false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575660m/1022022.jpg 1202 43 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. <i>Freakanomics</i> is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple questions. 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. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. 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. In <i>Freakonomics</i>, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter. <i>Freakonomics</i> establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world. 5397 book 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Revised and Expanded Edition) total:58393|5:14878|4:22908|3:14996|2:3683|1:1928| 58393 220304 84322 5079 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 2 20 false Wed Aug 15 21:11:09 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 10 07:26:14 -0700 2008
But apparently, the hidden side of everything remains pretty hidden to Levitt and Dubner.

Is this kind of laziness common among economists?

Or are they just assuming that only...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 1 14 false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Feb 23 20:22:13 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 24 07:30:31 -0800 2008
In my opinion, there are two problem...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 4 16 false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 09 04:46:17 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 17 22:32:05 -0700 2007 more...]]> 49174 006073132X 9780060731328 1073 182 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170357805m/49174.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49174.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 2 18 false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed May 30 13:03:41 -0700 2007 Wed May 30 13:17:21 -0700 2007
I agree with his basic premise that economics is a social science in the most honest sense of the term (although he doesn't say that, I'm inferring that that was h...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 4 11 false Sat Sep 15 16:24:24 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 16:54:27 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 3 10 false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 12 08:12:11 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 14 07:39:28 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 4 8 false Tue Jan 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 12 06:15:06 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 31 07:16:21 -0800 2008
Levitt and Dubner present their arguments well and their style makes the at-times daunting subject matter easier to approach and thus easier to digest. I don't read much non-fiction (for...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 2 8 false Mon Jul 09 16:03:31 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 09 16:19:30 -0700 2007
He dodges accoutability with the disclaimer about his book NOT being a scholarly work, but then goes on to drop statistics...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 0 7 false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Jul 16 06:53:35 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 18 07:45:29 -0700 2007
There is one segment of this book that reports use of a dataset I know very well -- the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data. From what details they put into the book, it's fairly clear that the researchers did not research the reliability of the data elements ...more...]]> 815727 071399908X 9780713999082 60 17 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178651010m/815727.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/815727.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 4 8 false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Dec 20 12:16:21 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 16 05:39:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 527040 0061131326 9780061131325 300 60 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175546662m/527040.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/527040.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_The_Hidden_Side_Of_Everything_Revised_and_Expanded_Edition 1 4 false Tue Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 30 20:05:58 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 15 17:59:12 -0700 2008

The fourth chapter, Where Have All the Criminals Gone?, draws a link between the fall of American crime ...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 0 4 false Tue Oct 23 16:13:38 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 25 15:49:43 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 4 3 false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Sep 14 14:50:31 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 14 14:51:07 -0700 2007
That said, I ...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 4 3 false Mon Jun 18 03:49:52 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 18 03:49:52 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5971435 9788535227 312 61 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1228314979m/5971435.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5971435.Freakonomics 4 2 false Fri Mar 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Dec 13 04:46:23 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 04:47:18 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 49174 006073132X 9780060731328 1073 182 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170357805m/49174.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49174.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 2 3 false Wed Jul 09 14:07:47 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 09 14:08:07 -0700 2008
Freakonomics isn’t really about any one thing, which makes it a bit hard to summarize. In essence, it’s economist Steven Levitt playing around with economic principles and basic statistical analysis to examine various cultural trends and phenomena. He tackles a variety of qu...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 3 2 false Sat Sep 01 16:51:12 -0700 2007 Sat Jan 12 00:02:21 -0800 2008 - Cumbersome transitions at times, dismisses other arguments in suspect ways


This was a good-enough non-fiction read, though I think it does illustrate the idea that a bestseller may be appealing without ...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 3 2 false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Aug 07 19:38:25 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 07 19:54:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 2 4 false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 28 20:59:03 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 28 21:15:26 -0800 2007
Four stars for presentation. The prose is nearly invisible, which I suppose in this genre is preferable to the alternative. And the content is mildly interesting, in a "Huh. Wouldja look at that" sort of...more...]]> 1202 0061234001 9780061234002 53600 4188 3.77 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345m/1202.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics_A_Rogue_Economist_Explores_the_Hidden_Side_of_Everything 5 2 false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu May 08 17:39:24 -0700 2008 Thu May 08 17:46:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1022022