| Freakonomics
: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Published by Allen Lane in 2005
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?
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.
‘Non-stop fun’
Evening Standard
‘Far
more intelligent, modest and orthodox than it pretends, the book
is a delight; it educates, surprises and amuses. It shows, in fact,
what plain old-fashioned economics can do in the hands of a boundlessly
curious and superbly skilled practitioner.’
The Economist
‘This book is a brilliant, provocative investigation into
motives: what they are, how they can be changed, and how they affect
what people do. It is also a deceptively easy read: its style is
so light, its tone so sunny and humorous, that it is hard to realise
the extent to which the arguments in Freakonomics attack some of
our most basic assumptions about the way people, and society, work…….
I can't recommend this book highly enough. Wherever you read it
- on the beach, at home, on a train or in an office - you will be
stimulated, provoked and entertained. Of how many books can that
be said? ’
Alasdair Palmer, Sunday Telegraph
’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’
Amazon.com
Steven
D. levitt is Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago.
In 2004, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, which recognizes
the most influential economist in America under the age of 40. More
recently, he was named one of Time magazine’s “100 people
who shape our world”.
Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning author and journalist who
lives in new York City.
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