Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Book Review: Amazing Book That Will Open Your Mind
Summary: 5 Stars
In the world of economics, Steve Levitt is a rock star. He's the hot ticket out there. His seminars are packed; students and other professors travel across world to study and work with him. He received tenure at the University of Chicago two years (!) after getting his Ph.D. He has already won the most prestigious prizes economics has to offer at age 37, he received tenure at the University and there is little doubt that one day, 20 or 30 years from now, he will win The Prize. He is just that good.
Why? Like Gary Becker before him, he takes economics out of the realm of the stuffy and dry and boring and it applies to topics no one had ever thought about it applying it to before. He is a genius at making the data sing.
His questions will challenge you, his answers may anger you, but you won't ever see the world the same way again. And his writing is completely accessible to non-economists.
Some examples of the questions he asks: Did crime in the 1990s go down because there were more cops on the streets, we were betting winning the war on drugs, or because of Roe v. Wade?
Just how profitable is it to be in drug gang versus working in McDonalds? And just what are the economic profits from dealing drugs?
Is Sumo wrestling fixed?
Does having your real-estate work on commission mean that he/she will work to make sure you will get the highest sales price out there?
Does campaign spending determine the outcomes of elections?
In all these questions, Levitt relishes in challenging common perceptions and "wisdom". And he gets his answers not through crazy complicated math but by the getting data to reveal its secrets to him in unique ways.
If you like being intellectually challenged, if you want to see the world in a new way, if you want to read the writings of one of the most creative and sharpest minds alive today, then buy this book.
Book Review: The Power of Data in a Master Economist's Hands
Summary: 5 Stars
Having myself survived the economics program at the University of Chicago as a young graduate student twenty years ago, I know how decidedly eccentric their laurelled scholars can be. One of the most prestigious of the current crop there, Steven D. Levitt, along with journalist Stephen J. Dubner, has written a most intriguing and mind-bending book that uses Chicago-style econometric approaches and applies those to social and political issues that otherwise seem mundane and have no apparent basis in coherent theory which would support the behavior under study. In fact, this book of compelling case studies bears similarities to the approach taken by author Malcolm Gladwell in his recent best-selling book, "The Tipping Point", where he takes primarily historical events and analyzes them almost anecdotally as exercises in human behavior, in his case, making connections and how ideas become trends not by gradual insinuation but by a singular dramatic moment.
But Levitt's canvas is broader, his theories and findings are far more diverse, and his approach is far more quantitative in nature. For example, he challenges the perception that campaign spending determines elections. Levitt's analysis takes a fresh look by contrasting races in which the same two congressional candidates run repeatedly against each other. What he concludes is that a winning candidate can spend half as much as before and lose only one percent of the vote, while a losing candidate who doubles campaign spending picks up only one percent more. Basically they prove that no matter how much candidates spend on their campaigns, the results would not be marginally affected. In another example, the authors describe a seller's real estate agent, who lives on commission and has an incentive to sell a listed home for maximum dollar. Again, this is a misconception since the authors contend the small financial reward to an agent who sells a home for a few thousand more dollars is dwarfed by the greater money to be made by selling properties for less but quicker. Levitt's research into the sale of one hundred thousand Chicago homes found that agents keep their own homes on the market an average of ten days longer and sell them for more than three percent more than the homes they list and sell for clients.
The penetrating analyses provided by Levitt appear to have no bounds as he identifies Chicago teachers, who were proven to be changing their students' test answers and ultimately fired for their actions; sumo wrestlers who were found to be cheating as well; and even the alternative and more lucrative career options that crack dealers may have at McDonald's versus making sales. He even questions the impact of a good first name in a person's later life and if children become more literate if their parents read to them. The conclusions surprised me as they will you. But the most compelling study he presents is related to the impact of Roe vs. Wade. In a study he conducted with Stanford law Professor John Donohue, Levitt makes a seemingly broad-stroked conclusion in attributing much of the drop in the U.S. crime rate to legalized abortion. Their argument was based on the theory that abortion prevented the births of unwanted children who otherwise would have been statistically more likely to mature into criminals. The crime rate drop coincided with the time those aborted pregnancies would otherwise have hit their teen years, and the trend showed up earlier in states such as California that were the first to enact more liberal access to abortions. Through the data they gather, the correlation is startling, and the conclusion is hard to refute despite the naysayers who felt the stuffy to be politically motivated. But to Levitt's academically inclined credit, he never seems like he has an ideological agenda as he lets the numbers do the talking for him. His genius is to take those seemingly meaningless sets of numbers, ferret out the telltale pattern and recognize what it all means. A brilliant mind is at work, as he takes the most mundane open-ended questions and actually answers them. Strongly recommended.
Book Review: Major contention debunked
Summary: 1 Stars
Everyone's favorite parlor game, what effect did legalized abortion have on demographics, etc., is played at one point in this book. Another famous theory is James Taranto's "Roe effect". The problem with this one is that Steve Sailer did a total debunking of it. I agree with an earlier post; if you find the earlier Slate archives, it appears no evisceration took place, but Slate left off Sailer's final and devastating response; see Sailer's blog. I can't believe the author included this contention in his book, but it's been said he is proud.Book Review: Worth owning and keeping on your bookshelf.
Summary: 5 Stars
An accessible well written enjoyable work on economics that offers unique insights to today's big questions. It is a timely work with which ever reader should become familiar.
When I was an undergraduate, although I studied the hard sciences, I found economics to be the most impenetrable counterintuitive subjects I had ever encountered. I wish I had this book then.
But this is much more than a book about economics as the authors offer new perspectives about just about everything through economic theories. Some of the underlying ideas are not completely new but even those are brought to a satisfying fruition. This book gives the reader a unique view of the world through an economist's eyes. Events which seem disconnected or driven by other influences are revealed with great clarity as having basic economic principles behind them. Through this vision the world, a world which sometimes seems in chaos, becomes a web of underlying economic principles.
A winner.
Book Review: Best book I've read in several years.
Summary: 5 Stars
Rarely can a book balance intelligence and truly unique insight with the ability to be amusing and accessible. This one does it seemingly without effort and you will absoultely tear through it, feeling wiser when you finish.
I was an economics major in college and was fortunate enough to have a professor who made micro-economics usable, interesting, and fun the way Levitt does in this book. Levitt analyzes some of our society's really interesting questions like the real reason crime went down in the 90's and the real ability parents have to impact their kids. His approach and his answers are equally fascinating and you don't need any economics background to understand or enjoy what he's saying. Instead of the typical "follow the money" approach, Levitt uses a slightly broader and more micro-economic approach of "follow the incentive." The results will leave you shaking your head in amazement at how obvious they seem now that they've been clearly presented to you.
Levitt has done nothing short of presenting a new and insightful way to look at the world in a manner that is both penetrating and fun. Quite an accomplishment. Very highly recommended.