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: Good with flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
For those that don't know, the basic idea behind this book is that it applies economics to weird questions that aren't normally thought of as economics, like:
- Are teachers cheating on standardized exams?
- Are sumo wrestlers rigging matches?
- Will real estate dealers get the best deal for clients? (Hint: they tend to get better prices when selling their own houses than when selling clients' houses).
His results are often intriguing, and this results in a very interesting and readable book. Even people who hated economics in college or swore they would never take it will enjoy this book.
However, it seems like the authors let their own political views bias their work in places. For example, one of their more controversial claims is that abortion led to decreases in crime because the people most likely to be aborted are also the people most likely to be criminals. While this may be intuitive, other economists, such as Dr. John Lott, have largely discredited this finding. One of the many problems with their finding is that the decrease in crime in the 90's (which the authors chalk up to abortion) was greatest among people born before Roe v. Wade, which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect if their analysis was correct.
Other than their occasional slips to political bias, this book is very well written and makes for a good read, and I recommend it overall.
Book Review: DANGEROUS BOOK
Summary: 5 Stars
This would be a dangerous book if Americans werent stupid and corrupt.
Its a page-flipper and definitely interesting.
Book Review: Thinking is Fun
Summary: 5 Stars
There are a few people here whining that this book draws ridiculous conclusions, but those people are wrong. The authors draw few, if any, conclusions. They show correlations and posit possibilities, probabilities of causation. They don't, as some dumber people here are suggesting, declare definitively that, say, Roe v. Wade was responsible for the drop in crime 20-30 years later. They simply show a correlation, a connection, for the reader to think about. They also discuss other possible reasons. The only conclusions they draw is when they are able to conclusively show that a suggested reason had no impact.
Too much information disseminated in the media is baloney, the product of lazy reporting, journalists taking the word of politicians, pundits, and 'experts' and reporting it as the truth without enough research or in-depth analysis. Freakonomics isn't a book to forward a few left-field theories about crime, sumo wrestlers, or teachers. It's a just a demonstration of how set in our ways we are, how worn the paths are in our thinking. Most people, myself included, are not thinking hard enough about things, not looking from enough angles, not asking enough questions.
The book makes this point very effectively, and I'm glad I read it. It's not telling you what you should think, just that you should think more, and differently. Fun!
Book Review: What do dishwashers have to do with your math grades...?
Summary: 3 Stars
While reading this book, I remembered something that my father told me when I was about ten. He told me that in the USA a lot of effort was put into gathering data about every imaginable thing. Then two sets of data were compared to see how often one thing occurred at the same time as another. "I will give you an example: they compare how many dishwashers are sold in one month with the test results in mathematics and in biology of the children coming out of the first and fourth grade. Then something like this can come out: the more dishwashers are sold, the better the grades in mathematics of the children in fourth grade but their biology grades seem to stay the same no matter how many dishwashers are sold. The grades of the children of first grade are worse both in mathematics and biology when more dishwashers are sold." "Daddy, it is sooo foolish! What do dishwashers have to do with your math grades?". "Think of it more carefully, it's not at all foolish! It's probably not the most elegant approach, but it surely is useful. By doing this, they are generating theories, a lot of theories. Then they can discard the ones that are useless. This approach might lead you nowhere with several theories, like the one I exaggerated, but at some point it's Bingo!"
Having said this, and although I found the book an easy, entertaining and at times funny reading with some interesting cases and conclusions, I did not find it overwhelming.
I cannot help thinking that the author did not go far enough with his research. I would have liked that the author explained the statistical methods he used, as well as the certainty or error levels obtained, and also what these latter mean.
I am probably biased, but I would like to quote A. Zee, author of several books on quantum physics: "My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful, but when I had to chose, I usually chose the beautiful." I cannot judge the truth in Levitt's propositions, but I find them extremely ugly. Although he would not propose it and even seems to be against it at the end of the chapter, starting from his supposed facts, logical reasoning would lead us to suggest that in order to reduce criminality, a government would do well promoting abortion among young mothers to be, specially if they are teenagers, have not finished school and belong to an economical lower class (if they are Afro-Americans or Latin it is even more probable that the abortion benefits society in the long run, since people belonging to this races make up for half the criminals). This is reinforced with some studies that reveal that before "Rose vs. Wade" (at a time when only rich women could afford an illegal abortion), abortions had no correlation to criminality indexes. This makes me think of "economics for freaks" or "economics that can freak you out".
If we accept "neglected children" as the first cause for criminality and start from here, then of the 5 whys suggested to find the true root cause of a problem, I am missing 4, why are the children neglected, why are so many unwanted childs conceived? The author mentions one abortion for each 2.25 births!!! Conceptions increased 30% while births decreased 6%!!! He suggests that women probably use abortion as a radical birth control method. Aren't this figures worth a freakonomic study of abortion economics? Are $100 for an abortion cheaper than preventive methods? It's definitely cheaper than more and better sexual education at school, cheaper than better nursing or day care facilities, cheaper than help-groups or even therapy for teenage parents or single mothers, cheaper than better sporting facilities or other programs for teenagers...
Book Review: Will Change Your View of Economics
Summary: 5 Stars
Ever wonder if sumo wrestling is rigged? Or maybe pondered the likelihood that the slim wealthy single you met on a dating site is overweight and unemployed? In Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner take on these questions and more in their fascinating and hilariously funny exploration of the most bizarre phenomena our world has to offer. Using solid research and piercing wit, Levitt and Dubner delve into the inner economic workings of those enterprises that are ignored by stock traders and analysts, and tackle the social issues that are too touchy, or just too weird, to be covered by more traditional writers.
Using the theories of economics, Levitt and Dubner challenge so-called "experts" or talking heads by asking intriguing questions. For instance, in the chapter titled, "Where Have All the Criminals Gone?" various experts are quoted claiming that the reduction of crime in the 1990's was due to several factors: a larger police presence on the streets, an aging population, and/or longer prison sentences. Levin and Dubner dispute these theories and set out to show us that Roe vs. Wade, the legalization of abortion, affected the crime rate more than any other factor. Levitt and Dubner offer the reader compelling statistics to demonstrate that a reduction in unwanted children directly influenced the reduction in crime. In another chapter Levitt and Dubner draw correlations between sumo wrestlers and teachers, showing that they both resort to cheating under pressure, while in yet another chapter we learn why street gang members could run McDonald's.
Some readers may argue with Levitt and Dubner's conclusions, and question the difference between correlation and causation; despite those objections, this is a worthwhile read that encourages the reader to question foregone conclusions. Levitt and Dubner also have a weekly column in the New York Times.
Quill says: Freakonomics will change your view of economics, and the role it plays in everyday life.