With his long-running 'Everyday Economics' column in Slate and his popular book, The Armchair Economist, Steve Landsburg has been leading the pack of economists who are transforming their science from a drab meditation on graphs and charts into a fascinating window on human nature. Now he's back and more provocative than ever with surprises on virtually every page. In More Sex is Safer Sex, Professor Landsburg offers readers a series of stimulating discussions that all flow from one unsettling fact. Combining the rational decisions of each of us often produces an irrational result for all of us. Avoiding casual sex can actually encourage the spread of diseases. To solve population pressures, we need more people. In his tantalizing, entertaining narrative, Landsburg guides us through these shocking notions by the light of compelling logic and evidence and makes suggestions along the way: Why not charge juries if a convicted felon is exonerated? Why not let firemen keep the property they rescue? As entertaining as it is inflammatory, More Sex is Safer Sex, will make readers think about their decisions in unforgettable ways-and spark debate over much that we all take for granted.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Economics books full of "uncommon sense" are more common after the success of Freakonomics, but this rambling survey of hot-button and quotidian issues viewed from a libertarian economic perspective doesn't measure up. Landsburg (The Armchair Economist) is sometimes pleasantly counterintuitive, but too often simply contentious. In using cost/benefit calculations to argue in favor of racial profiling or why we shouldn't care about the looting of Baghdad's museums, he strains to celebrate "all that is counter, original, spare and strange." While positing multiple solutions to interesting problems, he forces logical readers to confront uncomfortable positions—as in the title essay, urging chaste citizens to sleep around, thereby diluting the pool of potential sex partners with AIDS. But the chapters typically conclude without resolution—at one point, the author shrugs: "It's not easy to sort out causes from effects." One suspects that a rival economist could swiftly debunk many of Landsburg's arguments—for instance, his chapter praising misers (who produce but don't consume) depends on the assumption that all resources are fixed and finite. By the time he makes the head-scratching case that "it's always an occasion for joy when other people have more children," the reader may be in the mood for some plain old common sense. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Economist Landsburg sets out to explain extraordinary findings and logical arguments about the economics of everyday life. In the same vein as the recently popular Freakonomics, this book aims to assault common sense using the tools of evidence and logic to describe reality. Drawn from evidently popular response to the author's magazine column, the book's title and lengthy first chapter on sex and AIDS could be found tedious by some. Yet his wisdom in subsequent chapters is thought-provoking. His ideas on beauty and ugliness, why insurance rates in Philadelphia are so high, compassion and economic considerations, gains from population size, daughters and divorce, concentrating charitable giving to one recipient, and views on Social Security are a few topics the author tackles with a lighthearted perspective. He tells us, "These are carefully considered arguments about important issues. But they're also surprising arguments, and surprises are fun. This book will give you new insights about how the world works." Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Details
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More About the Author
Steven E. Landsburg is a Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester. He is the author of More Sex Is Safer Sex, The Armchair Economist, Fair Play, two textbooks on economics, and over thirty journal articles in mathematics, economics, and philosophy. He writes the popular "Everyday Economics" column in Slate magazine and has written for Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
159 of 197 people found the following review helpful
By Dave Hitz
Format:Hardcover
I was expecting something thoughtful and thought-provoking, like Freakonomics or Blink, but instead I found lots of half-baked suggestions that seem intended to shock rather than enlighten.
Here's an example. Landsburg argues that the big barrier for people getting their first loan is that banks don't believe they will pay, so he argues that "If the government wants to provide meaningful assistance to first-time home buyers, it should probably consider capital punishment for late mortgage payments." That would prove their intent to pay, and make banks feel safer. Does he really believe this? It's hard to tell, because he throws out many of his crazy ideas with little support or comment.
Another suggestion is that Congressmen should be assigned to constituents alphabetically, one representing names starting Aa-Am, another An-Be, and so on, because that would create less incentive for bridges to nowhere. What kind of legislation can you pass to unfairly advantage people whose names start with B? But he completely ignores the issue of representing constituents with common interests, or how a congressman could go about meeting people spread evenly over the whole country. Perhaps there's a nugget of a good idea, but given that he ignores any potential downsides, you can't really tell.
At first these crazy suggestions were amusing, but as they kept coming, I wondered: Is he serious or just screwing around? The crazy unsupported ideas made me skeptical of the ones he seems to be trying to defend more seriously, because it seems he's more interested in shocking people than in reach seriously supportable truths.
In the end, I felt that I hadn't learned much -- just watched a smart guy ramble about with little serious intent.
Dave
Here's an example. Landsburg argues that the big barrier for people getting their first loan is that banks don't believe they will pay, so he argues that "If the government wants to provide meaningful assistance to first-time home buyers, it should probably consider capital punishment for late mortgage payments." That would prove their intent to pay, and make banks feel safer. Does he really believe this? It's hard to tell, because he throws out many of his crazy ideas with little support or comment.
Another suggestion is that Congressmen should be assigned to constituents alphabetically, one representing names starting Aa-Am, another An-Be, and so on, because that would create less incentive for bridges to nowhere. What kind of legislation can you pass to unfairly advantage people whose names start with B? But he completely ignores the issue of representing constituents with common interests, or how a congressman could go about meeting people spread evenly over the whole country. Perhaps there's a nugget of a good idea, but given that he ignores any potential downsides, you can't really tell.
At first these crazy suggestions were amusing, but as they kept coming, I wondered: Is he serious or just screwing around? The crazy unsupported ideas made me skeptical of the ones he seems to be trying to defend more seriously, because it seems he's more interested in shocking people than in reach seriously supportable truths.
In the end, I felt that I hadn't learned much -- just watched a smart guy ramble about with little serious intent.
Dave
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Reading this book is a clearly useful exercise: recognizing incorrect arguments is a useful (and sometimes very fun) skill!
The "unconventional wisdom" from this book is actually a collection of comically oversimplified, misleading, inconsistent, and unverified "theories" (yes, all quotes are intended).
Oversimplification: chapter 6 has six pages plus five additional lines. Its title? Very modest: "How to fix Politics"! Initially, I thought Landsburg is joking, but, no, in the next chapter, the equally modest "How to Fix the Justice System" (22 pages), Landsburg reassures us: "Am I serious? Of course I'm serious!"
Misleading: let's look at the chapter that gives the title of the entire book. As the example goes, Martin and Joan (who like each other very much) plan to leave together from the company Christmas party. But Martin gets scared by an AIDS-awareness ad and decides to skip the party. Joan finds herself alone at the party and leaves with Maxwell, who's HIV-positive. So, if Martin decided to have more sex, Joan would be safer today! Landsburg, a professor of economics at Univ. of Rochester, generalizes this into "More Sex is Safer Sex"! Before you start celebrating, please read on. What he's actually proving is the less interesting statement "if the total quantity of sex (defined as different couples) were equal, then a more uniform distribution of sex maximizes safety". For people who like graph theory, "in a graph with a constant number of nodes and edges, the diameter is likely to be bigger if the node degrees are equal". Notice that this is a quite boring result, clearly not one to generate big sales :) It is also a useless result, as it uses the baseless assumption of a constant quantity of sex (after all, Joan could have gone home alone). There are many instances of this "zero-sum fallacy" in the book.
The Landsburg-style "thinking" culminates in Chapter 14, section "The Sack of Baghdad". There, Landsburg tries to convince us that the sack of the National Museum of Iraq was not such a big deal after all: "A lot of stuff in that museum was five thousand years old. If it were in my garage, I'd have swept it out to the curb a long time ago." Really? I bet he would have sold that "stuff" for a hefty profit. The value of "stuff" is not given by its protein content, nor by what Prof. Landsburg thinks, but by the market (it's shocking that a professor of economics forgets this!). And in the case of the "stuff" from the Baghdad Museum, many buyers were ready to pay a lot of money for it, the same way many people would pay a lot of money for Mona Lisa, another example of old "stuff". Besides, the looting of Baghdad sent a powerful message: the law has collapsed and brutal force rules. No wonder criminals have ruled the streets of Baghdad ever since ...
The "unconventional wisdom" from this book is actually a collection of comically oversimplified, misleading, inconsistent, and unverified "theories" (yes, all quotes are intended).
Oversimplification: chapter 6 has six pages plus five additional lines. Its title? Very modest: "How to fix Politics"! Initially, I thought Landsburg is joking, but, no, in the next chapter, the equally modest "How to Fix the Justice System" (22 pages), Landsburg reassures us: "Am I serious? Of course I'm serious!"
Misleading: let's look at the chapter that gives the title of the entire book. As the example goes, Martin and Joan (who like each other very much) plan to leave together from the company Christmas party. But Martin gets scared by an AIDS-awareness ad and decides to skip the party. Joan finds herself alone at the party and leaves with Maxwell, who's HIV-positive. So, if Martin decided to have more sex, Joan would be safer today! Landsburg, a professor of economics at Univ. of Rochester, generalizes this into "More Sex is Safer Sex"! Before you start celebrating, please read on. What he's actually proving is the less interesting statement "if the total quantity of sex (defined as different couples) were equal, then a more uniform distribution of sex maximizes safety". For people who like graph theory, "in a graph with a constant number of nodes and edges, the diameter is likely to be bigger if the node degrees are equal". Notice that this is a quite boring result, clearly not one to generate big sales :) It is also a useless result, as it uses the baseless assumption of a constant quantity of sex (after all, Joan could have gone home alone). There are many instances of this "zero-sum fallacy" in the book.
The Landsburg-style "thinking" culminates in Chapter 14, section "The Sack of Baghdad". There, Landsburg tries to convince us that the sack of the National Museum of Iraq was not such a big deal after all: "A lot of stuff in that museum was five thousand years old. If it were in my garage, I'd have swept it out to the curb a long time ago." Really? I bet he would have sold that "stuff" for a hefty profit. The value of "stuff" is not given by its protein content, nor by what Prof. Landsburg thinks, but by the market (it's shocking that a professor of economics forgets this!). And in the case of the "stuff" from the Baghdad Museum, many buyers were ready to pay a lot of money for it, the same way many people would pay a lot of money for Mona Lisa, another example of old "stuff". Besides, the looting of Baghdad sent a powerful message: the law has collapsed and brutal force rules. No wonder criminals have ruled the streets of Baghdad ever since ...
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Landsburg's arguments are certainly provocative, but his style (both of argument and of writing) get in the way of enjoying this book. It reads like what it is: a series of magazine articles collected somewhat arbitrarily under a provocative title.
His complex arguments with multiple assumptions are presented as if they were simple arguments with no unstated assumptions. Many are reduced to three or four terse sentences. I found myself thinking more about his starting points than his conclusions.
In fact, I would not say that I either agree or disagree with his conclusions. Some seem inevitable, others seem insane. There are at least a couple that I believe could be demonstrated as blatantly false (if the underlying assumptions were enumerated and evaluated). But mostly I feel like I do not have enough supporting information to make a truly informed response.
If his goal was to teach readers how to use economic principles in decision-making, the goal was not met. If his goal was to show how making decisions using economic principles leads to surprising conclusions, again it was not met. If his goal was something else, it is difficult to discern. Ultimately, I see little point for this book. It was only modestly entertaining.
But I think the biggest sin in these essays is that they are all logic and no heart. Throughout all of the "cost-benefit" reasoning, there is no acknowledgment that feeling good about a decision (regardless of its soundness) must be tallied in the "benefit" column.
Yes, this is irrational (see Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions) and generally leads to bad decisions, but it must be considered. Mr. Landsburg is not only rather dismissive toward such a notion, he writes with a somewhat arrogant tone which discourages further conversation.
There are lots of popular books out there about economics. I found this one to be rather disappointing.
His complex arguments with multiple assumptions are presented as if they were simple arguments with no unstated assumptions. Many are reduced to three or four terse sentences. I found myself thinking more about his starting points than his conclusions.
In fact, I would not say that I either agree or disagree with his conclusions. Some seem inevitable, others seem insane. There are at least a couple that I believe could be demonstrated as blatantly false (if the underlying assumptions were enumerated and evaluated). But mostly I feel like I do not have enough supporting information to make a truly informed response.
If his goal was to teach readers how to use economic principles in decision-making, the goal was not met. If his goal was to show how making decisions using economic principles leads to surprising conclusions, again it was not met. If his goal was something else, it is difficult to discern. Ultimately, I see little point for this book. It was only modestly entertaining.
But I think the biggest sin in these essays is that they are all logic and no heart. Throughout all of the "cost-benefit" reasoning, there is no acknowledgment that feeling good about a decision (regardless of its soundness) must be tallied in the "benefit" column.
Yes, this is irrational (see Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions) and generally leads to bad decisions, but it must be considered. Mr. Landsburg is not only rather dismissive toward such a notion, he writes with a somewhat arrogant tone which discourages further conversation.
There are lots of popular books out there about economics. I found this one to be rather disappointing.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
I burned this book
Burning a book sounds shocking, but an economist like the dolt that wrote this would argue that it provided a lot of utility for me, not only in the pleasure with which I disposed... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Steve Silberberg
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and thought provoking
This is the second title by Steven Landsberg I have read and enjoyed.
Chapter 2 alone regarding the benefits of population growth and related matters was an excellent... Read more
Chapter 2 alone regarding the benefits of population growth and related matters was an excellent... Read more
Published 21 months ago by J. Vineyard
3.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking, but unconvincing.
This book is intended to be thought-provoking and I think it really succeeds at that. However, the style in which this book is written severely detracted from my enjoyment of... Read more
Published on April 21, 2011 by J. Kent
4.0 out of 5 stars
Challenging Perspectives on Many Things
Interesting book that applies economic theory (cost-benefit) to a number of different situations. I think many people would be offended by the seemingly cold way the author values... Read more
Published on January 8, 2011 by Brian Ahearn
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed Bag
Being drawn to economic and logical discussion, I was fascinated with the idea of this book. I was not a fan of a "related" book mentioned in reviews (starts with an F). Read more
Published on September 18, 2010 by Buddy Revell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best econ book I've ever read.
This is the best economics book I've ever read. Every single chapter had me rolling my eyes at first, laughing at Landsburg's humorous analysis, and then finally agreeing. Read more
Published on September 12, 2009 by David Numbers
1.0 out of 5 stars
Catchy title little substance. Not worth your money.
I bought a hardcover edition of this book about a week ago. I was excited and looking forward to a book that provided an insight into (the unconventional wisdom of)economics. Read more
Published on September 10, 2009 by Robert L. Penrose
1.0 out of 5 stars
Illogical, rambling, un-studious
A poor fifth-grade cousin to Freakonomics. Poorly written and conceived. Makes contradictions to himself and jumps to conclusions by tying together facts as being directly... Read more
Published on August 12, 2009 by J. Kalb
5.0 out of 5 stars
It made me think and had a big impact
Surprisingly even with that title, this is a book about economics. This was probably one of the best books I have read in a long time. Read more
Published on May 3, 2009 by Roland G. Martinez
3.0 out of 5 stars
A FREAKONOMICS wannabe without the depth or quality
Landsburg's latest effort is an OK attempt to cash in on the hipness of using economic analysis on real world problems a la Steven Levitt's FREAKONOMICS, but it lacks the depth of... Read more
Published on December 30, 2008 by B. Feinstein
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