Great Performance !

In Levitt’s abortion paper, published in 2001, he and his co-author John Donohue warned that their findings “should not be misinterpreted as either an endorsement of abortion or a call for intervention by the state in the fertility decisions of women.” They even suggested that crime might just as easily be curbed by “providing better environments for those children at greatest risk for future crime.”

Still, the very topic managed to offend just about everyone. Conservatives were enraged that abortion could be construed as a crime-fighting tool. Liberals were aghast that poor and black women were singled out. Economists grumbled that Levitt’s methodology was not sound. As the media gorged on the abortion-crime story, Levitt came under direct assault. He was called an ideologue (by conservatives and liberals alike), a eugenicist, a racist, and downright evil.

In reality, he seems to be very much none of those. He has little taste for politics and even less for moralizing. He is genial, low-key and unflappable, confident but not cocky. He speaks with a considerable lisp. His appearance is High Nerd: a plaid button-down shirt, nondescript khakis and a braided belt, brown sensible shoes. His pocket calendar is branded with the National Bureau of Economic Research logo. “I wish he would get more than three haircuts a year,” says his wife, Jeannette, “and that he wasn’t still wearing the same glasses he got fifteen years ago, which weren’t even in fashion then.” He was a good golfer in high school but has so physically atrophied that he calls himself “the weakest human being alive” and asks Jeannette to open jars around the house.

There is nothing in his appearance or manner, in other words, that suggests a flamethrower.

—THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, AUGUST 3, 2003

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Taken From : FREAKONOMICS - A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything