Author: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
# of Pages: 207 (hardcover)
Genre: Nonfiction, Economics, Business
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: 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.
Review: I've heard a lot about this book.
It seems to be one of those books that everyone just reads, regardless if they're interested in economics or not. I remember watching a clip from the Freakonomics documentary (the part about the sumo wrestlers) and being extremely intrigued. Since the clip I watched certainly did not have the full analysis of the situation, I wanted to dive deeper into this "freakonomics" and hear the economical approach to everyday questions.
While this themeless (as the authors have repeatedly stressed) book addresses a myriad of different, oddball questions, it was not as in depth as I expected it to be. This book is clearly meant for the masses; it's an extremely short, easy, fun read on economics which would otherwise be dry, boring, and overall uninteresting. However, this book seemed to be more like a starting point for a broader conversation of how economics can be used to unravel mysteries of everyday life.
A strange part of the book was how every chapter was preceded by an expert from a New York Times article about Levitt (it was a different expert from the same article for each chapter). It seems that Levitt is quite proud of this article, most likely because of its praise for him and how it depicts his unconventional take on economics. While Levitt might enjoy including these experts, all except the expert before the chapter about parenting seem extremely unnecessary.
Since it's such a popular book, I would recommend that anyone interested should read it. It's a quick and interesting read, although whether the authors' points are valid is up to your own judgement.
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