Freakonomics

Revised Edition

By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

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 economist 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 the conventional wisdom on its head. Thus the new field of study contained in this audiobook: Freakonomics.

Levitt and co-author Stephen J. 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 working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world.

©2006 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (P)2006 HarperAudio

Critic reviews

"Refreshingly accessible and engrossing." (Publishers Weekly)

Always find actuals quite interesting

I enjoy the unique insights to our social order. And thus book includes many of the more interesting angles. Never a dull moment.

Almost Perfect but Danger Ahead

In the last chapter of the main text there is a long recitation of names sliced and diced into various subgroups. This doesn't translate well into an audiobook. After a while it starts to sound like the teachers in a Peanuts Cartoon.

Mind opening

Great information, that will make you think about how things were, are, and can be. Shared with others to open discussion points.

Astonishing

I appreciate the out-of-the-box thinking wroth is astonishing insights. Well done . I felt like the time I spent listening to this book was well spent

Entertaining

I read this one when I was in college and now I enjoyed even more. Good content and great sense of humour. Entertaining.

New Favorite Book!

Felt like this book was on par with the way I think. Two main premises are that correlation doesn't equal causation and that two seemingly unrelated events can have a huge impact on each other. Great examples that are told as riveting stories. A must read if you like understanding the why.

Love these fellows!

Well done and well read. Great facts.
Love these authors. So much research.
Fun information.

It just ends

It was an interesting way to look at the world's patterns. I'll be thinking outside of the box more often. My biggest gripe is that there was no flow. Just a lot of jumping around and then it ends.

Good, but be careful

As a PhD statistician, I love a good data-driven story. Increasing, people in politics, business, and academia are looking for decisions that are based on what the data say. Leavitt's research is engaging and accessible and I, for the most part, enjoyed this book.

HOWEVER, without exception, Leavitt presents his findings as gospel and continually fails to acknowledge the limitations of his methods and his data. He mentions his use of linear regression to obtain his results, but fails to mention the limitations of this method (e.g., results are probabilistic, results are based on model assumptions which may be entirely incorrect). His results obtained from this method sometimes also appear to tell too convenient of a story and seem to be cherry-picked. Moreover, all his results are based on single data sets and may not be as universal as he would like. Finally, he often takes one result (e.g., reading to your kids does not affect their standardized test scores) and makes huge, sweeping generalizations that lead you to believe that reading to your kids doesn't have any affect on any outcome of interest and that you're a bad (or naive) parent for even trying.

These are dangerous practices, though I can see why he does what he does - making all sort of caveats would water-down his findings and make his book less sensational. Nevertheless, he runs the risk of misleading his readers. Judging from the comments posted here so far from people who assume these conclusions are certain, I would say he's succeeded in this endeavor.

If you like the podcast, this is more of the same

I like what these guys present, and it felt like an extended podcast, some of it I thought had heard in the podcast, but also other stuff, so not a rehash (or pre hash). Not an unworthy purchase.