Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
What happens when a contrarian economist and a sharp-eyed journalist decide to turn conventional wisdom on its head? You get this wonderfully odd book, built from six essays that use economic thinking to poke around in places you wouldn't expect. Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner make an unlikely but effective pairing, and their collaboration (first published by William Morrow) has attracted a devoted readership for good reason. The writing is approachable without being dumbed down, blending dry wit with genuine intellectual curiosity. Each chapter picks a subject that seems, on the surface, unrelated to economics, then traces the hidden incentives running underneath it. Cheating amongst sumo wrestlers opens the discussion. From there, the book moves through estate agents who quietly serve their own interests over their clients', the surprisingly precarious finances of street-level drug dealers, the contentious link between abortion legislation and falling crime figures, the real versus imagined impact of parenting choices, and finally the way a child's name can quietly signal and reinforce social class. Short on moralising and long on data, the book asks uncomfortable questions and follows the evidence wherever it leads, even when the destination is genuinely startling. Levitt, a University of Chicago economist recognised by Time magazine's list of the hundred most influential people in 2006 and awarded the John Bates Clark Medal for outstanding work by an American economist under forty, supplies the analytical rigour. Dubner, a journalist with degrees from Appalachian State and Columbia, brings the storytelling. Together they've produced something that reads less like a textbook and more like a series of very clever puzzles being solved in front of you. It won't tell you how the world ought to work. It just shows you, with considerable flair, how it actually does.
- Author: Steven D. Levitt
- Publisher: William Morrow
- Genre: Economics
- ISBN: 978-0062312679