About the Author(s)
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Steven D.Levitt is an Economics Professor at the University of Chicago.His idiosyncratic economic research into areas as varied as guns and game shows has triggered debates ..He has received the American Association's John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the best American economist under forty.
In fact Levitt's work has been criticised widely by a fair number of Economists, who might not even recognise his work as economics, but at the same time , his thinking has influenced many others, including Senators,Prisoners,CIA and scores of people from different walks of life.
As Levitt sees it, Economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions.
And his particular ability is that he is unafraid of asking such questions.
Stephen J. Dubner lives in New York city.He writes for the New yorker and The New York Times.In August 2003 Dubner wrote a profile on Levitt in the New York Times Magazine and the extraordinary response the article received led to a remarkable collaboration between the two.
Freakonomics is the eagerly anticipated result of this collaboration.
About the Book and its contents
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There is an Explanatory note in which the origins of the book are clarified -how it began with Dubner, an author and journalist and Levitt an Economist met and decided to talk things over and write a book.
Introduction- The hidden side of everything
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In which the book's central idea is set forth..if morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work.
Fundamental ideas of the book are touched upon- to name some of them-Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.
Conventional Wisdom is often wrong.
and Knowing what to measure and how to measure it, makes a complicated world much less so.
The following 6 chapters
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1, What do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers have in common?
It explores the dark side of human nature namely cheating and the beauty of incentives.An analysis on cheating in everyday life in various fields including class rooms, sports field even day care centres..
2,How is the Ku Klux Klan like a Group of Real estate Agents?
The power of information is discussed here.The use and abuse of certain information and the power these information generate. Also explores things like what do online daters lie about?The author observes that The gulf between the information we publicly proclaim and the information we know to be true is often vast.
3,Why do Drug dealers still live with their moms?
The drug culture has been thoroughly discussed here- the daily lives of ghetto criminals and gangs, and the first hand experience and street level research made by Venkatesh a Phd student in Sociology at the university of Chicago as he lives with a gang in a ghetto and collects data for his research.
4,Where have all the Criminals Gone?
Facts and fictions relating to a crime are sorted out - Follows closely the American crime graph and how it is related to the rise and fall of a country's economy.
Discusses the pros and cons of an Abortion and relating subjects.
5,What makes a perfect Parent?
Has there ever been another art so devoutly converted into a science as the art of parenting?the difficulties of parenting, separating facts from rumors , while trying to be a perfect parent.
Child safety and bad parenting are discussed.
6, Perfect Parenting, Pat II ; or Would Roshanda by any other name smell as Sweet?
To quote the author "The belief in parental power is manifest in the first official act a parent commits; Giving the baby a name.Explores various facts and possibilities about names and culture, the typical white names and the typical black names and is there a link between the names and perceptions by the society.
My views about the book and its contents
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This is one of the most interesting non fiction writings that i have ever read.It makes you think and analyse without taxing your brain.
It is the everyday matters that are being discussed here in these chapters, but the look and the view projected here is totally different.It is like you are looking at some thing that you have already seen , but are perceiving much more than you did earlier.
There is an in depth analysis of subjects through the various chapters and together the authors bring out many hidden aspects.
It is very interesting to go through the facts and figures provided by them as they go through their deep sometimes upside down analysis.
To quote the author the purpose of this book - " The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one.You may find yourself asking a lot of questions.many of them will lead to nothing.But some will produce answers that are interesting even surprising..'
It is all about using information to your advantage and to get to the heart of what's really happening under the surface of everyday life around us.
Author:- Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Country:- United States
Language :- English
Subject(s) :- Economics
Genre(s):- Non-fiction
Publisher:- William Morrow
Publication date:- April 12, 2005
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