Steven Levitt is an American economist. He graduated from Harvard University in 1989, received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1994 and is currently (2005) a member of faculty in University of Chicago.

Steven Levitt is known as a prolific author of research papers on various topics, not all closely connected to traditional economics. He is an empirical researcher whose interests span also politics, sociology and law. Some usual subjects for Levitt are crime, abortion and sports. For example, his An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances (2000) analyses a hand-written "accounting" of a criminal gang, and draws conclusions about the income distribution between gang members. His most controversial paper is The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime (2001).

He won the John Bates Clark Medal in 2003.

See also: Legalized abortion and crime effect

Selected works

• The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime. Quarterly Journal of Economics, v116, n2 (May 2001): 379-420. (with John Donohue)
• An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances. Quarterly Journal of Economics 115 (August 2000): 755-789. (with Sudhir Venkatesh).
• Winning isn't Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling. American Economic Review. (with Mark Duggan).
• The Effect of Prison Population Size on Crime Rates: Evidence from Prison Overcrowding Litigation. 1996. Quarterly Journal of Economics 111:319-352.

External link

• Prof. Levitt's Home Page at the University of Chicago