--BY STEVEN D. LEVITT, STEPHEN J. DUBNER
This is the kind of book on economics that you won’t put down. In it self-styled rogue economist Steven D. Levitt and award winning author and American journalist Stephen J. Dubner show how the nature of economics in the modern world works is as old as the bible itself- based on lures, enticements and basically, incentives.
The authors link seemingly disparate social elements together (which at first glance may seem totally random and at times odd) from the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan, drug dealers living with their parents, to school teachers and sumo wrestlers, and how abortion affects crime rates, to solve the riddles of everyday life.
Such questions from an economist may sound bizarre but 2003 John Bates Clark Medal winner, Levitt is the type of economist who sees the other side of things, probing into the rules of social norms and conventions to turn them upside down and inside out. The point of this book, Freakonomics is to challenge preconceptions and staid ideas on the inner workings of wealth, finance, the economy (or call it what you will) across the social strata and how we should see it with fresh, new and radical eyes.
This ground breaking collaboration between Levitt and Dubner, is a study in unpredictability. The questions asked at the end may concern critical issues while others seem to be unexpected, freaky and baffling. In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner explore with great insight and storytelling, the inner workings of a crack gang,the truth about real-estate agents, the myths of campaign finance or the telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher.
Behind all the stories in the book is the fact that no matter how unconnected subject matters are, or how dense a topic is, they can be understood and penetrated with the right questions and outlook. The surface complexities of the modern world can be scratched to show the hidden layers, in this case economics as a study of incentives, want, or need. Freakonomics establishes new ways of thinking in how economics makes the world work.
BOOK DETAILS
Publisher : William Morrow
ISBN : 0-06-123400-1 (Hardback)
ISBN : 0-06-089637-X (large print paperback)
Publication date : April 12, 2005
Pages : 336 pp (hardback edition)
Binding : Hardback & Paperback
