berrybuzz read and liked Chris Clark's review of SuperFreakonomics: Tales of Altruism, Terrorism, and Poorly Paid Prostitutes:

"Disclaimer: I am an economist and was aware of a number of the papers discussed in this book. My knowledge of the results presented in some of these papers and the fact that I am an economist likely biased my opinion of the book (though I can't hones...more Disclaimer: I am an economist and was aware of a number of the papers discussed in this book. My knowledge of the results presented in some of these papers and the fact that I am an economist likely biased my opinion of the book (though I can't honestly say in which direction.)

As in the authors' first book, "Freakonomics", the underlying theme of "Superfreakonomics" is that incentives matter. Individuals respond to incentives in an attempt to make themselves better off. That is simply how we, as human beings, appear to operate. The chapters in this book simply highlight examples of people (and monkeys) living by that principle.

I will first review the book by sections/chapters and then give you my overall opinion:

Introduction:
The introduction was surprisingly entertaining. There are some interesting facts concerning women in India, how they are treated, and why. The intro did a fine job of whetting my appetite for the rest of the book.

Chapter 1 "How is a Street Prostitute like a Department-Store Santa?":
This was the most interesting chapter in the book. In this chapter the authors do an excellent job of interspersing statistics with personal interviews to really emphasis their points. This chapter also contains one of my favorite new terms: "Pimpact" which is the impact a pimp has on the life of a prostitute (you may be surprised by both the direction of the effect and its magnitude). The rest of the chapter is essentially spent comparing the behavior of prostitutes to the behavior of other business people. [Another disclaimer: I am currently working on a paper that examines prostitution among young adults, so I may have found this a bit more intriguing than the average reader will.]

Chapter 2 "Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance?":
I found this chapter a bit bland. Terrorism and terrorist detection are obviously interesting and important topics, but the writing did nothing to add excitement. There are some fascinating findings in the study and the methodology used to detect terrorists seems logically constructed, but at times I felt like I was reading a report written by an undergraduate student. Where was the higher level thinking and intuition that was present in the first chapter?

Chapter 3 "Unbelievable Stories about Apathy and Altruism":
Another excellent, engrossing chapter. People who live in New York and those at least vaguely aware of the Kitty Genovese murder that occurred n Queens years ago really need to read this chapter. It clarifies a great many details about the events of that infamous night and also reveals just how little integrity some individuals (in this case journalists and a police commissioner) actually have when they feel their job/money is on the line. This chapter contains the type of information that makes me both proud and sad to be an economist. We won't stop attacking a topic until we wring every last bit of information out of it, but that often leads us back to the basic conclusion that people are inherently self-interested and respond primarily to incentives. Though individuals often exhibit at least some signs of altruism, I would prefer to read some valid proof that people are inherently generous, but that is becoming increasingly hard to believe.

Chapter 4 "The Fix is in-And It's Cheap and Simple":
This is a fairly interesting chapter with some cool factoids interspersed with some rather dry discussion of safety measures. The key idea here is that innovation and the private sector often fixes problems without the need for government intervention...it just takes time. The authors provide some rather convincing evidence to support this finding. Unfortunately, they then proceed to discuss infant car seats that, while important, simply aren't that interesting.

Chapter 5 "What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common":
This is an incredibly controversial and potentially offensive (if you are a bit close-minded regarding Global Warming) chapter on Global Warming. This chapter caused a massive ruckus last month on the economics blogs (some of the best:http://www.marginalrevolution.com/, http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/, and http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/) and on myriad global warming blogs. I won't get into the debate here (see this post for links to every aspect of the debate: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/20...), but I will say that the chapter and the potential solutions it presents provided a great deal of information that I wasn't aware of. It also opened my eyes a bit regarding the options we have for trying to address the issue of global warming. In my experience everyone who discusses global warming spends all (or nearly all) their time trying to convince us that the problem is real and that it must be addressed. Very little time has been spent explaining how to that in any reasonable fashion. Most suggestions I have heard would bring our (and every other developed and developing nation's) economy to a grinding halt and leave us with a big chunk of the population in financial dire straits (and facing starvation). That may be a cost you are willing to pay, but I think we can agree that if we could potentially find less costly, but equally effective approaches we should try. I think that is all this chapter is really trying to convey. [This just in: Jon Stewart of The Daily Show apparently agrees with me: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-oc...

Epilogue "Monkeys Are People Too":
Microeconomics is the study of individual behavior. Much of the material in this book uses microeconomic theory and concepts to examine nontraditional areas. In the epilogue we find out that a number of researchers have been trying to determine if Monkeys adhere to our basic microeconomic principles. It appears that they do adhere and to a staggering degree. Including *SPOILERS* monkey prostitution.

Overall:
Superfreakonomics covers some very interesting topics that are addressed in a new way. The application of economic thought and technique to the analysis of prostitution, terrorism, and similarly controversial subjects allows some new conclusions to be drawn and perhaps sheds some light on aspects of these topics that many individuals (including myself) have never considered. It is obvious that the authors are very intelligent individuals, who genuinely want to enlighten the reader, but some of the writing is a bit clinical and that detracts from the excitement that should be conveyed in some of the chapters.

I encourage you to give this book a shot. It may not change your life, but it will likely change the way you think about some aspects of it. You WILL learn something and you WILL find something to disagree with. As an economist, I am encouraged by the way this book conveys what we do and how we do it. This is how I teach my students to think: keep an open mind, look for patterns in what you see, and always remember that individuals (all of them) are reacting to incentives. The job of the economist is to find the incentive and learn how/why we react to it.

Thank you sincerely for your time,
Chris Clark
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