Are you looking to buy
Freakonomics Rev Ed: (and Other Riddles of Modern Life) (P.S.)? here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer
discounts of up to 90% on
Freakonomics Rev Ed: (and Other Riddles of Modern Life) (P.S.). check out the link below:
>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Cheapest Deals
Freakonomics Rev Ed: (and Other Riddles of Modern Life) (P.S.) Review
This is an excellent, very readable book by a couple of guys who like to go against the grain.
Steven D. Levitt is the economist who teaches at the prestigious University of Chicago school of economics, and Stephen J. Dubner is the talented wordsmith. They come off a little on the self-satisfied side here, but who can blame them? They have a surprise best seller in a new edition.
What really powered this book to national attention was their argument that the sharp nation-wide drop in crime starting in about 1990 was not due so much to having more cops on the beat, or smarter, better policing, or to having so many criminals in prison--as most of us thought--but instead the reason the crime rate dropped is that Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973!
Arguments about this unintended (to say the least) consequence of making abortion legal raged as soon as this book hit the stores (or maybe before) and are raging still. Personally, put me down among those who find the argument persuasive. But I don't want to rehash all that now. Instead let me point to some other topics in the book.
Most interesting is the chapter entitled "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?" The authors tell the story of Sudhir Venkatesh who was working on a PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago. He was sent to do some sociology in Chicago's poorest black neighborhoods and ended up spending several years learning about the crack business at the street level complete with--oh, how the economists loved this!--spiral notebooks with four years worth of the crack gang's financial transactions. Venkatesh discovered that the gang worked a lot like "most American businesses, actually, though perhaps none more so than McDonald's." (p. 89) The drug dealers still lived at home with their moms because most of them were making less than minimum wage. Why do a dangerous job for such low pay? Answer: like basketball dreams, the upside potential and the glamour of it! The middle level manager, "J.T.," a university educated dude, was making tax-free about $100,000 a year while the gang board of directors each earned about half a mil per. After J.T. reached his level of incompetence as a member of the board of directors, the gang got busted and he went to jail.
Also fascinating is the information on the socioeconomic and racial status of parents as revealed by their choices in first names for their children. Whitest girls names: Molly, Amy, Claire, Emily... Blackest girls names, Imani, Ebony, Shanice, Aaliyah, Precious... Most common names given to girls of high-education parents: Katherine, Emma, Alexandra, Julia... Boys: Benjamin, Samuel, Alexander, John, William... Low education boys names: Cody, Travis, Brandon, Justin...
But it'll change, as Messrs. Levitt and Dubner explain. Names go in and out of fashion and sometimes come back in. "Susan" was the most popular girls name in 1960. It didn't make the top ten in 2000. "Emily" led the list followed by Hannah, Madison, Sarah...
Interesting is the tale of Robert Lane who named one of his kids "Winner" and another "Loser." Winner Lane went on to become one of life's losers, and Loser Lane (called "Lou" by his friends) graduated from Lafayette College, Pa. and went on to become a police sergeant in New York City. So much for the effect of names--or maybe it's like "a boy named Sue": you overcome your name or you fail to live up to it.
There's a chapter on parenting that also raised some eyebrows, but again I think our clever authors got it right. Basically parenting skills are overrated. What really counts is who your parents are, not so much whether they read a lot to you or bought you Einstein tapes or even if they sent you to Head Start. In the "nature vs. nurture" debate, clearly nature is in the ascendancy.
This, the revised and expanded edition contains a New York Times Magazine article about Levitt written by Dubner before this collaboration, seven columns from the New York Time Magazine, and some entries from the Freakonomics blog on the Web.
Bottom line: an irresistible read and a book biz phenomenon.
Freakonomics Rev Ed: (and Other Riddles of Modern Life) (P.S.) Overview
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?
These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.
Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner 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. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.
What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.
Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
Want to learn more information about
Freakonomics Rev Ed: (and Other Riddles of Modern Life) (P.S.)?
>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
