One that I found is the "leaded gas causes violent crime".

You've probably seen graphs of leaded gas sales and violent crime overlaid and wow it's a perfect fit delayed by like one generation. Amazing, right!

Well, the graphs start at like 1950 or sometime recent like that. Was looking for crime rates from other eras and noticed violent crime rate in the early 1900s (before leaded gas) was at least as high as "peak lead" violence. From memory, pretty sure the violence predated prohibition. What was causing all that crime back then?

I suspect that the lead-violence correlation is just a proxy for how the overall economy was doing.

This was when I found out that rate of lynchings by race in OK back in the 1800s was almost exactly today's murder rate by race. It seems a certain demographic has always been driving the violent crime rate, and I'm quite sure Freakonomics didn't consider that as an alternative to leaded gas.

One that I found is the "leaded gas causes violent crime".

You've probably seen graph of leaded gas sales and violent crime overlaid and wow it's a perfect fit delayed by like one generation. Amazing, right!

Well, the graphs start at like 1950 or sometime recent like that. Was looking for crime rates from other eras and noticed violent crime rate in the early 1900s (before leaded gas) was at least as high as "peak lead" violence. From memory, pretty sure the violence predated prohibition. What was causing all that crime back then?

I suspect that the lead-violence correlation is just a proxy for how the overall economy was doing.

This was when I found out that rate of lynchings by race in OK back in the 1800s was almost exactly today's murder rate by race. It seems a certain demographic has always been driving the violent crime rate, and I'm quite sure Freakonomics didn't consider that as an alternative to leaded gas.