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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything | 
 enlarge | Authors: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Publisher: Addison Wesley
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy Used: £1.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  136 reviews
Sales Rank: 367
Media: Paperback
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141019018
EAN: 9780141019017
ASIN: 0141019018
Publication Date: June 18, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 131 more reviews...
 Fun, informative read June 16, 2008
I am 23, studying Physics with strong interest in finance/market and investments. I found this book very interesting and fun as well.
English is not my mother tongue, but this book is so well written that didn't give me any trouble.
Totally recommended
 A welcome dose of empiricism June 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of the troubles with economics is the woeful scientific illiteracy of economists. Much of this can be traced to their frequent failure to check their assumptions (leave alone their predictions) against the real world - which is why so many economics texts are unconvincing to specialists in the exact sciences.
For that reason I like popular economics books that look at the minutiae, present real life situations and apply economic reasoning to them. As a genre they are a mixed bunch but I like this one by Levitt, mostly because the examples it gives are all ones in which the more simplistic interpretations of of conventional economic analysis give predictions that are at variance with reality.
Sherlock Holmes famously said that when the theories don't fit the facts, you change the theories. In this book Levitt directs our attention to situations in which economic theory does fit the facts but where careful empirical investigation is needed to see why they fit. Such empiricism is to be applauded. Ultimately it is only by accurately describing reality that economics will shed its currently still deserved reputation as a dismal science.
Question Everything, Look for Patterns, Challenge Conventional Wisdom June 3, 2008
Why did the crime rate in major US cities decrease in the late 90's contrary to expert opinion? What do shool teachers and the Ku klux Klan have in common? In this interesting book, the authors explore the hidden side of these questions and many more such as the Black-White education divide, the organisation of drug gangs in Chicago and the apparent improvement in test scores in Chicago. They show, with remarkable wit, that people of all kinds respond to incentives and that we ignore this at our disadvantage.
Take the authors approach to the unexpected decrease in crime in big US cities. Conventional wisdom has it that the decrease in crime in these metropolises was due to a number of factors among which are better policing strategies, tougher sentencing for offenders (the broken glass concept) and an increase in the number of policemen. Messrs Levitt and Dubner argue instead that the precipitous decrease in crime rates was principally due to the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs Wade, which legalised abortion in the US. This is where it gets interesting: Women who took advantage of the Roe vs Wade decision in the mid 1970's were likely to be teenagers, poor and uneducated; precisely the type of mothers who were least likely to care adequately for the kids, whoo in turn are most likely to be criminals. Roe vs Wade then prevented the birth of these potential criminals and in the process, large US cities were "spared" the existence of these kids. The crime rate decreased in the mid-1990's just are these "Roe vs Wade" babies would have reached their peak crime years: late teens to mid twenties
The authors asked, "If dealing drugs is so profitable why do crack dealers live with their mothers?" This question was answered through the research on an inner city Chicago drug gang. The gang was shadowed by an Indian-American researcher for 3 years in which time he was lucky enough to obtain the gangs' detailed financial records. The gang had a well-ordered pyramidal management structure, which resembled McDonald's franchises. Tellingly, the financial records showed that the gang leader made much more money than all his minions combined; the crack dealers on the lowest rung of the ladder barely made minimum wage. However, these "runners" were willing to endure hardships and prove their mettle on the streets in order to move up the gang ladder into "upper management". The gang members, like the rest of us, respond to incentives. There is much else I like about the book that I will not rehash in this review because they have been covered by other reviewers.
Now some aspects of the book that I did not like. It was not clear to me what Dubner's role in the book was. His sole purpose seemed to have been to continuously massage Levitt's ego. Yes, we know that Levitt is a brilliant unorthodox economist but do you have to remind us of this fact at every turn? Luckily, Dubner's article, which inspired the book, was attached as an appendix for those who may or may not have been interested therein. The book was focused on the US. This is understandable because the authors and their target audience are American and, I imagine, are more familiar with the socio-economic situation in that country. For my money, I thought that the book was too short. It was over before I knew it. It took me all of one Sunday to finish reading it. That's a shame really. I expected a bit more. Maybe, the book was deliberately short in order to pique the readers' interest in a sequel?
For all its shortcomings, the salient message in this book is that we should challenge conventional wisdom; if it sounds too simple and convenient, then it probably is. The authors tackle sensitive issues such as race and racism with remarkable wit and honesty. In presenting their ideas they let the data speak as much as possible. They use the tools of economic analysis to question the data and confirm what I Iearnt in engineering school: if you flog the data hard enough, it'll sing. Freakonomics deserves my 4 stars.
Outside the box May 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is really geared more toward America than any other country. But one can still take a lesson or two from it. Initially I was scared away, thinking this was going to be a 900 page door-stop. But it's actually quite small, especially to be co-authored by two guys. The facts are staggering and while it made me think I recently read a book I enjoyed even more titled THE GRIP OF DEATH which was just fantastic and a look at money and how we're affected by it. Even so, FREAKONOMICS is a book that should be looked at. I wasn't crazy about the writing, but the information was most useful, if not slightly depressing. Lately I've been interspersing my fiction reads with non-fiction books. I may stop now.
Sobering lesson in cynicism, and yet... May 28, 2008
Point 1: this book is very American. Its language is very American and the topics it confronts are very American. Like the fascination with black people and inequality which makes up about 80 per cent of the content. Like the Ku Klux Klan. Bagel-selling. Bagels? And so the first chapters of this book are amazing. Five stars. Six, even. But then it seems to get bogged down with very American-centric issues that no doubt occupy American thinkers a lot but which don't apply elsewhere to anything like the extent they do over there. I'm not anti-American -- I love America! -- it's just that its culture isn't my culture and it never will be so I don't really care what they care about.
Point 2: about those honesty-box bagels. The authors do a really good job during the chapter explaining why (social) incentives control why people pay for bagels even though no one is checking up on them. But then right at the end of the chapter they seem to make a strange and out-of-place conclusion. Could any man resist the temptation of doing evil if he KNEW his acts could not be witnessed? Levitt and Dubner say (according to the bagel data) 87 per cent of the time the answer is yes. The key point that I take issue with is the word "knew" (which I highlighted). No bagel-consumers KNEW they wouldn't be caught. The authors completely ignore any psychology here regarding the way that people assess risk. The cautious person will assess the risk, however small, isn't worth the pay-off which is saving just one dollar. If we created a controlled experiment where there REALLY was no chance of being caught I suggest the revenue would be considerably smaller than 87 per cent.
There are other small points that I disagree with but over all I will say that this is a very interesting book, if a little repetitive. The bonus material -- newspaper columns, blog -- mostly goes over the same ground that was covered in the book proper. I would like to see a British version of this book that deals with current issues that gets us Brits talking. But still, I would highly recommend this book.
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