate despite the fact that its overall violent crime rate, surprisingly, is about 50 percent greater than America’s. The International Crime Victimization Survey, http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/pdf_files/key2000i/app4.pdf.

9 The information for these figures was obtained from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/viortrdtab.htm, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/proptrdtab.htm, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dtdata.htm#crime, and http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm. The reported crime rate is obtained by dividing the number of crimes reported to police departments by the National Crime Victimization Survey that indicates the number of crimes people reported to the pollsters. The arrest rate is obtained by dividing the number of arrests by the National Crime Victimization Survey that indicates the number of crimes people reported to the pollsters.

10 FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, September 2006. Http://0-www.fbi.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org/ucr/05cius/data/table_07.html.

11 To understand the magnitude of this change, consider this: if the rate of reporting of violent crimes had remained constant after 1999, the violent crime rate in 2005 would have been 390 per 100,000 people, not 469. Since nearly all murders are reported, this adjustment also implies that the overall violent crime rate has fallen more than the murder rate since 1991.

12 “Findings,” Washington Post, November 22, 2006.

13 “2006 Program Seeks to Fight Poverty by Building Family Ties,” New York Times, July 20, 2006.

14 Levitt and Dubner, Freakonomics, 137-144 revised edition 2006, 129.

15 Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: MacMillan Publishers, 1970).

16 Rockefeller Commission, “Report of the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future” presented to the President and Congress in March of 1972. Http://www.population-security.org/rockefeller/011_human_reproduction.htm.

17 Hans Forssman and Inga Thuwe, “One hundred and twenty children born after application for therapeutic abortion refused,” Acta Psychiat. Scand., 1966, 71-78.

18 Henry Morgentaler, “Message from Henry,” 1998. Online document available at: http://prochoice.about.com/newissues/prochoice/gi/dynamic/offiste.htm?sitehttp://www.morgentaler.ca.

19 Henry Morgantaler made this claim in the late 1960s. By 1979, opinion surveys showed that 61 percent of Americans believed that “many unwanted children end up being subject to child abuse, and it’s a mistake to force unwanted children to be born.” Roper Center at University of Connecticut Public Opinion Online, survey done from Februrary 8, 1979 to February 12, 1979.

20 David M. Alpern, “Abortion and the Law,” Newsweek, March 3, 1975.

21 John Donohue and Steven Levitt, “The Impact of Legalizing Abortion on Crime Rates,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, (2001): 379-420.

22 These were Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, and Washington.

23 John Donohue and Steven Levitt, “Further Evidence that Legalizing Abortion Lowered Crime: A Reply to Joyce,” Journal of Human Resources (2004): 29-49. See also Ted Joyce, “Did Legalizing Abortion Lower Crime?” Journal of Human Resources (2004): 1-28.

24 The data comes from the Centers for Disease Control. See Abortion Surveillance: Preliminary Analysis—United States, 1996, CDC, December 4, 1998, 1025-1028.

25 John R. Lott, Jr. and John Whitley, “Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births,” Economic Inquiry, Advanced Access June 29, 2006, 3. Donohue and Levitt do examine the relevant CDC data for a few of their estimates that use their aggregate