If there is one thing John Donahue loves, it's a good academic fight.

A Stanford professor with an economics PhD from Yale and a law degree from Harvard, Donahue

spent his career locked in fractious academic debates that have sometimes run for decades.

The topic of guns is one controversial subject in which he has both researched extensively

and served frequently as an expert witness.

The death penalty is another debate.

And then of course, it's my own joint work with John Donahue on the impact of legalized

abortion on crime.

Welcome to People I Mostly Admire with Steve Levitt.

But you know what's kind of crazy?

Since we've always lived in different cities, I would guess I've only seen John in person

about ten, maybe fifteen times.

So talking to John today, it's actually a rare treat for me.

And when we are together, we're always so focused on our joint work on abortion and crime

that we've barely spoken about all the thinking he's done on guns and the death penalty.

So those two topics are the perfect place to start our conversation today.

I'm glad that we are friends and co-authors because I would not want to be caught in your

crosshairs when it comes to an academic fight.

Yeah, I tend to want to get to the bottom of things.

Certainly, there have been a lot of battles over the years where I think I mainly come

out on top.

So I feel good about that.

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