Title: Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Author: Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Pages: 6 discs
Genre: Non-Fiction
Grade: A-
Synopsis: In this book the authors make comparisons between seemingly unrelated topics and attempt to show a relationship between them. For example, some of the questions that are explored are why drug dealers still live with their parents? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rates of violent crime? And what is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? In today's modern world, we have access to a treasure trove of data that can be mined for correlation.
My Review: I found this book to be well-written, enjoyable and frankly, quite fascinating. I especially enjoyed the broad scope of topics that was explored and found the arguments made in this book to be quite convincing. For example, I tended to attribute the huge decrease in violent crime during the Bill Clinton era to his increased funding for police and public safety, but that only gives us part of the story, as this decrease also coincided to when those first aborted fetuses would have been reaching adulthood. It seems that there is often more than one side to every story.
1 comment:
The Stev(ph)ens have a pretty good podcast, too.
Interestingly, I've just been reading Malcolm Gladwell explain that the drop in crime in NYC in the 90s was because they started arresting fare jumpers on the subway, or something like that.
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