Freakonomics

This book is on the New York Time's list. The full title is Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. The publisher has this as their introduction:

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? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on 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 stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, 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 set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

I have read another book which is similar, which was Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. Basically, the authors of both books attempt to explain seemingly unconnected or exclusive events and show that there is a link. I vaguely remember how Gladwell showed that if graffiti was removed (like having a new paint of coat), it could reduce the number of breakins in an area. The connection was that graffiti indirectly implied that the housing area was not taken cared or managed properly by the residents, thus attracting potential robbers.

Okay, so that might not be the best example, but I can assure you that there were better ones in the book.

The authors of Freakomics are on the same endeavour, but they used economics instead as the supporting argument. There is even a blog, which coincidentally was listed on blogger too. I wasted no time clicking on it.

The blog extends the book's coverage and is somewhat a continuation. After all, it is easier to publish a blog than a book every time there is new material. I have included it in my links.

I am planning to get the book soon. Though it costs quite a bit. It's RM 99.90 in Kinokuniya. Or perhaps I should wait for the paperback?