Freakonomics: The Revised and Expanded Edition - Explore the Hidden Side of Everything

Amber Johnston: I had to buy it for a final paper for my class, but it was good.

United States on Nov 30, 2023

ACSpears: There is a difference between what people say or think they do, and what they actually do. When you strip away the accepted societal bias, you find interesting results. This book looks at the reality of how humans behave. It is in the same vein as Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture.

So if you'd like to know how or when Sumo wrestlers would fix a match, or why crime decreases 20 years after abortion is made widely available, this is the book for you. Once you understand how to observe the world with the long-view lens, you will gain more skill in discernment. It's a great read.

United States on Nov 12, 2023

Amazon-KundeAmazon-Kunde: Dieses Feedback bezieht sich nur auf den Händler!
Das Buch sollte "Gebraucht - sehr guter Zustand" sein, ist aber ziemlich mitgenommen. Das Cover ist ziemlich verkratzt, alle Seiten sind verknittert und waren feucht. Zustand ist maximal "gut", oder eher mittelmäßig.

Germany on Oct 25, 2023

Kwadwo Amponsah: Has a lot of good contents

Japan on Sep 18, 2023

Sumit Saurabh: Freakonomics

By- Steven D.Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Extremely enlightening !!
This is a book about the world and not about any science in particular. It’s about learning to question given and see beyond the obvious. An extremely useful gift in the highly misguiding modern world. Freakonomics explores the hidden side of everything.
some of the case studies book includes bagel salesman, sumo wrestler, public school teachers ,crack cocaine dealers and parents. Stuff at the end about how the name you are born with affect is very interesting.Also the idea that is very true, but i’d never thought of it before, that people give their daughters crazier names than their sons.
This is a smart, fun book; but its not for everyone !!

India on Sep 02, 2023

Clyve Westerlund: Being an economics major myself (although I only practice what I’ve learnt in school at minimal with regards to calculating actual functions Anne regression analysis and so forth, I do however utilise economics concepts and ideas on an almost daily basis), I found that when I was attending university; the content that I was learning seemed to be good but it didn’t seem to be connected to the real world in many instances. And I always questioned the value of placing people and organisations into neat mathematical models, but at the same time; more than that, to view economics as a science with certain principles/themes that are to be maintained whatsoever. Principles that should actually change as we progress and evolve and know more as a society because new things are popping up every year that challenges our preconceptions of everything. For a small example, is one stating that everyone is rational and profit seeking, and that companies only objective is just to make money or maximise shareholder value. Although this may be true in several cases, I believe it is a lot more complicated than that and does not leave room for improvements to be made upon. Economics is definitely...

Australia on Oct 23, 2022

David Zetland: I’ve heard of this book for years, but never bothered to read it because I was already an economist and didn’t think I needed to read a popular summary of Steven Levitt’s work.[1] My impression was that the book summarized his work in a popular (non-academic) style that helped people understand what economists do. I though that the book was useful in this respect in helping people understand what I do. Indeed, the most common reaction I get from people when telling them that I am an economist is that they have read Freakonomics, which implies that they have at least seen some work similar to what I do at aguanomics.[2]

It turns out that I was mistaken in my initial beliefs.

I just read this 2004 book 2006 revision, and it's made me think a bit more about how we (economists) communicate with the general public, and I think that some ways are better than others. First, there are textbooks, which describe the tools that economists use to put their theories into practice. Many many people have told me “I didn’t learn anything in economics. All I remember was a lot of math and curves.” This depressing outcome results from lecturers who merely reproduce...

United States on Jan 17, 2017

Andrea: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

This is one of the most interesting books you will ever read. The author, a Harvard graduate, takes 6 interesting subjects and looks at a side of it that most people wouldn't. (He did lots of research.) He uses data - lots of it - not opinion to find his answers and statistics. The topics might not necessarily be "important", but they are interesting. Here they are:

CHAPTER 1. "WHAT DO SCHOOLTEACHERS AND SUMO WRESTLERS HAVE IN COMMON?" Of course, I cannot tell you the answer, because I don't want to ruin the book if you haven't read it yet. There's really not much I can say about this chapter without giving it away. But the chapter was interesting, and it looks at something that schoolteachers, sumo wrestlers, daycare mothers, and bagel buyers have in common.

Back in my school days, teachers didn't make much. They seemed to be so much better back then. I think it was because they taught because they loved to teach, because they loved the kids, and teaching was their gift and their passion. Nowadays I think people do it for the money, as they make much more now than they did back then. A...

United States on Dec 08, 2013

San Patch: Why did the crime rate in major US cities decrease in the late 90's contrary to expert opinion? What do shool teachers and the Ku klux Klan have in common? In this interesting book, the authors explore the hidden side of these questions and many more such as the Black-White education divide, the organisation of drug gangs in Chicago and the apparent improvement in test scores in Chicago. They show, with remarkable wit, that people of all kinds respond to incentives and that we ignore this at our disadvantage.

Take the authors approach to the unexpected decrease in crime in big US cities. Conventional wisdom has it that the decrease in crime in these metropolises was due to a number of factors among which are better policing strategies, tougher sentencing for offenders (the broken glass concept) and an increase in the number of policemen. Messrs Levitt and Dubner argue instead that the precipitous decrease in crime rates was principally due to the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs Wade, which legalised abortion in the US. This is where it gets interesting: Women who took advantage of the Roe vs Wade decision in the mid 1970's were likely to be teenagers, poor and...

United Kingdom on Jun 03, 2008