Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (2005)

A fun book where I learned about a bunch of useless information such as cheating habits of teachers and sumo wrestlers, impact of a name, and fascinating overview of a crack dealing gang in Chicago (and many other examples).

Now, that's not to say that I didn't get anything useful out of the book, because I did. This book teaches the reader to think critically regarding data, correlations, causations, and consider many other factors that might affect the data. ( )

"If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work."

"We associate truth with convenience, with what most closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem...economics and social behavior are complex, and to comprehend their character is mentally tiring. Therefore we adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our understanding." --John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist & coiner of the phrase "conventional wisdom."

"Prepared to be dazzled." says Malcolm Gladwell of Freakonomics. Ironic since the only stunningly interesting material in this entire book is the chapter on crime which refutes a major thesis of his own book, The Tipping Point. Since most of you have read The Tipping Point, I might as well expound. The so called "Broken Windows Effect" is lumped in with several other "innovative policing strategies" and proven to be completely negligible in its effect on crime. What has proven to be effective in fighting crime? Abortion. He proves the case irrefutably through a series of case studies on various countries that adopted abortion and through the states in the Union which adopted the practice at various times. However there is a twist to this story--that I will let you discover on your own, should you wish to read Freakonomics. ( )

An interesting book in some aspects, somewhat out there in other aspects.

What this book does is to study raw data and look for overlooked patterns of possible cause and effect. Now it's no longer new but it still interesting in it's challenging what it calls "conventional wisdom". It all looks much more like authors are statisticians than economists but apparently they think that makes it sound too dull. And the book is mostly not dull. One warning though, it's very American centered so the actual findings might be far from interesting to someone outside that country.

One interesting finding for instance, which was apparently very controversial when the book was new, was that unwanted children, born because the mother had no alternative, have a tougher life and is much more likely to get into all kinds of trouble. This was of course used as a bat in the abortion "debate" that is ever dominating American life. To me the findings don't sound that controversial and it makes a lot of sense.

Another interesting part of the book is how they could locate cheating teachers by looking for certain very unlikely-to-happen-by-themselves patterns in children test results. As part of that they talk a little about what motivates people's behaviour. They enter into a discussion about economic, social and morale incitements and it's all very promising, until they completely leaves the subject. That was a huge opportunity missed to make the book more interesting and less populist. ( )

Another audio book version. The only failure in this format was the use of lists and comparisons between ideas. Reading off a long list of names didn't translate well on audio. The topics were interesting, albeit a bit odd at times, and the narrator was able to describe economics and statistics in an accessible way. However, I've either read this and forgot or read excerpts somewhere because quite a few of the ideas sounded really familiar. I also thought the authors were going for shock value and that some of the science behind the results was a bit of a stretch. There were a few assumptions made that really bothered me. This is watered-down economics geared toward the general reader and intent on having a wow factor. It worked as a diversion in the car but I wasn't overly impressed. ( )

I gained a new appreciation for statistics, even though I was skeptical of some the conclusions the authors reached. This skepticism seems to be validated, looking at other reviews.

Even if not all conclusions are justified, they still are interesting and thought-provoking angles. My way of viewing the world, alas, has not been redefined.