Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

economics:=the dark, hidden, semi-magical priesthood that controls money, job, house and gasoline prices, the dismal science.economists:= someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.What a neat book, engrossing, addictive, it fought it's way to the top of my TBR pile, then stayed in my hands despite the cries of much more important reading on my desk."What interested Levitt were the stuff and riddles of everyday life. His investigations were a feast for anyone wanting to know how the world really works.""As Levitt sees it, economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions. His particular gift is the ability to ask such questions."pg xiAmen. He would be one of that imaginary group of people you'd love to sit around a table and just talk to. He sees what the rest of us merely average people never seem to glimpse unless it is pointed out to us."economics is how people get want they want...his abiding interests are: cheating, corruption and crime. ... the modern world, despite a sufeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, in 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."Question 1:why did the crime rate drop in the 1990's?Legalizing abortion.Question 2:do real estate agents have motivation to get you the best price?nope.Question 3:does the amount of money a political candidate spend warp the political process, causing him to win?nope."morality represents the way people would like the world to work. economics represents how it actually does work.""incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them-or, often, ferreting them out- is the key to solving just about any riddle, form violent crime to sports cheating to online dating. ... The conventional wisdom is often wrong. ... dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes. ... Experts-from criminologists to real-estate agents-use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. ... knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so." pg13,14These are the book in his own words. It is all about ferreting how incentives, measuring them and looking at the big principles that they embody.Chapter 1: What do School teachers and Sumo westlers have in common?the short answer: they cheat."there are 3 basic flavors of incentives: economics, social and moral."Question 4:So what happens when you change incentives for people to pick up their kids from daycare?Question 5:With the accent on "objective testing" in public schools, with teacher's salaries tied to their kids scores, is there incentive to cheat?"a good teacher's impact was nearly as distinctive as the cheater's." pg. 34Question 6:how can sumo wrestler's cheat, how can you detect it?Question 7:having seen cheating does that mean mankind is universally and innately corrupt?short answer: bagels!!"could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed?" pg 51Chapter 2: How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of Real-estate agents?Question 8:how do you stop the KKK from getting more powerful?short answer: make their secrets public and them subject to ridicule, especially from children."there are few incentives more powerful than the fear of random violence-which is why terrorism is so effective." pg 62what is asymmetrical knowledge, and how is the internet changing some things?you have two pressing fears when you sell a house: (price too low) selling too cheaply, (price too high) not selling it at all.Question 9:do realestate agents work as hard for you as they do for themselves?Question 10:is the weakest link voting process racist, or ageism, or sexist, or someother type of ___ist?Question 11:what are the incentives involved in online dating sites? Posting pictures and lying.Chapter 3: Why do Drug Dealers still live with their Mothers?The rules of the tournament that is crack dealing:you must start at the bottom to have a shot at the top.You must be willing to work long and hard at substandard wages. In order to advance in the tournament, you must prove yourself not merely about average but spectacular.once you come to the realization that you will never make it to the top, you will quit the tournament. pg 106Chapter 4: Where have all the criminals gone?Question 12:where have all the criminals gone?Ceausescu was shot by the kids who were the result of his making abortions illegal (1989-1966) 23 years before. the doctrine of really unintended consequences taught him, via a bullet in the head, that his abortion ban had much deeper implications than he knew. pg 119low maternal education, childhood poverty, a single-parent household are factors leading to criminal behavior."what this cohort was missing, of course, were the children who stood the greatest chance of becoming criminals. And the crime rate continued to fall as an entire generation came of age minus the children whose mothers had not wanted to bring a child into the world. Legalized abortion lead to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, lead to less crime." pg 139"But one need not oppose abortion on moral or relgious grounds to feel shaken by the notion of a private sadness being converted to a public good." pg 141"What the link between abortion and crime does say is that where the government gives a woman the opportunity to make her own decision about abortion, she generally does a good job of figuring out if she is in a position to raise the baby well. If she decides she can't she often chooses the abortion." pg 144Chapter 5: What makes a perfect Parent?Question: 13what is more dangerous to a young child, a gun in the house or a swimming pool in the backyard?how to control risks? risk=hazard + outrage.lots of important questions:nature or nurture?indicator or cause?Chapter 6: Perfect Parenting, part ii or would a roshanda by any other name smell as sweet?Question 14:a man named sue effect: how does a parent name their child, does having a white or black name change your life?It is a good book, interesting, with lots of things to think about, some take home messages that you can really use.but my final thought was, why can't i see these things?

There is a saying attributed to Mark Twain that there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. It makes a good humorous quote, but it's not really accurate. Numbers don't lie; it's the way they're interpreted that distorts the truth. As a simple example, I could say that baseball player John Smith is the best batter ever because he had a career average of 1.000. Of course, it was only one hit in a single at-bat, so as a statistic, it's meaningless: the sample is just way too small. Even with larger samples, however, there are plenty of ways to skew things to favor a particular side.In Freakonomics, authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner try to go beyond the myths created by selective statistics and show that often times, the conventional wisdom is wrong. As an example, the conventional wisdom would say it's a good idea to use a real estate agent to sell your house because his or her expertise would get you the best deal. The numbers show otherwise, however: agents often jump at the first good deal, knowing that holding out for a higher price may mean only a minimal jump in commission.Another topic Levitt and Dubner deal with is how parenting affects the development of children and shows that parenting techniques, whether easygoing or strict (as long as it's not negligent or abusive), have very little effect on how a child develops. It's things that the parents are - such as educated or not, financially stable or not - that matters more than what they do. Basically, they argue, all those parenting books are relatively worthless.The most controversial topic they deal with, however, deals with the substantial drop in crime since the early 1990s. They dispel various myths: the use of the death penalty, more police, gun control laws or laws that allow carrying concealed weapons. These and other ideas from all parts of the political spectrum can be demonstrated to have only minor effects. Instead, the single factor that overwhelmingly affected the crime rate was the legalization of abortion: the rise in abortions after Roe v. Wade decreased considerably the amount of children who would have been born into environments more likely to develop criminals.Such a statement is bound to be inflammatory, especially among abortion opponents. Even if Levitt and Dubner try and remain apolitical and not endorse abortion, it's hard to see the crime drop in any other way but as an unintended benefit of Roe v. Wade. But numbers don't lie; the only question is whether Levitt and Dubner are lying. While I have not personally checked their facts, I give them a certain amount of credibility based on (1) despite the fact that there are no doubt plenty who would try, I have not heard of this information being seriously discredited (and given that it's a bestseller, you'd figure that if there was a significant lie, it would be newsworthy a la A Million Little Pieces); and (2) it makes sense. Nonetheless, the statements in this book should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Levitt and Dubner do make a point that numbers can be manipulated, and it could be that they are as guilty as the people they are trying to counter. Also, just because something seems to be logical doesn't automatically make it true.As admitted early on, there is no real unifying theme that ties this book together as we go from real estate agents to the Ku Klux Klan to gangs to abortion to parenting. Instead, we merely get the shattering of certain myths and, like it or not, a lot of information, told in a light, readable manner. You may not like (or agree with) everything Freakonomics has to say, but it both entertains and makes you think. What more can you ask of a book?

Very well explained and learned new stuff on humain behavior

Hard back, good condition, arrived on time. Fascinating, easy to read, very accessible. My teens enjoyed reading it too.

I love to listen to freakonomics during long car trips. I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in economics, especially macroeconomics.

Good quality of materials. The book is really well-kept; you can not quite realize that it is a second hand book.

This is some fun book to read. I enjoyed every page of it, although not as much the grim statistics for the probability of dying in a road accident for a driver versus a pedestrian. Are you trying to convince me to start driving a car instead of saving few cubic meters of fresh air? :)) But then what's a car pollution compared to that of a cow? It's all in the book there.