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 Freakonomics can provide more th.
It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties.
Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work.
All it takes is a new way of looking.
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.
The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.
The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher.
The myths of campaign finance.
The truth about real-estate agents.
The inner workings of a crack gang. well, everything. . .
In Freakonomics, they explore the Hidden Side of .
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.
Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality.
They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question.
Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist.
Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J.
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.
Levitt is not a typical economist.
But Steven D.
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
