Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt

ISBN 10: 0061242705 / ISBN 13: 9780061242700

Published by Harper Collins, 2006

About this Item

Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the average WORN book or dust jacket that has all the pages present.

Seller Inventory # M00061242705-G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
• Publisher: Harper Collins
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061242705
• ISBN 13: 9780061242700
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

In the summer of 2003, the New York Times Magazine sent Stephen J. Dubner, an author and journalist, to write a profile of Steven D. Levitt, a heralded young economist at the University of Chicago. Levitt was not remotely interested in the things that interest most economists. Instead, he studied the riddles of everyday life from cheating to crime to child-rearing and his conclusions turned the conventional wisdom on its head. For instance, he argued that one of the main causes of the crime drop of the 1990s was the legalization of abortion twenty years earlier. (Unwanted children have a greater likelihood of becoming criminals; with so many unwanted children being aborted in the 1970s, the pool of potential criminals had significantly shrunk by the 1990s.) The Times article yielded an unprecedented response, a deluge of interest from thousands of curious, inspired, and occasionally distraught readers. Levitt and Dubner have collaborated on a book that gives full play to Levitt s most compelling ideas. Through forceful storytelling and pungent insight. FREAKONOMICS will reminds us all 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. Among the questions it answers: Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? What makes a perfect parent? And, of course: What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? (Answer: they both cheat.)

About the Author

Steven Levitt is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and an editor of The Journal of Political Economy. In January 2004 he was awarded the John Bates Clark medal for the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contribution to the discipline by the American Economic Association.
Stephen J. Dubner is the author of Confessions of a Hero Worshiper and Turbulent Souls and is a former writer and editor at the New York Times Magazine. He lives in New York City with his family.