More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics

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More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics

3.38 of 5 stars 3.38 · rating details · 609 ratings · 100 reviews

Steven Landsburg's writings are living proof that economics need not be "the dismal science." Readers of "The Armchair Economist" and his columns in "Slate" magazine know that he can make economics not only fun but fascinating, as he searches for the reasons behind the odd facts we face in our daily lives. In "More Sex Is Safer Sex," he brings his witty and razor-sharp ana...more Steven Landsburg's writings are living proof that economics need not be "the dismal science." Readers of "The Armchair Economist" and his columns in "Slate" magazine know that he can make economics not only fun but fascinating, as he searches for the reasons behind the odd facts we face in our daily lives. In "More Sex Is Safer Sex," he brings his witty and razor-sharp analysis to the many ways that our individually rational decisions can combine into some truly weird collective results -- and he proposes hilarious and serious ways to fix just about everything.When you stand up at the ballpark in order to see better, you make a rational decision. When everyone else does it too, the results, of course, are lousy. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of individual sanity and collective madness. Did you know that some people may actually increase the spread of sexually transmitted diseases when they avoid casual sex? Do you know why tall people earn more money than shorter competitors? (Hint: it isn't just unfair, unconscious prejudice.) Do you know why it makes no sense for you to give charitable donations to more than one organization?

Landsburg's solutions to the many ways that modern life is unfair or inefficient are both jaw-dropping and maddeningly defensible. We should encourage people to cut in line at water fountains on hot days. We should let firefighters keep any property they rescue from burning houses. We should encourage more people to act like Scrooge, because misers are just as generous as philanthropists.

Best of all are Landsburg's commonsense solutions to the political problems that plague our democracy. We should charge penalties to jurors if they convict a felon who is later exonerated. We should let everyone vote in two congressional districts: their own, and any other one of their choice. While we're at it, we should redraw the districts according to the alphabetical lists of all voters, rather than by geography. We should pay FDA commissioners with shares of pharmaceutical company stocks, and pay our president with a diversified portfolio of real estate from across the country.

Why do parents of sons stay married more often than parents who have only daughters? Why does early motherhood not only correlate with lower income, but actually cause it? Why do we execute murderers but not the authors of vicious computer viruses? The lesson of this fascinating, fun, and endlessly provocative book is twofold: many apparently very odd behaviors have logical explanations, and many apparently logical behaviors make no sense whatsoever.(less)

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published April 17th 2007 by Free Press (first published 2007)

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The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes

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Nov 21, 2007 Anne rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: robots

Ugh! The author comes off so cold and calculating I found it difficult to even finish the book. His arguments are based on economic analysis and pretty much nothing else. I get the impression that if he saw somebody drowning he'd pull out his notebook and calculate whether or not it'd economically worthy his time/effort to save the person.

As many others have said before me, read Freakonomics instead.

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Feb 06, 2008 Mark rated it 1 of 5 stars

A not-so-subtle libertarian conservative manifesto masquerading as a "freakanomics" style book to cash in on the trend.

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Dec 16, 2008 Hope Harris-Gayles rated it 1 of 5 stars

Finally, I get to write the review I've been pondering since about page 165. I didn't care for this book AT ALL (so let's just establish that fact). I think the title should've been my first tip-off--a book that so clearly needs sex to sell can't have much going on between the covers. I would be terribly upset if I'd paid money for this book. As it happens it was thrust upon me by Judy (thanks.)
I'd just read Freakonomics and thought this might be similar. Let me assure you it is not. I know Fre...more

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May 02, 2013 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

The author, an economist and columnist, uses cost-benefit analysis to tackle some thorny social issues, from the polygamy of the title to such varied topics as giving to charity, overpopulation, euthanasia, the global preference for baby boys vs. girls, disaster relief, the benefits of being tall and/or beautiful, the American propensity for self-denial, flaws in the justice system, and outsourcing jobs. Not only does he apply the principle of costs vs. benefits to these issues, he argues that t...more The author, an economist and columnist, uses cost-benefit analysis to tackle some thorny social issues, from the polygamy of the title to such varied topics as giving to charity, overpopulation, euthanasia, the global preference for baby boys vs. girls, disaster relief, the benefits of being tall and/or beautiful, the American propensity for self-denial, flaws in the justice system, and outsourcing jobs. Not only does he apply the principle of costs vs. benefits to these issues, he argues that this is the only rational way to approach them, dismissing in most cases such flimsy notions as patriotism or religion or human compassion. (In fact, he would say that cost-benefit analysis is the only compassionate route in the case of, say, taking a comatose woman off a respirator, since that respirator is then freed for someone who will presumably gain more benefit from it). He’s an intelligent writer who argues deftly, and his writing has the cocksure tone of the experienced professor, mixed with the somewhat defensive attitude of one who has heard many counter-arguments and gotten a lot of mail about his opinions before. The crux of his political thought is that if you’re not “footing the bill” (in various ways, not always with actual dollars), what others do is none of your business; this free-market libertarianism allows him to argue that, for instance, companies are doing the right thing by outsourcing jobs, as the jobs in India are just as “valuable” in an economic sense as an American one. That this should not be true to an American is lost on him.

Reading this book, which of course I found much to disagree with about, I was reminded of Thaler and Sunstein’s Nudge, which makes a distinction between Humans, who do not always act rationally and have preferences for things that sometimes are not valuable, and Econs, who think everyone always knows what their neighbor is doing and include all available data in their calculations before acting. Landsburg is the consummate Econ – absolutely uncompromising, equating rationality with validity in every case, and nearly pod-like in his refusal to understand why his solutions would not work in the real world of irrational, patriotic, religious, humans, who cry over a picture of one hurt puppy but don’t blink at news reports of human massacres. This leads Landsburg to some bizarre conclusions, such as his argument that the world needs more people or that the world’s oil will not be over-used: since over-population and oil use must, according to Econ-style analysis, be voluntary, it will always serve our needs. (This is, of course, total nonsense; even if there was one person in the world and one can of oil, he could burn all his oil in one day and then be cold for the rest of his life, thus over-using it; and in the real world no one knows what others are doing with their oil use.) Landsburg’s Econ analysis also leads him to appear creepy and off-putting, as when he describes his daughter as a “cost.”

At times he is being jocular, as when he suggests that firefighters should be paid in the loot they save from fires; at other times he seems to be serious when he suggests the President of the USA be paid in land grants across the country, as if anyone becomes president for the big cash salary. All the time, his insistence of every action being a “cost” makes him appear downright obtuse, as when he claims that while a polluter might be costing a swimmer the ability to swim, the swimmer is costing the polluter the chance to dump gunk in the water! He really goes off the rails when he equates conservation with robbing the poor (people today) to give to the super-rich (our grand-children, who will surely be more prosperous than us!) – he seems truly unable to understand that a conservationist is not interested in transferring income but slowing consumption. Finally, although he’s clearly a very smart guy, he cheats on some of his own arguments, as when he claims that a husband who wants to bury his brain-dead wife is “preventing” the woman’s parents from feeding her and thus the parents have the greater claim – but he never classifies the parents as the “preventers,” who are stopping the husband from enjoying his right to bury. He also ignores his own respirator argument from earlier in the book: in feeding the daughter, the parents are selfishly “preventing” others from benefiting from the respirator, but he never mentions this. In short, some of Landburg’s arguments made me consider my assumptions. Some made me want to be in his class so I could ask follow-up questions. Some made me want to punch him in his stupid face. This must be, then, a very successful book: it captivated me and made me think about some things from an angle I’d never considered. I was engaged and enraged, and isn’t that a good thing? (less)

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Feb 17, 2012 Visakan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own

I'm distraught by the amount of negative reviews I saw here, but I'm not entirely surprised. I just re-read the book for about the 4th or 5th time over the years, and each time I find myself discovering that my previous frustrations with the author were, in fact, manifestations of my own logical inconsistencies. Landsburg is, in fact, a compassionate man of the highest order- we're just too clouded with our caveman minds to see it. Adam Smith became an economist because he was a moralist who wan...more

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Jun 11, 2010 Melanie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: summer-2010

This book is so, so awful. The only thing worse than the author's flawed logic is his insistence on being purely vitriolic towards anyone who dares to offer a counterpoint. Arrogant a**hole economist thinks he's better at understanding HIV prevention than an M.D. That's only one example of the many times that he chooses to PERSONALLY ATTACK critics of his ideas instead of engaging in intelligent debate/discourse. A lot of the time I just felt uncomfortable reading this. So far, he's spent 25% of...more

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Oct 19, 2010 Guy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

This book offers an insight into how economic principles affect everyday life. How an action may be smart for the individual but dumb for the group, and how taxes and subsidies are needed to change human behaviour. It is written in an interesting way that motivates you to keep reading on, however at times the theory can be a little confusing and difficult to swallow. I would recommend reading this book.

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Jun 29, 2011 Mycroft rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Landsburg uses abbreviated information to draw unsupportable conclusions. For example, the title of the book is taken from the notion that AIDS and other STDs are spread largely by high-risk individuals like prostitutes and others with large numbers of sexual partners. Landsburg contends, then that if more people had a few sexual partners, but not so many as the outright promiscuous (2 to 3 per person), the spread of these diseases would slow as fewer people would be visiting the promiscuous. Th...more Landsburg uses abbreviated information to draw unsupportable conclusions. For example, the title of the book is taken from the notion that AIDS and other STDs are spread largely by high-risk individuals like prostitutes and others with large numbers of sexual partners. Landsburg contends, then that if more people had a few sexual partners, but not so many as the outright promiscuous (2 to 3 per person), the spread of these diseases would slow as fewer people would be visiting the promiscuous. This theory ignores several factors:

1) Some individuals will be more promiscuous than others for reasons unrelated to disease and thus one will not eliminate the promiscuous high risk contact by convincing more people to increase the variety of their sex partners.

2) Even if one ignores the issue of ongoing promiscuity, at some point, the portion of the population infected through his partner increase method is such that the population will eventually share the same risk as the population where the disease is spread largely by the promiscuous. In a gross oversimplification, let's say that one has a 1% AIDS infection rate and everyone has exactly 3 sex partners per year and 100% of those who contact an infected partner are eventually infected themselves. At the end of year 1 the infection rate is now 4% as the 1% have had 3 sex partners who are now infected. At the end of year 2, the infection rate is now 16% (4% original cases + their 3 new cases per person), by year 3, 64% of the population is now infected, and so on. Surely this is no safer than frequenting prostitutes?

Likewise the case where Landsburg claims that by having more children one increases the odds of genius being born ignores that genius is not randomly distributed: It is almost always fostered with resources, education and attention. If one has more children than one can afford to lavash with attention, education and resources, one decreases ones the fostering for all of the children thus decreasing the odds that any will make any significant contribution to humanity. Unfortunately, lack of nourishment including well balanced meals and education and care, also increase the odds of criminal or anti-social behavior. So before you go and start popping out as many kids as you can in the hope of winning the genius lottery, consider how many you can realistically provide with food, education and care. (less)

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Jan 20, 2010 Kaylee rated it 1 of 5 stars

Let me be clear: I chose to give this book one star not because I thought the writing was horrible or the topic unpalatable; I merely disagreed with most of what he said. If I were to rate this book based on emotional reactions while reading it, it would have had five solid stars.

While I appreciate Landsburg's attempts to "shock and awe" the reader into a new way of thinking about economics, I would like to take him to task for two very major issues:

1) Landsburg has a tendency to point out holes...more

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Jun 06, 2011 Renee Hana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Three words are very important to keep in mind while reading this book: all else equal. This is a very common caveat added to economic arguments that allows one to set a scenario without having to worry about an infinite number of what-ifs/but-waits. Landsburg suggests the "rational" (read: purely economic) answer to many hard questions, but I think it's a given that these aren't actually solutions-- of course there are many other non-economic factors to consider. Because I read the book with th...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars

Landsburg's crafty way of illustrating the basic nature of trade offs and the application of cost/benefit analysis was not only refreshing but entertaining.

I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting to look at the world throught the wacky eyes of an economist.

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Jul 22, 2009 Larry rated it 3 of 5 stars

For better or worse, not really about what the title says. This book is often being compared to Freakonomics, which I do not think is quite right. Similar to Freakonomics, but not as effectively, the book gives some examples of why people behave as they do. But as you get deeper into the book it becomes apparent the author is actually putting together an ethical framework for decision making. This could just as easily be classified as a political science or philosophy book.

I don't buy into some...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Max Boltz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: applied-econ

The book offered a different view point on some interesting issues. Though it has some similarities to Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner(a wonderful read), it has a more of a perspective that takes longer to establish. It has a definite theme along with a hint of Landsburg's suggestion at a moral ethic for decision-making. The book does seem repetitive at first but after a few reads actually does not seem so at all. I understand how people would find this book irritating, especially if its con...more

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Feb 09, 2009 Tommy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: economy, non-fiction

Steven Landsburg at first came off as witty and amusing but he increasingly wore on me during this book as he became overly arrogant and bull headed.

It is obvious that he is a micro-economics guy and he seems to think economics is the be all-end all of the world. I appreciate his fervor but I feel he is dishonest in his means and blindly ignores answers that may disagree with his particular taste.

His seeming disdain for the ideas of macro economics or the thought that anything other than economi...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Neosisani rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Noone

1) This book is not about sex, while the title says it is.

2) Stories and ideas, while sane to a point have flaws which can not be avoided. For example having more casual sex is not the only way to reduce amount of AIDS. Another way would be to promote long relationships over short one.

3) Author makes lots of incorrect statements which take college level mathematics to figure out. Hence this book might actually be dangerous to people who start applying it blindly. "A little knowledge is a dangero...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Robert rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, own-it

A lot of interesting theories. The sub title is The Unconventional Wisdom, and the theories really are unconventional. I had an issue with the theories as they were just presented and did not provide much data to back the them. In the index the author provides the articles and books in which he got the data from, but to find the articles and books and then read them would take much more time. The author must have thought that people would accept the theories without questioning them. More of the...more

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Jun 11, 2010 D. Scott rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 09, 2009 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars

I liked this book but I didn't love it. I bought it to read since the back cover caught my attention like "Freakonomics" did. It wasn't as good in my opinion. This author confused me a lot and I am not 100% sure why. It wasn't as easy to follow as "Freakonomics" was. It really seemed to me like a lot of what he was arguing was purely from a methodical and calculating viewpoint. Basically the world wants only boys for children and we shouldn't give our money to more than one charity. Overall ther...more

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Feb 23, 2010 Dmpower rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is in the same vein as "Freakonomics" and in fact actually references the book a few times. Be warned, this book is mostly theory. For example, the author's suggestion for reforming the electoral system includes having all congressional reps run nationwide races with their constituencies divided by the alphabet, not state and county lines. If you accept that most of the author's ideas are not going to be packaged in any politician's list of new reforms, you can have fun with entertaini...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

I started reading this book because I heard Landsburg give a talk on some of these issues and thought it was very interesting. I was really expecting it to be good - I like "pricing puzzle" type books like this, but the book really wasn't very good. I'd say 2.5/5. If you're looking for something good like this (i.e. something that attempts to explain economics and the interesting results of the discipline), I'd recommend the excellent Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies. This book also has e...more I started reading this book because I heard Landsburg give a talk on some of these issues and thought it was very interesting. I was really expecting it to be good - I like "pricing puzzle" type books like this, but the book really wasn't very good. I'd say 2.5/5. If you're looking for something good like this (i.e. something that attempts to explain economics and the interesting results of the discipline), I'd recommend the excellent Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies. This book also has elements of a lesser version of the thoughtful arguments I often see laid out by Bryan Caplan on a number of issues. His book The Myth of the Rational Voter is an excellent exemplar of this genre of thoughtful arguments leading to true but uncomfortable consequences.

The problem isn't that Landsburg is wrong - most of what he's saying here is actually pretty standard economics - the problem is that he doesn't explain his case well enough for people who don't already agree with him to really understand it. This is one of those books where I don't know who the audience is; people like me are going to agree because we've read dozens of other books on economics and understand, in general, the concept of externalities, whereas people who don't know much economics are just going to be hit with a bunch of super counter-intuitive results and no compelling arguments that explain why they're true. Start by explaining externalities first in a way people can't disagree with, then show them how this stuff logically follows. Either way, you're not likely to find much of interest here.

He also seems to under-estimate the ways that people can weasel out of believing an argument if they dislike the consequences. He goes into detail late in the book about preferences and why you should put a dollar figure on a life, but does so through the lens of preferences, which allows people to just think, "Oh, well, their preferences are just irrational." However, there are some very compelling arguments for why, at worst - you can just consider money spent saving one life as money that could be spent saving another: if you could save two lives instead of one, wouldn't you? At its core, that's the essence of considering cost when saving lives - you have a certain amount of resources that you can allocate for everything that people enjoy: being alive, being healthy, watching movies, eating well, driving cars, etc, and considering the cost of saving any one person's life is essentially very close to asking the question of 'how many people will die because they don't get access to the resources I'll use to save this guy'. But presenting some econometric research about how much money people are willing to pay for statistical health really doesn't really make that point to anyone who doesn't already understand the role of money and just turns people away from understanding economics.

My other big qualm with the book is that Landsburg feeds into a very common trend among economists that I don't like of presenting econometric research (often VERY sketchy) as if it's some fundamental economics work. This kind of thing is particularly frustrating when, like Landsburg, economists indulge their innate technocratic instincts about tweaking this or that. Landsburg even specifically states that a good incentive system "can be tweaked" - which is absolutely the opposite of what's true. A good incentive system has built in symmetries that accumulate information FOR you. If you have to discover the answer first and tweak the incentives system until you get that answer, there's not really much point in using incentives in the first place. It would have been a much, much better book if rather than phrasing the logical conclusions of the topics in the book in prescriptive terms ("We could give prudes library cards to induce them to have more sex", e.g.), he had used purely descriptive terms ("Something like a library card given out in exchange for more sex would encourage prudes to have more sex").

Overall, the whole book feels a bit sloppy and unlikely to hold much of interest for anyone - I would have rated it lower, but he does redeem himself a bit in the end; I found the chapter on charitable giving particularly hard to accept but difficult to refute, making it a rare moment of insight in an otherwise somewhat dull experience.(less)

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Aug 19, 2009 Annie rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's a general principle of economics that things tend to work out best when people have to live with the consequences of their own behavior, or to put it another way, things tend to work out poorly when the consequences of our actions spill over onto other people. 4
the person who drops the banana peel and the person who slips on it are not usually the same person. 5
your actions have costs and benefits. As long as you feel all the costs and benefits, you'll tend to get the quantity right. 5
(sign...more It's a general principle of economics that things tend to work out best when people have to live with the consequences of their own behavior, or to put it another way, things tend to work out poorly when the consequences of our actions spill over onto other people. 4
the person who drops the banana peel and the person who slips on it are not usually the same person. 5
your actions have costs and benefits. As long as you feel all the costs and benefits, you'll tend to get the quantity right. 5
(significance of adolescent self-esteem) 55
That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come . . . a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. As a writer, I note with considerable dismay that although Bacon's advice is clear, succinct, profound, and apparently irrefutable, it has been in print for over three hundred years without any discernible effect on human behavior. How could an instinct that is invariably self-destructive have survived the vagaries of natural selection? Political scientists have long recognized that while revenge itself is costly and pointless, the threat of revenge is an effective deterrent. 184
(true altruism versus "imperfect altruism" - care about how others achieve their happiness) 185
Laibson argues that we can be imperfectly altruistic towards ourselves - by caring not just about our future happiness, but about how that happiness is achieved 186
If you love looking forward to parties, and if you know that you love looking forward to parties, then you can never look forward to a party. 186
Steven Pinker points out that understanding the origin of the Universe is not a terribly useful skill; it confers no reproductive advantage, so there's no reason we should have evolved brains capable of thinking about such a question. 190
Knowledge of the past is extremely valuable. It does not follow that each additional bit of knowledge of the past is extremely valuable . . . There are more fascinating things in heaven and earth than you'll ever have time to contemplate. When one disappears, you replace it with another. 199
Ideally, we should tax socially destructive activities and use the revenue in the most socially productive ways we can imagine . . . There's no reason alcohol taxes should be earmarked for alcoholism treatment . . . 201
outsourcing work is, from an economic point of view, exactly the same thing as discovering a new technology. If you can ship your problems abroad and have them come back solved, that's exactly as good as feeding your problems to a new kind of machine and having solutions pop out the other end. 207
***If putting a dollar value on human lives strikes you as cold-hearted, grow up. You implicitly put a dollar value on human lives every time you buy a candy bar with funds that could instead have been donated to the local fire department. No matter who you are, there is a limit to what you're willing to spend to save lives; the only question is whether you're willing to think honestly about what that limit is. Viscusi thought hard not about his own limit but about how to measure other people's limits, through observations of their behavior. That's where the $6.6 million comes from - it's an estimate of what real people in real situations are willing to pay to make themselves safer. 220
It's usually suboptimal to specialize in just one kind of mistake. If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time in airports; if you never convict an innocent, you're not convicting enough of the guilty. 224(less)

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Jul 29, 2007 Brad rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Freakonomicists

Shelves: economics, non-fiction

With all the good pop economics book coming out, I really beginning to choosing to study political science rather than the Dismal Science.
More Sex is Safer Sex treads the same path as Freakonomics, The Wisdom of Crowds, and The Undercover Economist, all of which do a better or more entertaining job of tying economic principles into everyday life. Steven E. Landsburg revels in coming up with unorthodox solutions to problems—truly charitable people should only give to ONE charity, racial profiling...more

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Apr 27, 2009 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-recently

About 2/3 interesting insights, about 1/3 clearly misguided musings. The writing is Freakonomics-style with less research supporting the conclusions, but the armchair reasoning style makes this type of reasoning seem more applicable to everyday situations than Freakonomics (after all, who really has time to spend years researching a question before coming to a snap judgment anyway?)

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Feb 17, 2009 Andrew Flack rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really like these kinds of books. Landsburg is a professor at my school and I'd love to take one of his classes after reading this book. The title sums it up: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics. Economics can surprisingly be applied to so many situations in our lives (with results that you might not expect!). Quick and easy to read, very entertaining.

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Dec 27, 2012 Shannon rated it 1 of 5 stars

After researching the author and reading the book, I find the content misleading and simply stated, stupid. He uses logical American ideals to push his agenda. This book is ridiculous. Anyone can write a book and people like this will because their are not enough good writers standing up for what is right. This sickens me.

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Oct 31, 2010 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Landsburg. Truly a brilliant guy. His tone here is a little argumentative, not unlike his blog sometimes. I can see why if you're used to people constantly disagreeing, you feel like you have to hit people over the head with things. Still, this is rare and it's otherwise a very thought-provoking book.

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Oct 27, 2011 Graham Swalling rated it 2 of 5 stars

As many other readers have made note - the author, and in turn the book, are cold and hard to dive in to.

While his logic may be strong Landsburg does little to engage the reader. Unfortunately chapter after chapter the first three paragraphs were all that challenged and enthralled. After each chapter's introduction you were left to reiteration and narrative that did little to excite, challenge, or to make you think.

Pass.

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Feb 26, 2009 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pop economics books like this, combined with our imploding economy, make me wish for a technocracy of smart, frank, incentive-conscious economists like Landsburg. At the very least, they'd throw us for a loop. (He claims cutting in line should be the name of the game--when you join a queue, you go to the front, not the back. Then demand would match supply. Or something. Still can't get my head around that one). I'd be interested to read his other one, The Armchair Economist, too.

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Sep 05, 2012 Joshuaprice rated it 3 of 5 stars

A solid attempt to replicate what Freakonomics has accomplished, but i thought the writing style did not capture my attention like Leavit and Dubner did. Still, a very interesting read. And a sexy title to boot.

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Apr 25, 2013 Manuel Rios-Murillo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Libro para los economistas y no economistas. Si Usted es muy sensible quizás este libro le moleste y... como dijo otro lector, Landsburg muestra la inmoralidad de nuestro propio pensamiento moralista.

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Other Editions (11)