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![Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z1scnqz1L._SL160_.jpg)
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Title: Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
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Manufacturer: William Morrow
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| Customer Reviews: |
| Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow Too much analysis....little common sense | A strange connection is made between a drop in violent criminals and the Roe v. Wade decision. It suggests these "criminals" were never born into the poverty that would have made them criminals in the first place.
This doesn't take into account 2 things:
1. The counter effect that could have been made by those born into abundance, had they not been aborted. Poor people (and who defines that anyway) are not the only ones who abort babies.
Who lives in "poverty", by itself, is a whole different mindset that can't be measured. I would go so far as to say that the majority (not all) of those living in so called "poverty" have a television, a DVD player and a microwave, sleep in a bed, use indoor plumbing, eat 3 meals a day, wear shoes, have access to some form of transportation and have a roof over their head.
This made them a criminal????
2. It assumes that the vast majority of invidiuals born into poverty would be destined to stay that way rather than make their own decisions to prosper.
It's cause/effect implication just can't be proven; conditions can only be observed, but there is no scientific way to attribute a definite cause. It's simply a poor comparision.
Then again, economics isn't exactly a science.
| | Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow Freaky. | The book Freakonomics: A Rouge Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner skillfully interweaves economic analysis and everyday occurrences to make an interesting and enjoyable book. The authors set out to prove to the world that economics has to do with much more than just finance, and that statistics actually mean something in our lives. Along with economics, Freakonomics also touches on sociology as it explains how incentives drive human behavior. Levitt, an economist, shows the reader that economics relates to the real world by including a number of interesting examples in his book. Economics helps to answer the questions society faces today and explains why things work out the way that they do. The book aims to abolish common misperceptions about the world and to challenge the conventional thinking that is widely used (or misused) today.
The authors seem to complement each other perfectly. Steven Levitt is an Alvin H. Baum Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He earned his B.A. from Harvard and PhD from M.I.T. In 2004, he won the John Bates Clark Medal, which is an award that recognizes the most influential economist in America under forty years of age. He was recently featured in Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape our World." Stephen J. Dubner is an award winning author and journalist. He taught English at Columbia University. His journalism appears mostly in "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker." These two combine forces to create a compelling economics book. (There's an oxymoron.)
The authors ultimately reach the reading audience because of the subjects that they focus their research on. There does not seem to be any unifying theme to the examples, except that they teach readers that familiar things are not always what they seem to be, and that open-minded thinking can lead to fascinating conclusions. The topics of the chapters range from real estate agents to sumo wrestlers to drug dealers. Levitt explains to readers how teachers cheat on standardized testing, how the secrets codes of the Klu Klux Klan were revealed, and how the drop in crime rates and the legalization of abortion are related. Levitt's conclusions can be considered astonishing, shocking even, but whether or not the reader agrees with them does not seem to be the point. The way Levitt's mind works is truly extraordinary. That is not to say the book is without flaws. It seems to be stuck in an awkward spot as it tries to balance reader appeal and an understanding of economics. Economists will argue that some of the methods used in the book are not really using economic analysis. They say that the book only lays down the very basics of economics, and that it needs to be longer and more in-depth to provide a truly comprehensive understanding of the subject. On the other side, readers will find their interest dwindling when reading pages and pages of statistics and economical details. Ultimately though, the book is well written in straightforward, clear, language and it manages to add some sparkle to economics and analysis in everyday life. When picking up this book, the reader will find an engaging and thought-provoking venture into the freakier side of economics. | | Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow Very interesting take on the world around us | | I got this for my husband and ended up reading it as well. It's a fascinating take on the world around us. I enjoyed reading his theories and the data he uses to support his theories make sense. It certainly made me look at the field of Economics in a whole new light. | | Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow why no paperback version? | | This is a great book, unfortunately, I lent my copy to someone and it was not returned. I'd like to order a paperback version but don't see one available. | | Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow Changed my view of the world | | I believe that the author is trying to help others in the world through writing this book. Steven Levitt is currently a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Levitt is a well known economist around the world with many supporters. Stephen Dubner is a journalist who has written a lot about his co author, Levitt. I think he accomplished his goal very well in writing this book. But sometimes their claims seem a bit far fetched. For example, in this book they claim that swimming pools are more dangerous than guns to our children. Otherwise they gave us acceptable claims which could help us in our daily lives. Moreover, another crazy claim was that bees are more dangerous than sharks. I have always thought that more people died by shark attacks than by bees stinging them. Most of these claims even though full with spin, are very amusing to the average day Joe. | | Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow 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. | | Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by William Morrow Amazon.com | | 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 |
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