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Freakonomics - A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything, Revised and Expanded Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven D.; Dubner, Stephen J. Levitt
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
Buy New: $49.82
New (2) Used (6) from $21.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  1588 reviews
Sales Rank: 1178539
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 0061131326
Dewey Decimal Number: 650
EAN: 9780061131325
ASIN: 0061131326
Publication Date: 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New, great condition
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1583 more reviews...
good book January 8, 2009
i bought this book as a holiday gift for my brother, but he said it was really good - hence the 4 stars.
 Pretty good January 6, 2009
Freakonomics' strongest asset is its blunt force mauling of conventional wisdom and the often unveering faith that journalists, experts and ordinary folks pay it, often only to serve (sadly) their own interests. When that is the authors' approach they deliver sound arguments. That, thankfully, is the core premise of the book.
While it is too piecemeal, and cute, to be called boring, the breathless exploration of the economist's actual findings at times borders on the mundane. Much of his intesive number-crunching about teacher cheating, Sumo wrestling and (especially!) baby names and various parenting fallacies can only be considered redundant to the observant reader.
People like me (who aren't economists and who aren't familiar with the calculus of demographics and sociology) should read this book mainly because it's fairly fresh, witty and is a good example of hunting up the truth while ignoring distracting conventions, moral or otherwise.
 Freakonomics Is Not Rigorous Enough January 2, 2009
The basic premise of Freakonomics is that everything that happens leads to something else, or that one thing leads to another. It's a book about cause and effect from a social perspective. With this view, the author challenges our assumptions about the way things are or the way we actually perceive them to be. The book is written with a lighthearted tone, making its subjects and case studies seem more like fodder for a cocktail party than as questions for research. Such treatment makes Freakonomics accessible for a broader audience of readers, especially those who might not otherwise venture into learning about such a field. And what is that field exactly? The "freakier," less mathematical side of economics.
For all its great writing and its rather daring subjects, the book and the cause-and-effect relationshps the authors propose are a bit of a stretch. Abortion is heralded as being responsible for the dramatic dip in crime across America in the 1990's. It is supposed that abortion was responsible for ridding the nation of the young, lower income, less well-educated individuals who would no doubt have been responsible for perpetuating crime had they been born. Yet the author fails to account for the drop in deviance levels from other segments of the population that were around. The book makes arguments like this and others without also giving attention to plausible alternatives.
Another case in point is the authors' assumption that young people want to be dealers of narcotics because it is flashy and cool in spite of the risks and low pay associated with it. They compare it to the way a young person would want to enter a glamourous low-paying profession like publishing to have a one-in-a-million shot at becoming a super high-paid executive. (See my review for The Devil Wears Prada.) That the authors compare an industry of entertainment to the selling of narcotics is laughable, but then to also say that young people become sellers of narcotics because they want to seems even more absurd. The author points out that the sellers of narcotics in his book earn as little as $3 a day, much less than minimum wage.
It would seem to reason that a person interested in making money would try to find a job that paid more. In the face of minimum wage, selling narcotics isn't even an option ... unless you have no other place to find a job. In areas suffering from the proliferation of the trade of narcotics, one key issue in whether people decide to sell narcotics is their options for finding an honest job. How many corporations house their offices in the ghetto? How many people patron businesses housed in ghettos over those they find in a mall? How many malls are in the ghetto? And even if a person were to find a job outside the ghetto, how much more of a burden would it be to find transportation to that job, an additional cost, especially if that person is already working to earn extra money and the only ride that person has is the bus. Now, if that person is a child or a teen, the time that child spends traveling to and from that honest job miles away from his or her home then takes time away from studying. For adults, it takes time away from parenting. It takes time away from learning skills for a better job. Given the choice, thinking in real economical terms of opportunity cost and benefit, the reason people choose to sell narcotics is clear. It has nothing, or at least very little, to do with being cool.
Freakonomics is not a rigorous book. That is its major flaw. It attempts to explain some of our generation's most challenging questions, but it offers only simplified answers. The onus to dig deeper for the true causes of events falls on the reader, but the book does not actually encourage such thought. Nowhere do the authors even suggest that they could be wrong or that there could be other plausible reasons for various events. Such writing is the mark of poor scholarship and I do not recommend that it be read.
Surprisingly interesting December 22, 2008
I have a new appreciation for the hidden side of economics! It read so quickly. Who knew economics could be a fun read!
 Open your eyes to a whole new world! December 12, 2008
Levitt and Dubner really challenge conventional wisdom.It will open your eyes to how easily people just except things as fact without ever questioning the data behind them. Its a read that you really will not want to put down and definately a must read for anyone in the field of psychology, social work, or medicine.
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