The cover of “Freakonomics”
introduces the writers Steven D Levitt
as “ a rogue economist exploring
the hidden side of everything. This is not a book on economics in in the
classical sense, not even macro economics. But it is an interesting reading mostly summarizing the outcome of various
papers written by Steven D Levitt . Co-author
is Stephen J Dubner, an award winning
author and journalist.
In Levitt’s view economics is a
science with excellent tools for gaining answers but with a serious shortage of
interesting questions. To look for such questions he has worked on the borders
of economics with psychology, criminology, sociology etc.
Sample the following questions :
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- If drug
peddlers make so much money, why do they still take shelter with their mothers?
- Which house is more dangerous for a neighbors' child, the one where the keeper has a gun or the one which has a swimming pool?
- What did really cause the crime rates in the USA to plunge during the last decades? Is it good policing, gun laws or mothers’ right to abortion given by the courts twenty years ago?
- Do the real estate agents have the best interest of their clients at heart?
- Why do black parents give their children names that may hurt their career prospects?
- Is Sumo wrestling corrupt?
- Do the school teachers cheat to meet high-stakes testing standards?
- Do more police translate into less crimes?
- Do money really wins election?
To find answer he move upon piles
to data, analyze them and then takes to some convincing and logical conclusion.
Many cases, the answer is not the obvious and he has provided sound data based
logic for the same.|
“ Through forceful storytelling
and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives,
how people get what they want or need, especially when the other people want or
need the same thing”
It is all about incentives !
