Freakonomics
2005
- economics
- economics -- psychological aspects
- economics -- sociological aspects
- finance
- nonfiction
- sociology
- nyt:paperback_business_books=2012-02-25
- popular culture
- business & economics
- social science
The story
*A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything* 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 economist 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 the conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a ground-breaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked 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 Ku 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 at things. 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 r
What it’s like
Brisk, conversational pages with the snap of a magazine feature: short chapters, plain declarative sentences, and a wry, faintly mischievous narrator who keeps circling back to a surprising number and asking what it means. The reading experience is less immersive world than tidy workshop, full of charts, footnote-style asides and sudden digressions from crack dealers' household budgets to sumo wrestlers' final bouts, so it suits a lazy Saturday with a mug of tea or a long commute where you can dip in and out without losing the thread. The tone is cheerful and irreverent, with a steady undercurrent of curiosity rather than dread, and the emotional register stays light even when the subject turns to crime, cheating or the Ku Klux Klan. Violence and sexual content are present only as subject matter, handled clinically and briefly, never graphically. It is for readers who enjoy clever contrarian explanations of everyday life, who like seeing a hidden incentive pop out of a spreadsheet, and who want to feel a little sharper after finishing a chapter.
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