Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

An odd, if at times, interesting little book. If there were more it, it may have been more satisfying. As it is it's fine as a snatched read between other more entertaining activities. Ideal for half hour bus rides but not something to keep you gripped and begging for more. Perhaps that was the idea?

annoying (0/0 people found this helpful)

A book will never annoy me normally. Apart from one interesting fact about the correlation between the abortion legislation and the crime rate 15 years later this was 100s of pages of the bleeding obvious.

Interesting questions interestingly answered (0/0 people found this helpful)

I ignored this book when it was first published, but turned to the revised version recently in the hope that it would give me some insight into mainstream economics, (having recently started a course in business economics). It hasn't been a great help for that purpose, but is a great - and easy - read all the same. I found it particularly illuminating to see how an economist looks beyond correlations to seek causation. For example, in what is probably his most controversial chapter, Levitt identifies the effective legalisation of abortion in the US in 1973 as being the cause of a fall in the crime rate 15 - 20 years later. Having established this correlation, and posited an explanation - access to abortion meant that a whole cohort of kids that would have been most likely to grow up to become criminals were not in fact born at all - he searches for ways to test it. He did so by looking at those states where abortion had already been legal, by establishing correlations between abortion rates and the subsequent fall in crime rates and by identifying that the fall in crime happened amongst the late teens rather than older age groups.

Levitt and Dubner were clearly aware of the potential distaste that this deduction might bring, but presented their findings clearly and courageously. Other areas of study include the identification of cheating teachers and Sumo wrestlers, the economics of dealing in crack cocaine and whether (pushy) parents can actively influence the success of their children. In many cases, however, and particularly while reading a chapter on parents' choice of names for their children, I did wonder whether the same conclusions would be made on the British side of the Atlantic.

The revised (2006) edition includes some material not included in the first edition, including forty pages of material from the Freakanomics blog, as well as clarifications and revisions.

As to whether this is a truly a radical use of the science of economics, however, I know not - it may well be that other have analysed data of this type in similar ways in the past. Nonetheless, Levitt and Dubner ask - and answer - some interesting questions, and if economics is not routinely used in this way perhaps it should be.

Some interesting points (0/0 people found this helpful)

I was lent this by a friend in the summer; it's well-written, with some interesting points. The chief of these is Levitt's oft-quoted assertion about the link between legalised abortion and the decrease in crime, but there are other little nuggets in here too. For example, Levitt explains that the chief interest of economists is the study of incentives, and illustrates this nicely with the story of the Israeli day-care centre that decided to start fining parents for picking their children up late at the end of the day. The problem was that once the fine was imposed, the number of late pick-ups actually increased; it turns out that this was because the fine was set too low (compared to the cost of the day-care). Levitt points out that an economic incentive was being substituted for a moral one, meaning that, "for just a few dollars each day, parents could buy off their guilt".

Other parts of the book are less memorable - I thought it lost steam towards the end in the investigation of parenting and babies' names (could there have been a way of discussing the latter topic without giving long lists of names?) - and the change of tone in the supplementary material makes it feel like padding. The story of Levitt's life is diverting, but I think it sits uneasily alongside the more technical content - unless, that is, someone was thinking about making a film of this book.

Who'd have thought number-crunching could be fun? (7/7 people found this helpful)

If you fancy something that can make you think and even make you laugh while doing do, this is the one. It's essentially about taking a closer look at data sets. I've no idea about the authors' credentials in the world of economics, but then most economists are boring people who make inaccurate predictions, so who cares?

In these pages you can find whether cheating goes on in school exams - by the teachers! Is the supposedly noble sport of sumo-wrestling rigged? Which Christian names are most closely associated with a lifetime of poverty? How has the availability of legalised abortion affected the crime rate in America? And is drug-dealing a worthwhile career option?

If these questions don't concern you, then you are probably extremely dull. For the rest of us, this is a fact-filled feast!

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Reader Reviews:

Quirky (0/0 people found this helpful)

annoying (0/0 people found this helpful)

Interesting questions interestingly answered (0/0 people found this helpful)

Some interesting points (0/0 people found this helpful)

Who'd have thought number-crunching could be fun? (7/7 people found this helpful)

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