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| ![Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z1scnqz1L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Authors: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy Used: $13.69
You Save: $14.26 (51%)
New (63) Used (68) Collectible (10) from $13.69
Rating:  1561 reviews
Sales Rank: 95
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Revised & Expand, Roughcut
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061234001
Dewey Decimal Number: 330
EAN: 9780061234002
Publication Date: October 2, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Over 600,000 Feedbacks Posted!!! Great Buy!!!*** Never Used*** May Have a Publisher's Mark~We have over 3,500,000 Books Sold!!!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Really Makes You Think April 17, 2005
Stuart Gardner (Fair Lawn, NJ)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The authors make micro economics exciting (actually it's a little bit narrow to say this book is about micro economics, it has a far wider scope and application). This book encourages the rational and logical analysis of everyday problems and issues.
I do not agree with every analysis the authors put forward. For example, the authors do prove a correlation between abortion and decreasing crime (Roe v. Wade). They do not, however, prove an actual (quantifiable) relationship - it could/may be; but the jump is too great based on the information provided in the book. Other examples are clear cut: the incentive for realtors to opt for a quick sale rather than maximizing sale price is made.
The book is exciting to read. It encourages an analytical approach to problem solving while encouraging creativity of thought. This is a rare combination. Likely to be of value to anyone who has to adopt an analytical approach in their work.
Always hard to put down and hard to accept at times, yet hard to ignore in the end. May 24, 2006
Manny Hernandez (Palo Alto, CA)
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
I picked up "Freakonomics" by accident, which an almost embarrasing admission considering the level of hype the book and Mr. Levitt have enjoyed. However, somehow the title really turned me off (maybe it was the subtle mental association with "Reaganomics" that did that). Now I am happy I picked it up. Prior to reading the book, for a while I'd been doing some thinking about conventional wisdom at large and how things are not always what they seem like from the "outside". Having read "Freakonomics", my doubts are not necessarily confirmed or rebutted, but rather I feel more inclined to keep up a healthy level of skepticism and continue to not take things at face value.
Some of the chapters are hard to swallow, I admit. While specific ones may have different effects on different people, and most of them are bound to generate opposing reactions depending on who reads them, two chapters particularly captured my attention: the one titled "Where Have All the Criminals Gone?" (where he exposes a theory linking the legalization of abortion and the drop in the US crime rate in the late 90s) and "What Makes a Perfect Parent?" (where he presents detailed reasons why he believes "obsessive" parenting behavior does little if anything to help children over the course of their lives).
In the end, while shock value may accomplish a powerful unspoken goal of the book, what you're left with is the same set of lessons he starts of the introduction with:
-Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.
-Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes.
-"Experts" -from criminologists, to real-estate agents- use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda.
-Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicted world much less so.
Regardless of how you feel about some of Dr. Levitt's views, there are quite a few lessons to be learned in this title. I highly recommend it.
Is this book AMAZING or what???? - FIVE STARS April 4, 2007
Richard Stoyeck (Westport, CT)
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
What a sheer joy it was to sit down and devour this book. I found it to be extraordinary. It challenged conventional reasoning. It actually explained the term conventional reasoning in the book. It made you think outside the box. It told you without being direct, how stupid politicians are, how ignorant intellectuals in university settings can be. I literally could not find a single page that did not have something significant to impart. How often can you say that about a book - NO FILLER?
Why Read Freakonomics?
You need to read this book because you have to challenge how you think every day. You have to go outside the constraining self-imposed limits that each of us faces when we choose to grow rather than remain stagnant. It's like rubbing or massaging your own shoulders; it never ever feels as good as when another party is doing it.
If given a chance, Freakonomics will literally change our worlds. Here are just samplings of the concepts that you will learn about:
*** The 1990's Experienced the Greatest Drop in Crime in a Century - WHY?
The politicians were quick to pick up on this one. Mayor Giuliani in New York rode a wave of popularity because of this notion. His Police Commissioner, Benjamin Bratton was fired after serving just 2 years in office because he the Commissioner was getting too much press. Not a good idea unless you are the Mayor.
Everybody wanted to take credit for the drop in crime. Politicians had one set of reasons, while sociologists had another. Everybody had their own special notions as to why crime literally collapsed. Even Gladwell in his book "The Tipping Point" came up with a concept of the "broken window theory". You will read about it in the book.
The law and order guys talked about capital punishment, and stiffer jail sentences. In the end everybody got it wrong. It took a rogue economist like Levitt to figure it out. Whether we wish to believe it or not, the introduction of widespread and inexpensive abortions beginning with Roe v. Wade, eliminated on average at least one million unwanted pregnancies per year in America.
By the early 1990's, many of these unborn children, a disproportionate number of whom would have turned out to be criminals, never made it to their 20th birthday. You'll have to read the book to understand the compelling reasons in detail. The logic regardless of how each of us feels about the sanctity of life is irrefutable as to its consequences.
*** Baby Doctors and the Need to Operate??
I found this one to be really wild. Levitt's studies showed that obstetricians (baby doctors) who work in geographic areas with declining birth rates, are far more likely, now get this, to give their patients a cesarean-section delivery which is very expensive, than baby doctors who are in geographic areas that are growing or more prosperous. Who would want to believe that doctors are instituting more expensive procedures because they need to drum up business?
*** Real Estate Agents not ALIGNED with Your OBJECTIVES?
BIAS is something I personally deal with on a daily basis in the stock market where I function as a Money Manager working with billions of dollars. With regard to real estate here's one you don't want to miss.
You would think that if you are the seller of a house, and you list the house with an agent, that the agent would want to help you get the highest price possible for the house. Let's say the real estate firm gets 6% of the selling price as a fee, with the agent getting half of the fee as the agent's income. The higher the selling price, the higher the fee. It makes sense doesn't it?
At first glance it does, until you consider the TIME VALUE of MONEY. If you sell a house for $1,200,000 and it takes a year, the agent gets 50% of a $72,000 fee or $36,000. If that same agent low balls you and sells the house for a million dollars in 30 days instead of a year, what happens? The agent gets a $30,000 fee instead of $36,000, but has sold the house in 30 days instead of a year, and guess what? IT'S ONTO THE NEXT HOUSE - QUICKLY. The agent is not aligned with your objectives - BE AWARE!!!
BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE, A LOT MORE
This book is full of fascinating, mind-set changing information. You must read it with an open mind, and be willing to transform the way you think about things. Some other great ideas include:
1) Does Money Really BUY ELECTIONS? - You're going to be surprised.
2) How do you explain a country's providence having more doctors than any other province, and yet the most disease?
3) Is the amount of money spent on elections in general too much? - Think CHEWING GUM.
4) Drug Dealers make BIG MONEY - I sure thought so, now know the truth.
5) How one can easily tell a cheating schoolteacher?
6) How much do parents REALLY MATTER?
We've believed BUNK all our lives, and not even know it. We have blindly accepted certain dogmas that have been spoon fed to us on a daily basis by teachers, relatives, friends, and the bunk just keeps getting passed down, and finally from us to our own children. Somewhere along the way, you have to BREAK THE CYCLE. This book helps you do that. It's worth every penny and more. Good luck de-programming yourself from blindly accepted beliefs. It does take some courage to face up to these beliefs however.
Richard Stoyeck
Amazing Book That Will Open Your Mind April 16, 2005
No One Important (Cultural Ether)
37 out of 42 found this review helpful
In the world of economics, Steve Levitt is a rock star. He's the hot ticket out there. His seminars are packed; students and other professors travel across world to study and work with him. He received tenure at the University of Chicago two years (!) after getting his Ph.D. He has already won the most prestigious prizes economics has to offer at age 37, he received tenure at the University and there is little doubt that one day, 20 or 30 years from now, he will win The Prize. He is just that good.
Why? Like Gary Becker before him, he takes economics out of the realm of the stuffy and dry and boring and it applies to topics no one had ever thought about it applying it to before. He is a genius at making the data sing.
His questions will challenge you, his answers may anger you, but you won't ever see the world the same way again. And his writing is completely accessible to non-economists.
Some examples of the questions he asks: Did crime in the 1990s go down because there were more cops on the streets, we were betting winning the war on drugs, or because of Roe v. Wade?
Just how profitable is it to be in drug gang versus working in McDonalds? And just what are the economic profits from dealing drugs?
Is Sumo wrestling fixed?
Does having your real-estate work on commission mean that he/she will work to make sure you will get the highest sales price out there?
Does campaign spending determine the outcomes of elections?
In all these questions, Levitt relishes in challenging common perceptions and "wisdom". And he gets his answers not through crazy complicated math but by the getting data to reveal its secrets to him in unique ways.
If you like being intellectually challenged, if you want to see the world in a new way, if you want to read the writings of one of the most creative and sharpest minds alive today, then buy this book.
Probably the Most Readable Book on Economics Ever! May 1, 2005
D. Buxman (Pueblo, CO United States)
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
This isn't a textbook on economics, but rather a brilliant example of what kinds of things economics can teach us, if we are willing to put aside the esoteric ramblings about supply and demand and marginal utility that bored us to death in college. The authors answer interesting questions, such as: "What attributes of a parent signal an academically successful child?" and uses regression analysis and other tools to develop a list of those attributes. These are explained without a single mathematical formula in the entire book. Other interesting questions include: "Why do most crack dealers live with their mothers?" and "Can a parent's selection of a child's name impact the future of a child?"
This book was extremely readable and interesting. I finished it in about a weekend and it gave me lots of interesting things to think about and talk about. Some people are dismayed about the authors' conclusion that the legalization of abortion caused a decrease in the crime rate, but you should note that the authors take pains to point out that this analysis does not constitute a justification of either side of the abortion debate. The correlations are explained and are difficult to dispute. In any event, I think this is a fabulous book.
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