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Steven D. Levitt

Stephen J. Dubner

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Paperback – August 25, 2009

by Steven D. Levitt (Author), Stephen J Dubner (Author)

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Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?

What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?

How much do parents really matter?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they 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.

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315 pages
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English
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William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication date

August 25, 2009
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5.31 x 0.79 x 8 inches
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0060731338
ISBN-13

978-0060731335
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Provocative… eye-popping.” (New York Times Book Review: Inside the List)

“If Indiana Jones were an economist, he’d be Steven Levitt… Criticizing Freakonomics would be like criticizing a hot fudge sundae.” (Wall Street Journal)

“The guy is interesting!” (Washington Post Book World)

“The funkiest study of statistical mechanics ever by a world-renowned economist... Eye-opening and sometimes eye-popping” (Entertainment Weekly)

“Steven Levitt has the most interesting mind in America... Prepare to be dazzled.” (Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point)

“Principles of economics are used to examine daily life in this fun read.” (People: Great Reads)

“Levitt dissects complex real-world phenomena, e.g. baby-naming patterns and Sumo wrestling, with an economist’s laser.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)

“Levitt is a number cruncher extraordinaire.” (Philadelphia Daily News)

“Levitt is one of the most notorious economists of our age.” (Financial Times)

“Hard to resist.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“Freakonomics is politically incorrect in the best, most essential way.... This is bracing fun of the highest order.” (Kurt Andersen, host of public radio's Studio 360 and author of Turn of the Century)

“Freakonomics was the ‘It’ book of 2005.” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

“An eye-opening, and most interesting, approach to the world.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“An unconventional economist defies conventional wisdom.” (Associated Press)

“A showcase for Levitt’s intriguing explorations into a number of disparate topics…. There’s plenty of fun to be had.” (Salon.com)

“One of the decade’s most intelligent and provocative books.” (The Daily Standard)

“Freakonomics challenges conventional wisdom and makes for fun reading.” (Book Sense Picks and Notables)

“The trivia alone is worth the cover price.” (New York Times Book Review)

“An easy, funny read. Many unsolvable problems the Americans have could be solved with simple means.” (Business World)

“Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences.... Steven D. Levitt will change some minds.” (Amazon.com)

From the Back Cover

More Than 4 Million Copies Sold Worldwide
Published in 35 Languages

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?
What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?
How much do parents really matter?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they 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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (August 25, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 315 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060731338
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060731335
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.79 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #110,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #85 in Theory of Economics
- #304 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #837 in Personal Finance (Books)

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Steven D. Levitt
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Steven D. Levitt teaches economics at the University of Chicago. His idiosyncratic economic research into areas as varied as guns and game shows has triggered debate in the media and academic circles.
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Stephen J. Dubner
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Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning author, journalist, and radio and TV personality. He quit his first career—as an almost-rock-star—to become a writer. He has worked for The New York Times and published three non-Freakonomics books. He lives with his family in New York City.
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Andrea

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 8, 2013

Verified Purchase

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

This is one of the most interesting books you will ever read. The author, a Harvard graduate, takes 6 interesting subjects and looks at a side of it that most people wouldn't. (He did lots of research.) He uses data - lots of it - not opinion to find his answers and statistics. The topics might not necessarily be "important", but they are interesting. Here they are:

CHAPTER 1. "WHAT DO SCHOOLTEACHERS AND SUMO WRESTLERS HAVE IN COMMON?" Of course, I cannot tell you the answer, because I don't want to ruin the book if you haven't read it yet. There's really not much I can say about this chapter without giving it away. But the chapter was interesting, and it looks at something that schoolteachers, sumo wrestlers, daycare mothers, and bagel buyers have in common.

Back in my school days, teachers didn't make much. They seemed to be so much better back then. I think it was because they taught because they loved to teach, because they loved the kids, and teaching was their gift and their passion. Nowadays I think people do it for the money, as they make much more now than they did back then. A lot of teachers nowadays don't have their heart in it; they just have their pocketbook in it. This paragraph had nothing really to do with the book, I just added that in, because the book mentioned certain teachers that will depress your faith in them. But I'm sure that is a low percentage; most teachers, I'm sure, are still good.

CHAPTER 2. "HOW IS THE KU KLUX KLAN LIKE A GROUP OF REAL-ESTATE AGENTS?" This chapter told some intereting things that I never realized - about real estate, brand new cars, etc. Of course, I cannot give you the answer to the above question, as I don't want to ruin the book for those who haven't read it yet.

CHAPTER 3. "WHY DO DRUG DEALERS STILL LIVE WITH THEIR MOMS?" I cannot tell you the answer; I do not want to ruin it for you. You have to read this chapter to find out. You will find out what drug dealers have in common with a successful sportsman and an actress. This chapter was interesing; it enlightened me to some facts that I did not know.

CHAPTER 4. "WHERE HAVE ALL THE CRIMINALS GONE?" This is a very interesting chapter. (Again, I cannot give you the answer.) The author's answer made sense, and was very convincing. Even if you don't agree with it, or believe in it. He had convincing data to prove his point, and to disprove other "expert's" answers as to where all the criminals have gone.

The way I feel about it: His answer is probably true, but not okay. There is another way (that is good) to "get rid of the criminals". But that is another book; I'll save it for when/if I ever put together the data for it.

CHAPTER 5. "WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PARENT?" This chapter was enlightening, as parenting is my most important and most cherished role. The chapter gave some really interesting statistics/data.

CHAPTER 6. "PERFECT PARENTING, PART II; OR,: WOULD A ROSHANDA BY ANY OTHER NAME SMELL AS SWEET?" I read this chapter first, because I have always been fascinated by names. (I know, I'm weird.) Even if I hadn't of wanted to have kids, I probably would have had them anyway, just so I could name them. I've always loved reading baby name books. (Again, I know I'm weird.) Once in my younger days, someone caught me reading a baby name book and asked me if I were pregnant. No, I wasn't anywhere near pregnant; I simply loved reading baby name books. I also like looking at the trends and popularity of names. Sometimes old names come back and sometimes they don't. I've often wondered how names become popular. In this chapter, the authors explain it. (I can't tell you, as to not spoil the book.) Their explanation was based on the records in California from several years. It did make sense. And thinking about real life, it makes sense there, too.

I love names, and I'm very particular about the way I prefer names to be spelled. I have my own set of rules. For example, I am not a fan of the silent "h". I love the names Sara, Hanna, Cristina, Kristina, Nicolas WITHOUT the silent "h".

Some people think reading a baby name book is like reading a boring dictionary. But I've always enjoyed them. (I know, I am really eccentric.) Any, that's why I read Chapter 6 first.

THIS IS AN INTERESTING BOOK; HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

4 people found this helpful

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Spencer_T_G

A Fresh Perspective

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 26, 2010

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Today's society is saturated with opinion as to how the world works. Causal explanations are abundant in our everyday lives due to their ability to appeal to the human desire to understand our surroundings. In Freakonomics, a book co-authored by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the authors challenge many of the truisms of today's society and also uncover relationships and details using economics as their tool. Levitt is a world-renowned economist who is particularly known for his rare studies. Dubner is a journalist who has written for both The New York Times and the New Yorker. Their co-authored book is as equally unique as their collaboration. The combination of their talents has produced a text that has the ability to artfully deliver economic studies that uncover fascinating truths as to how our world works. The author's opinion of their work is stated clearly in their text, "Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work-whereas economics represents how it actually does work. (Page 11 Freakonomics)" They have challenged themselves to uncover truths about our world today that have previously gone unnoticed.
A great quality of this book is that it invites the reader to bring a healthy sense of skepticism. Just as the authors were skeptical of many of the answers offered by the "experts" of today, the reader is encouraged to sift through Freakonomics in a similar manner. What you will find is that many of the questions that begin to formulate in your own mind are asked by the authors themselves in the next couple lines of the text. This characteristic of the book is payable to Levitt and Dubner's brilliant combination of economics and the scientific method. For each of their studies, the scientific method is followed and specifically emphasized in their alternate hypothesis generation. There is a constant questioning of their own work as they try to arrive at a conclusion that both delivers a mind-blowing truth and that has also passed through the rigorous guidelines of science. The last thing the author's want to do is deliver misleading information that is similar to that which their studies aim to tackle.
This book is strongly recommended due to its ability to challenge the reader's reasoning, but at the same time entertain. While many scientific studies may have the ability to shed new findings upon the reader, few will ever make you laugh or have you in a state of awe as the studies found in Freakonomics. With chapters titled "How is the Klu Klux Clan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?" and "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?" it is not a secret that these studies stray from the norm. With topics that are at times racy, the book is recommended for teens and up. The language in the book is at times scientific, but the text will offer value to all levels of both economic and scientific understanding. Its wide reach to different education levels is due to the author's desire for their audience to understand their work. With many of the crazy relationships they determine, the reader is helped along the way to follow the logical connections.
After reading Freakonomics you will see the world in a new light and will be able to examine events using the incentive based techniques used by the authors. Their economic approach stresses that human behavior can be predicted based on the following incentives: moral, social and economic. It is up to you to decide whether you believe the world is or is not incentive driven, but the authors time and time again prove this notion through their case studies. The goal of their studies is to prove causation rather than correlation. Proving correlation is easy and that is why there exist a vast number of opinions for any given situation. As the complexity of Levitt and Dubner's works suggest, to determine causation is a far more daunting task. In this case, the work is worth the reward. Causation is not always clear and is not always the most likely solution available. As shown in Freakonomics, proving causation requires a scientific approach and an intense data collection process. This nature of causation allows Freakonomics to really stimulate the reader's interest in logical reasoning, but possibly at times cause one to be overwhelmed. As stated previously, the authors give a trying effort to help the reader follow their logical conclusions and are humble in their presentation of scientific data. It is obvious that their goal is not necessarily to amaze, but more importantly to educate.
Lastly, Freakonomics is a special blend of entertainment and education. It is a book that you can discuss in the classroom and also amuse your friends with at the dinner table. Be prepared to see the world differently.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

TLQ

Overrated, disappointing, repetitive... and of little, if any, value

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 19, 2019

Verified Purchase

Someone said 'have no expectations and you will never get disappointed' and one of things that spoilt this read to me were my high expectations.

The good:
Interesting and sensible way of gathering data
Convincing conclusion
Pleasant style of reading very 'digestible'

The bad:
Incredibly repetitive - the case of decreasing number of criminals is covered at least 3 times! Pretty much every case is covered at least twice.
Authors touch upon 10 or so subjects that I did not find particularly interesting- many are related to race which to me shows how US orientated it is.
The layout is bizarre, seems like an amateurish self-publish booked - someone who decided 'let's make a collage of the materials and add all of them into the book' it start of like a regular book, then it goes through the research published, then articles, then it seems it back to 'a book', then FAQ - very weird and inconsistent.
Trivial matters like the name of babies are killed to death. I am only impressed by the shear determination someone had to go through this data and arrive at conclusion which is 'the trends of names change over time'.

I wanted to like it, the topic is fascinating but it does seem to me that the reputation of the professor is based on his controversial findings that are predominantly race related. Found it more of a sensationalistic than an empirical read.
Rather read Dan Ariely.

25 people found this helpful

DB Cooper

Entertaining, but wrong enough

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

Equally entertaining and irritating.
I was convinced by their argument and their data that liberalizing abortion reduced crime 20 or so years later. It is an eye-opening observation, that seems responsive to subtle changes in the timing of when abortion was legalized on a state by state case. But changes in death sentence rates would be a better comparator than the actual execution rates on dr8ving down serious crime stats. They also think crimes with an obvious money motive (eg mugging) are distinct from car-theft - which some of us would also consider financially motivated. They blame some of the decline in attractiveness of drug-dealing on an increase in the supply of cheap, high quality cocaine: commoditization in other words - which many think increases, not decreases competition. Such selectiveness is deliberate (they're not stupid, right?), unappealing and undermines their better considered cases.
They also make some silly mistakes - comparing dangers of driving and flying by the number of hours spent in cars and planes: and conclude on a per hour basis flying isn't much safer than driving. Now if they had looked at miles or kilometers driven vs flown, the clear-cut answer is flying is much safer (highly trained pilots, mostly sober and drug free pilots, properly maintained aircraft, strictly enforced separations, weather restrictions, well understood and controlled flight paths etc etc).
Elsewhere they claim most of IQ is genetic, which is a such an old and thoroughly debunked idea I was surprised to see it included uncritically.
If the book does no more than make people question the usual assumptions in newspapers or pub conversations, that is solid success.
But the writers, whilst clever and funny, are not as clever as they are funny. Read this with a big bag of salt beside you...

20 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Great novel with few issues

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 24, 2016

Verified Purchase

Freakonomics, written by journalist Stephen J. Dubner and economist Steven D. Levitt, is a book on modern economics that provides key insight into our society as well as clarifying the difference between causation and connectivity, and discussing situations were people have confused the two. It covers six different topics through fun and amusing questions: cheating, and what a persons’ incentives to cheat are; the use of fear in an informational unbalance; the profitability of drug dealing; the most effective way to reduce crime; the effect of a parent’s actions on a child and how a name can change a persons’ conception of something. Despite being a debut novel, Freakonomics is written in an engaging and fun style that includes all the facts and figures necessary to support the arguments included within the novel. It was a style that I had not read before but thoroughly enjoyed along with the rest of the book.
Two issues that I find when reading a non-fiction book are firstly the purely academic eye with which an author writes and secondly how much prior knowledge is needed to enjoy the novel. Fortunately, Freakonomics does not have either issue in the slightest. A person does not need to be an economist to enjoy Freakonomics and will find the novel intellectual but fun. The chapter titles, I found to be intriguing and amusing, for example, ‘What do school teachers and Sumo wrestlers have in common?’ and made the reader genuinely curious about the novel. Furthermore, the majority of the novel then proceeded to live up to chapters’ interesting titles and kept the reader turning the page. The content was, overall, superb. The arguments themselves were cleverly written with thought experiments as well as actually facts and figures to support them and the novel also included the experiences of two separate men, one of whom infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan and the other which got a close up, inside eye of how a gang works. These chapters were among my favourites.
However, like every novel, Freakonomics is not perfect. Towards the end, the topics began to interest me less as they were discussed in far too much detail and, although it may have been necessary for proving the authors’ theory, I wasn’t that interested in the topic to start off with. Furthermore, the authors omit necessary information in at least one point during the novel. When discussing guns, they state that ‘On a per capita basis, Switzerland has more firearms than just about any other country, and yet is one of the safest’ to support their argument that guns do not cause violence. What they fail to mention are the strict laws about purchasing ammunition for guns in Switzerland, which essentially equates to the guns being unusable without the government’s permission. The exclusion of this information suggests that perhaps they are slightly changing the facts to benefit their arguments elsewhere in the novel. Finally, as a young British girl, parts of this book, whilst incredibly interesting, did not feel highly relevant to me because it was largely based around America. For example, I did not particularly relate to discussions around the Ku Klux Klan and real estate doesn’t interest me much; that said, it probably wasn’t written for my age group anyway. In spite of these shortcomings, Freakonomics is, overall, incredibly good, and the informative and interactive insight that it gives you in to certain aspects of the modern world is well worth the few issues.

58 people found this helpful

GR

Bit Over-rated

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 13, 2021

Verified Purchase

Was recommended this book years ago by a business coach who claimed it was revolutionary. It's a clever way of looking at statistics in a slightly different way, but by the time you're half-way through you've really heard all there is to hear, the rest is just more examples of the same. It's fine, and for 99p on Kindle was worth a punt, but it's not going to make you richer. Unlike the authors.

One person found this helpful

Tanzeel Haider

Interesting but fad

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on April 1, 2019

Verified Purchase

I had a mixed feeling all the while reading this book. The book was interesting no doubt but it's definitely going to be one timer. Not everything is what I could relate to. For the author, everything begins and ends with Chicago and California it seems. The correlation and its explanation is very interesting and I loved how fast paced the book is. But then that is it. The author himself warned the readers to not to expect much from the book and do not expect a connecting theme. Each chapter can be taken on it's own. I will still read it's sequel because the author does make one interested in asking good questions.

37 people found this helpful

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