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A fascinating story in the NY Times recently details a new theory put forward by Amherst College economist, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, which basically traces how the elimination of lead has led to a decline in the crime rate. It starts out:

Has the Clean Air Act done more to fight crime than any other policy in American history?

After moving out of an old townhouse in Boston when her first child was born in 2000, Reyes started looking into the effects of lead poisoning. She learned that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive. She also discovered that the main source of lead in the air and water had not been paint but rather leaded gasoline - until it was phased out in the 1970s and '80s by the Clean Air Act, which took blood levels of lead for all Americans down to a fraction of what they had been. "Putting the two together," she says, "it seemed that this big change in people's exposure to lead might have led to some big changes in behavior."

Steven Levitt commented on this study back in July in his "Freakanomics" blog - a must read, as well...

Check out the entire article...it makes you wonder what other kinds of connections are lurking out there, waiting to be discovered.

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