Dubner and Levitt cook up a controversial and slightly asinine economics book. They keep the chi squares and regression analysis discussion to a minimum and instead focus on important questions like “is sumo wrestling corrupt”, “the socioeconomics of naming children” and “does your real estate agent have your best interest in mind”.
And I loved every minute of it.
In my mind, this is what economics is all about. Of course, Krugman does amazing work discussing the macro theory that is so crucial to our governments economic policy. But let’s be honest, it’s much more important to me to understand the economics of the day-to-day, that being behavioral economics or group theory. It’s much more important that I learn how to not get screwed over by someone looking out for themselves than to understand the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. It’s just facts.
My favorite chapter of the book was the discussion of drug gang finances, entitled “why do most drug dealers live with their mothers”. Levitt and Dubner love throwing around comparisons, comparing drug dealers to hollywood actors/actresses (probably both using if you ask me, but that wasn’t mentioned in the book).
One of Levitt’s most controversial theories discusses how Roe vs Wade caused a decrease in crime. It’s a painful sentence but Dubner and Levitt provide interesting statistical evidence that this is in fact the case. MANY people have published refutations of this theory though, not surprisingly, and have said this controversial idea was a bunch of intellectual crap.
Here’s one from Slate Magazine
Freakonomics is an entertaining read. If you’re still not sure, check out this video from TED on the part about crack dealers living with their moms.
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