Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics

FreakonomicsI almost never buy a book on a whim.  But this book is different.  I was sitting in an airport recently, faced with a 6 hour layover and a magazine that I had already exhausted.  I decided that Freakonomics looked like a fun, light read and I picked it up at the book store.  Little did I know that this book would become one of my favorites this year in which I rediscovered my love for economics, politics, and sociology.

Levitt does a great job of peppering this book with interesting thoughts, ideas, and connections.  Dubner is more of the brains of the project, as evidenced by the Q and A section in the back of the book.  This book also came with some bonus material that helped get my creative economic juices flowing.

The meat of the book deals with assumptions and conclusions that are held in many people’s minds that just aren’t true.  Another big part of this book is contained in the interesting and sometimes outright surprising connections and action versus consequences arguments that are made.  For example, the authors assert that the widespread drop in violent crime rates in the early 1990’s was a direct result of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.  And that since more fetuses were aborted legally, and abortion became a legal and relatively acceptable means of birth control, that the unwanted children that were aborted weren’t around to cause trouble in their late teens and early twenties, right about the time of the crime rate drop across the board.  This assumption may leave many people gasping in horror, or raising their eyebrows in appreciation of the sheer audacity, perhaps genius of this connection.  Freakonomics is full of connections and ideas similar to this one.

The book also explores, to a level not many care to sink to, the hidden pull of incentives in all categories of life, not just financial or economic.  It shows though mathematical models, that teachers often change answers on standardized tests to help their students appear more academically successful than they really are, and to gain accolades and bonuses from their peers.  In the same chapter it explores similar behavior in the Japanese Sumo Wrestling World, showing that the win/loss ratios of many of the wrestlers are mathematically highly improbable if not astoundingly and very blatantly caused by wide-spread cheating.

I found the book to be a relatively quick read, finishing it in a couple of hours.  Something that this book has going for it is the uniqueness and freshness of the subject matter.  Most people think of economics as boring and dry, but the authors used some really unique and astounding real world examples to breathe new life into a subject long thought to be confounding.  I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to kill time or for a thought-provoking session of economic excitement, and everything in between.  The book was very easy to read and felt more like a conversation between old friends than a book steeped in technical and academic analysis.