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Dec 17, 2009

Justin rated it:

I guess some people don't like this book because it's not centered around one theme. Instead, it's more about the seemingly diffuse academic work of one of the authors Steven D. Levitt (the other author is a journalist, Stephen J. Dubner). Levitt is something of an economist but more like a social scientist using the tools of Microeconomics applied to other fields that happen to catch his interest (often having something to do with cheating, corruption, crime, etc.). In the back of the book he m More...

0 comments like (29 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Jim rated it:

This was an interesting book. I say it was interesting because I started liking it (a lot) when I first read it, as time passed I liked it less and less. In that way I call it a candy book, tastes good at first but leaves you worse off for reading it.

In my opinion, there are two problems with the book: First, Stephen Dubner comes across as a sycophant. Way to much of the book is spent praising Levitt. Secondly, I was disappointed in the lack of detail provided about Livitt's hypothe More...

6 comments like (33 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2007

Aileen rated it:

I am indebted to airport bookstores. And I am thus indebted to such an extent, that I can confess to arriving early for any flight departing from an airport with a bookstore for the sole purpose of securing a few additional minutes to browse books. If it were not for the practicalities of travelling, I would probably have bought this book much sooner than I did for I had been securing extra minutes in airport bookstores just to read through another chapter long before I actually bought it.
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3 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Elise rated it:

Levitt makes the lofty claim that economics is not swayed by moral sensibilities - it's a pure numbers game of course! However, not knowing much about him beyond his affiliation with the University of Chicago and what was written in the book, I can surmise that he is conservative, or at least what today would be inappropriately labeled "moderate." Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily...or at least I don't view it that way. Does it affect his conclusions? Absolutely. Levitt assume More...

4 comments like (15 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Rachel rated it:

Sure, this book was a compelling read that offered us all some great amo for cocktail party conversation. But ultimately I think most of what Leavitt claims is crap.

He dodges accoutability with the disclaimer about his book NOT being a scholarly work, but then goes on to drop statistics, theories and expert opinions. These assertions laid, he doesn't provide readers with enough information to critically examine his perspectives.

Ultimately I have a problem with the unques More...

6 comments like (24 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2008

Rob rated it:

An engaging read but not necessarily the scintillating, mind-blowing experience it had been hyped as.

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 example) and even less stuff about economics but I found this book quick to get through and I was able to take away their message without having to labor through it.

That said, a few point More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Bobscopatz added it

Yes, zero stars.

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 they chose to use from FARS. In particular, their analysis rests on the ability to identify uninjured children in vehicles that were involved in fatal crashes. FARS has data elements for this, but t More...

4 comments like (18 people liked it)

Feb 26, 2011

Charles rated it:

This book has some good lessons in how to analyze data and ask the right questions. Were it not for the grievous flaws detailed below it would have merited a much higher rating.

The fourth chapter, Where Have All the Criminals Gone?, draws a link between the fall of American crime in the 1990s and the legalization abortion in 1973, saying that crime fell due to the fact that all the potential criminals have been aborted. Whether or not this is correct, and he does provide some More...

6 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

Manny rated it:

I loved this book, though I think the title is a bit misleading. It's not really about economics. In fact, he's showing you what interesting things you can discover when you apply statistical analysis to problems where you wouldn't normally think of using it. I use statistical methods a fair amount in my own work, so I found it particularly interesting. The most startling and thought-provoking example is definitely the unexpected reduction in US urban crime that occurred towards the end of the 2 More...

15 comments like (16 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2007

Chanita.Shannon marked it as to-read

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

Osho rated it:

+ A fun foray into seemingly dissimilar questions about society, readable
- 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 being rigorous. As companion pieces, read Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking; Gladwell addresses some topics in More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2007

Sean rated it:

There are at least two ways you can read Freakanomics – as a fun and interesting little book that uses data to tell us little things about ourselves and the world. Or, you can see it as econometrics gone apeshit and finally taking over the world. I kind of view it as both.

That said, I really enjoyed reading this. I think Levitt has developed some useful tools that can tell us some interesting stuff about the way little corners of our world are organized. I also think it is a little b More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2011

Christina rated it:

After packing 5 books for my trip, I found myself sitting in the Philadelphia airport with nothing to read. My mom, instead of buying me Remember Me? or Change of Heart, handed me her copy of Freakonomics: A rough Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

Freakonomics was a great back-up book. It was witty, insightful, and really made me think. What does the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents? Why do drug dealers still liv More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2008

Jake rated it:

The Basics:

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 questions, from whether or not sumo wrestlers cheat (they do) to whether or not a child’s name determines his success (it doesn’t). He does this all through examining statistics and data, trying to find fac More...

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2007

Sean rated it:

I read Freakonomics last year, but I've continued to enjoy it more and more as I share parts of it with my English classes. It's a great nonfiction work to bring into the classroom, and the way it's divided into independent chapters makes it easy to do so. Kids who in general do not read find this writer's hypotheses (and proofs thereof) fascinating. Kids in general classes have asked me to borrow it.

The way the Steven Levitt is a "rogue economist" is ironic. Although I'm s More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2007

Joe rated it:

The most interesting part of this book was the introduction. Sad, but true.

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 way, as though you saw a duck waddling through your back yard with jam on its head.

But insofar as it's meant to be the vehicle for a larger framework for viewing the world, this book is o More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

May 08, 2008

Lesandre rated it:

Exceeds the hype! Easy breezy to read, a wealth of information that I would never have stopped to contemplate. I had just read the chapter on the KKK and the real estate agent when my car was totaled; it helped me choose a posture with the insurance adjusters that wouldn't result in a total ass-raping. The last chapter about names was simultaneously horrifying and hilarious. It is dismaying to confess, now, that I am more judgmental of people's names knowing the societal/economic trends behind t More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 11, 2010

Cwn_annwn_13 rated it:

I assumed Freakonomics would be a book that used statistics to debunk various societal hysterias and fearmongering in a semi-humorous way. I quickly realized what I was in for when early in the book when the authors gave their background as Harvard Jews and profiled a guy that infiltrated the KKK for the ADL. The story sounds at least partially made up.

It then jumped into predictable white guilt inducing trash and goes into mental contortions using "data" and sociological More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2011

Carlo rated it:

One of the most interesting topics in Freakonomics, is that of bad assumptions in causality. These are made when people consider causality regarding a particular event, and they making assumptions that are affected by factors such as self-interest, prejudice, common sense, etc. The book shows that when the right questions are asked and their answers are searched in a bigger context, some unrelated causes may happen to trigger the original event. An example from the book is how crime rate had fal More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2010

Ben rated it:

This makes a second non-fiction hit read that I am coming to years late. The subject material is fascinating and told in a clean, straightforward, and engrossing fashion. Also, it was surprisingly short. The result felt to me like being given three clocked minutes to pile my plate as high as possible at some fabulous and fantastical buffet. How could I be satisfied with what ended up on my plate? I wanted to keep geeking out on the factoidal threads, and would have welcomed a book twice the leng More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 08, 2011

Elise rated it:

Great book! You can easily see why it is so popular. Lots of interesting stuff. Like this:
-Legalizing abortions led to a dramatic decrease in crime across the country (they are not condoning abortion, just pointing out an unexpected consequence of it)
-Car seats: "Car seats are, at best, nominally helpful. It is certainly safer to keep a child in the rear seat than sitting on a lap in the front seat, where in the event of an accident he essentially becomes a projectile. But the s More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2008

Beckie rated it:

I'm a little bit late to the party on this one, I realize. I'd heard so much about "Freakonomics" that there didn't seem to be much point in actually reading it. But I had a prolonged airport experience yesterday and devoured the whole thing.
I hadn't realized Steven Levitt had lost a child, and knowing that changed the way I looked at a lot of his ideas. Even thought I had heard many of the arguments Levitt makes before reading the book, I found his ideas compelling and provocati More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

Brian rated it:

A fun, easy and fairly illuminating read. As the title indicates an economist uses a crapload of statistics to explain random things from the abrupt drop in crime over the 1990's, to the increase in cheating teachers, to the true effectiveness of various parenting methods. As they say, "the numbers don't lie" and when you examine the various stats in an (apparently) apples-to-apples method, it's pretty compelling stuff. Of course the most incendiary point made in the book is that it More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 27, 2008

Matt rated it:

This is the second book I've read in my attempt to "get a handle" on economics. It's probably reflective of my overdeveloped humanities background that I need to read books to figure this stuff out, but so be it....

Anyhow, where I thought that the other book I read earlier was too shy of what you could do with economics beyond conceptualizing and measuring the GDP, this one kind of errs in the other direction, uncovering, as the title says, the hidden side of everything, bu More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2008

Doran rated it:

I've been wanting to read Freakonomics for many months and I think I've picked it up at a bookstore or grocery store at least a half dozen times without purchasing it. Finally, a week or so ago, I got it.

I guess I'll add yet-another voice to the choir that resounds there is not a unifying theme to this book. But, that's only a minor complaint.

FreakonomicsFreakonomics is written by award-winning economist Steven Levitt and award-winning author Stephen J. Dubner More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 10, 2008

Molly rated it:

This book wasn't bad, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a quick read and gives the feeling of learning interesting things while also not challenging your brain too much (which after a day of reading academic works in your non-native language, is definitely a GOOD thing).

Its drawbacks are the following. The first I realize isn't quite fair, because the authors come right out and state that the book isn't intended to have an overarching point. But it simply feels disjoined and, ult More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2008

Kevin rated it:

The study of economics is not for everyone and that's probably a good thing. Most people have little to no experience with it whatsoever outside of one or two college classes that may have been prerequisites for your major of choice. It's not always an easy thing to understand and some of the results that are obtained can be difficult to swallow. Levitt, a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal for the best American economist under forty and University of Chicago economics teacher, along with D More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

Trevor rated it:

This is a very American book. Not just because all of the examples in it are set in the US, but also the hype about it is terribly American too. It has the tone of self congratulation that has sold a million self-help books. Which is a pity, as what it has to say is terribly interesting and amusing.

The stuff at the end about how the name you are born with affects your life is very interesting. Also the idea, that is clearly true, but I'd never thought of it before, that people gi More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2008

Sherrell rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Amy rated it:

This was my first attempt in a while at reading non-fiction. It was a quick read, and the writing style was easily understandable by someone like myself who knows little about economics. The book is probably most famous for the chapter about how the Roe vs. Wade decision to legalize abortion caused a decrease in crime in the 90s. Not that it was the book's fault, but I felt like the premises of this argument had already been hammered into my brain through interviews with Levitt that I had see More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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