Freakonomics

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner | Publisher: William Morrow

Average vote of 2963| 81 total contributions of which 80 reviews , 1 quote , 0 images , 0 notes , 0 video

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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? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? 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? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on 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 stuff and riddles of everyday life-;from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing-;and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins 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 co-author Stephen J. 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 set out to 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 surfeit of obfuscation, complication, 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. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

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. ...Continua

Language: English
Number of pages: 242
Format: Other
Other languages: mostra Italiano, 繁體中文 - Traditional Chinese, 简体中文 - Simplified Chinese, Español, Português, Deutsch, Français, Svenska, Nederlands

ISBN-10: 006073132X
ISBN-13: 9780060731328
Date of publication: 01/05/2005
Edition 1

available also as: Audio CD , Hardcover , Soft and stapled cover , Paperback , eBook

Genre: Business & Economics , Non-fiction , Social Sciences

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Yeves

Wrote 9/27/17

那我懂你意思了！

紅默客

Wrote 3/23/13

我很喜歡這樣充滿大量研究的書籍，看完可以學到很多東西
作者把經濟學當作是一項工具，探究事件發生的原因
我覺得這種做法很棒，可以應用到很多層面
是本很不錯的書籍!

Julián G.

Wrote 7/24/12

It has some interesting points but you don't need more than 25 pages for them.
It might be interesting for people from USA.
Not to mention the lack of accuracy at some points, I even doubt some conclusions they offer are right.

テキちゃん

Wrote 4/4/12

I picked this book up when I walked by a bookstore by chance. I wondered how the author, Dr. Steven Levitt, explained some social phenomenon by economics. This book gave me another point of view, although I don't think that it is an absolutely right...Continua

Piet

Wrote 1/21/12

i found it hard to understand why everybody thinks freakonomics is such a great book. basic statistics, regression, correlation applied to a unusual range of topics, so what?

ary29

Wrote May 13, 2009, 18:40

For a team that has a 35 percent chance of winning each game, the chance of losing its next 19 games is about one in 4,000.[...]It takes about 12 or 13 years for these two bad teams to have a total of 4,000 chances for a 19-game losing streak....Continua

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Title: Freakonomics

Author: Steven D. Levitt

Book URL:
/books/Freakonomics/9780060731328/00673344e00a616e23/