Freakonomics
A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Ratings664
Average rating3.8
The only part of this book that I actually enjoyed was the chapter on names, otherwise I found the book rather dull and most of the theories just common sense. Having said that, I do not usually read ‘business' or ‘economic' books - so am not familiar with the genre. My husband, on the other hand loves economics, and he raved about this book.
This is a really fun and interesting read, though I'm not sure I agree with many of the conclusions drawn from the data they have. It is well presented though and raises a lot of interesting questions. It is good as a thought experiment.
This was fun. Most of his points were interesting and by and large well-researched, albeit some better than others. The main positive characteristic of Freakonomics is the way that he goes through his methodology. By and large, it is really a book about encouraging the lay public to question and to think quantitatively and that's a really, really positive characteristic.
The next most positive thing to say about Freakonomics is that it's well written. Having a co-author that is a writer was a major boon. Although each chapter was adapted from work published in peer-reviewed journals, the chapters have similar voices and lengths and flow into the next chapter.
The detractors are the unevenness of evidence for some claims versus others (for instance, the entire chapter on names, while interesting, lacks the evidence to reach any sort of conclusion.) The other major problem with Freakonomics is the excerpts of the article on Levitt that preface each chapter. These laudatory pieces are very off-putting in a book that is co-authored by Levitt – toot your horn somewhere else!
Besides some interesting facts, it's rather boring. Looks like a magazine article about British scientists having discovered that the color of your shoes correlates with your dog's nickname. It could be a light, entertaining reading if it was an article but not a 242 pages book.
And actually it's not about economics but about social sciences.
An interesting and refreshing look at several issues from an economist's perspective. How abortion reduces crime, and the cost of sex with a man is much higher than with a woman. Stimulating and entertaining.
A great book dealing with statistics in sociology we normally don't think about. The authors tie together many things such as baby names and economic standing, murder rates and abortion, etc.