Freakonomics Rev Ed: (and Other Riddles of Modern Life) |  | Authors: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Category: eBooks
In Stock
Rating:  1798 reviews
Sales Rank: 445
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: Revised & Expand, Roughcut
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 330
ASIN: B000MAH66Y
Publication Date: October 17, 2006
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Amazon.com Review
Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe
Product Description
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 1798
 An Entertaining Lesson on Breaking Out of the Mold May 6, 2005
M. JEFFREY MCMAHON (Torrance, CA USA)
101 out of 109 found this review helpful
This book succeeds at analyzing sociological developments in a way that is entertaining because Steven Levitt, an economist who strays from convention, has a knack for unpeeling layers and layers of assumptions and myth and showing the real causes behind trends. He shows, to name some examples, how our names affect our career paths; how abortion and the crime rate are related; how a man used his cunning to humiliate the Klu Klux Klan rather than rely on conventional methods; how easy it is to identify the role of public school teachers when they help their students cheat on standardized tests; why drug dealing is only lucrative for the dealers at the top of the pyramid; the myth that real estate agents are looking for our best interests.
The book, co-authored by Stephen J. Dubner, is breezy and anecdotal, which is an effective format for presenting a lot of sociological trends without being dry or losing the scintillating reportage in dense prose.
The lesson of this book is that we should be leery of trusting society's common assumptions or common wisdom. In other words, the book encourages us to keep our mind alert and break out of the mold in the way we see things. By looking at social trends with a fresh eye, the book succeeds at making economic trends a fun, adventurous endeavor.
If I were to criticize the book, it would be that it is too short. It's barely 200 pages and if you take out the blank chapter pages, the charts, the lists, and so on, it's really closer to 150 pages. Because the material is so current and topical, the method of "freakonomics" presented here would make a good format for a monthly magazine. My guess is that there will be many sequels.
The Power of Data in a Master Economist's Hands April 16, 2005
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
85 out of 96 found this review helpful
Having myself survived the economics program at the University of Chicago as a young graduate student twenty years ago, I know how decidedly eccentric their laurelled scholars can be. One of the most prestigious of the current crop there, Steven D. Levitt, along with journalist Stephen J. Dubner, has written a most intriguing and mind-bending book that uses Chicago-style econometric approaches and applies those to social and political issues that otherwise seem mundane and have no apparent basis in coherent theory which would support the behavior under study. In fact, this book of compelling case studies bears similarities to the approach taken by author Malcolm Gladwell in his recent best-selling book, "The Tipping Point", where he takes primarily historical events and analyzes them almost anecdotally as exercises in human behavior, in his case, making connections and how ideas become trends not by gradual insinuation but by a singular dramatic moment.
But Levitt's canvas is broader, his theories and findings are far more diverse, and his approach is far more quantitative in nature. For example, he challenges the perception that campaign spending determines elections. Levitt's analysis takes a fresh look by contrasting races in which the same two congressional candidates run repeatedly against each other. What he concludes is that a winning candidate can spend half as much as before and lose only one percent of the vote, while a losing candidate who doubles campaign spending picks up only one percent more. Basically they prove that no matter how much candidates spend on their campaigns, the results would not be marginally affected. In another example, the authors describe a seller's real estate agent, who lives on commission and has an incentive to sell a listed home for maximum dollar. Again, this is a misconception since the authors contend the small financial reward to an agent who sells a home for a few thousand more dollars is dwarfed by the greater money to be made by selling properties for less but quicker. Levitt's research into the sale of one hundred thousand Chicago homes found that agents keep their own homes on the market an average of ten days longer and sell them for more than three percent more than the homes they list and sell for clients.
The penetrating analyses provided by Levitt appear to have no bounds as he identifies Chicago teachers, who were proven to be changing their students' test answers and ultimately fired for their actions; sumo wrestlers who were found to be cheating as well; and even the alternative and more lucrative career options that crack dealers may have at McDonald's versus making sales. He even questions the impact of a good first name in a person's later life and if children become more literate if their parents read to them. The conclusions surprised me as they will you. But the most compelling study he presents is related to the impact of Roe vs. Wade. In a study he conducted with Stanford law Professor John Donohue, Levitt makes a seemingly broad-stroked conclusion in attributing much of the drop in the U.S. crime rate to legalized abortion. Their argument was based on the theory that abortion prevented the births of unwanted children who otherwise would have been statistically more likely to mature into criminals. The crime rate drop coincided with the time those aborted pregnancies would otherwise have hit their teen years, and the trend showed up earlier in states such as California that were the first to enact more liberal access to abortions. Through the data they gather, the correlation is startling, and the conclusion is hard to refute despite the naysayers who felt the stuffy to be politically motivated. But to Levitt's academically inclined credit, he never seems like he has an ideological agenda as he lets the numbers do the talking for him. His genius is to take those seemingly meaningless sets of numbers, ferret out the telltale pattern and recognize what it all means. A brilliant mind is at work, as he takes the most mundane open-ended questions and actually answers them. Strongly recommended.
Thoroughly engrossing! August 23, 2006
Sheetal Bahl (New Delhi, India)
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Disclaimer: given the number of reviews already available, this one is not going to describe the contents of the book, cite specific examples, or go into any great level of detail. My objective here is just to share my point that irrespective of the quality or accuracy of the content of the book (although personally I have no complaints on that front), this is a book definitely worth spending time on. A good testimony to that is the high frequency of reviews of this book, even though all of them are not favourable.
So on to the quick summary: Freakonomics is less of a novel and more of a collection of quasi-scientific articles linked by the unconventional methods, or rather explorations, of a brilliant thinker - Levitt. Levitt's ideas, experiments and conclusions have been deservedly converted into a lucid and gripping narrative by Dubner. Levitt's answers to unconventional questions are genuinely eye-opening; forcing one to think long after the book has been put down.
In short, a very good read.
What you want out of a non-fiction book: Tons of interesting facts. August 13, 2006
Crag Talent (USA)
25 out of 27 found this review helpful
If I could i'd give this a 4.5 stars. It would lost half a star for its sometimes annoying writing style. The style isn't bad, but it isn't great and the recurring rhetorical questions are pretty silly. I'd rather just see the facts and what he is discussing that endure boring comparisons to why school teachers are like sumo wrestlers or whatever (the answer is always something simple like "they cheat" or "they lie")
My second minor quibble would be the title. Why not call this Freakstatistics? Virtually nothing discussed in this book falls into the realms of economics as normally defined. The book is a mixture of statistics and sociology. Stephen Levitt is a brillant guy and we dont' need to pin him down into the field of economics merely because he has a degree in it. His rational for discussing everything as economics is some general theme of "incentives," but that is too thin for me.
Those two quibbles aside, this book is infinitely interesting and entertaining. Levitt is a genius at tackling problems from unexpected angles and then backing up his surprise theories with enough stats you have to believe him. Who would have thought the fall in crime was due to abortions? Few people, though upon hearing it and a brief explanation it makes total sense. That section and the section on the world of small time crack dealers were the most interestng, though I also highly enjoyed the chapter on black vs. white baby names.
Highly recommended to anyone. Really, everyone would benefit from the info he imparts.
Amazing Book That Will Open Your Mind April 16, 2005
No One Important (Cultural Ether)
33 out of 37 found this review helpful
In the world of economics, Steve Levitt is a rock star. He's the hot ticket out there. His seminars are packed; students and other professors travel across world to study and work with him. He received tenure at the University of Chicago two years (!) after getting his Ph.D. He has already won the most prestigious prizes economics has to offer at age 37, he received tenure at the University and there is little doubt that one day, 20 or 30 years from now, he will win The Prize. He is just that good.
Why? Like Gary Becker before him, he takes economics out of the realm of the stuffy and dry and boring and it applies to topics no one had ever thought about it applying it to before. He is a genius at making the data sing.
His questions will challenge you, his answers may anger you, but you won't ever see the world the same way again. And his writing is completely accessible to non-economists.
Some examples of the questions he asks: Did crime in the 1990s go down because there were more cops on the streets, we were betting winning the war on drugs, or because of Roe v. Wade?
Just how profitable is it to be in drug gang versus working in McDonalds? And just what are the economic profits from dealing drugs?
Is Sumo wrestling fixed?
Does having your real-estate work on commission mean that he/she will work to make sure you will get the highest sales price out there?
Does campaign spending determine the outcomes of elections?
In all these questions, Levitt relishes in challenging common perceptions and "wisdom". And he gets his answers not through crazy complicated math but by the getting data to reveal its secrets to him in unique ways.
If you like being intellectually challenged, if you want to see the world in a new way, if you want to read the writings of one of the most creative and sharpest minds alive today, then buy this book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1798
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