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Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dunbar, Freakonomics Chapter 4 summary
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dunbar, Freakonomics Chapter 4
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dunbar, Freakonomics Chapter 4
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The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is a unique book because it makes the reader think about our society in a peculiar way. The book take uncommon topics or two opposites ideas and compares the two together to show how similar they are. For example, the two authors compare the Klu Klux Klan to a group of real estate agents, which is interesting because the direct relationship might not be easily apparent, but however they are fairly similar. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, answer questions one may have never thought about or would have never come across, and answer them in a way that is applicable into the real world. Such questions in the book include things such as: What do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common, How is the Klu Klux Klan like a Group of Real-Estate Agents, and How to be the Perfect Parent….etc.
The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner talks about many different things, including cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers, how abortion lowered crime rates, how a street crack gang works, and whether the way parents raise their children even matter. These topics seem to have nothing in common, but all of these topics were identified in the same way: an economist (Levitt) looked at school test scores, crime data, and all sorts of other information, looking at them in unconventional ways. Because of that, he has come to many interesting and unique conclusions that make complete sense. These findings were based on some simple ideas: the power of incentives, conventional wisdom is not always right, things may not have obvious causes, and experts often serve their own interests instead of the interests of others. Perhaps the most important idea in the book is, as Levitt and Dubner state, “Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so” (14).
This quote, from “Mind Over Mass and Media” suggests that the decline in crime may have been influenced by changes in popular culture and media. “When comic books were accused of turning juveniles into delinquents in the 1950s coincided with the great American crime decline. ”(pinker 1) In the article ¨Mind over mass and media” the author Steven Pinker is saying that due to the advancements in technology crime has declined since the 1950s. While Steven Pinker has a point, he overlooks the negative impact technology can have on younger minds.
Freakonomics Essay Freakonomics is a mind bending, engaging and controversial look into a never before talked about side of economics. From relating the Ku Klux Klan to real estate agents and to why drug dealers are living with their moms Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner turn conventional wisdom on its head. As a whole I enjoyed the book, but there were some things that annoyed me and that I didn’t like and/or confused me. Freakonomics makes you think differently about topics you thought you already knew the answer to. To most with little knowledge of writing techniques they would not have noticed/comprehended the authors uses of rhetoric and tone but luckily from these past few years of English classes I was able to pick up and see
Freakonomics is a book written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner which was published after they met each other in an interview for New York Times. After the article was published, the two went on to have an unanticipated partnership. Freakonomics, a book of problems and answers with no unifying theme, is supposed to make you look at a situation a different way. One of the problems in the book included the monumental drop in crime across America in the 1980’s when it was expected to rise significantly. Levitt came across this problem by first looking at the accepted reasons for the sudden drop such as more police, stronger capital punishment, changes in the crack market, and the aging of the population.
Freakonomics Review Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Harper 2005 New York Times bestselling novel, Freakonomics, digs deep into the hidden side of economics. From comparing the safety of swimming pools and guns to discovering the truth about drug dealing, this book will have the reader questioning everyday life. Although the book uses odd examples and intriguing comparisons, the chapters themselves are tedious and lengthy. Steven D. Levitt is an economist that went to Harvard and MIT for his degree.
In the 2005 non-fiction bestseller Freakonomics, University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner discuss economics in a rather unorthodox manner. Among the several recurring themes in the book is the cum hoc ergo propter hoc – Latin for “with this, therefore because of this” – fallacy, which is the confusion between correlation and causation. Besides the cum hoc fallacy, there are myriad fallacies that contaminate our reasoning that we fall for daily. From your next door neighbor to the most educated scholars in the world, everyone is prone to logical fallacies. This is because they work due to the fact that we are human; specifically, because of their appeal to emotion, their link with human intuition,
Freakonomics is somewhat random grab bag of topics. The unifying theme of this book for me was finding ways to ask questions so that one's available statistics and data can provide an answer, time after time they used available statistics to provide some time of reasoning or answers to the question being asked. Some of these efforts were more successful than others. Some of the questions Levitt and Dubner study felt unnecessary, that no one really cares about. But there are also some good subjects.
In Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the reader is introduced to the idea that economics is everywhere and can be found in places where you'd never think of. The book explains that economics is the study of incentives, and shows how motives can affect human behaviors. It's broken down into different types of incentives-- economic, social and moral. Economists often change incentives to try to affect human behavior, though an incentive can cause unforeseen consequences. In Chapter 1, the authors use a daycare in Israel, where parents are charged a $3 fine if they're late picking up their kids.
Summary: Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner visit the common social issues of today and dissect them from an economist’s and statistician’s point of view. In doing so they find solutions to popular scenarios that may not appeal to people’s morality, but are nevertheless correct according to data. Levitt and Dubner use a multitude of comparisons and hypothetic scenarios to show the extremes of their concepts and to make their themes relatable to the reader.
In the documentary Freakonomics, there were many key points to the advantages of economy in our society that could be the reasons from lowering crime rates, to incentives that allow students finishing schools and so on. I was amazed by the perception of how names can affect a person judgments on the person who they never met. Although, names cannot tell whether the person can be successful or a failure in a life, but in our American culture is an important way for institutionalized racism. An example that the documentary stated was the experiment by the Harvard professor, who had resumes with white names and black names applying for the same job with the same resumes, and how that whites are 30% likely to get called for the job than the black.
It is stated very on that there is no single unifying theme of the work done by Levitt and Dubner in the book Freakonomics. While there may not be one main theme, there are several key concepts that recur throughout the book. First, the idea of incentives is a major concept in Freakonomics. Levitt says, “economics is, at root, the study of incentive: how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.”
This was most evident pre-1991 when crime was at an all-time high. This paper will expand on this idea of changing parts of society
The ability to open the minds of others, the minds of the world and to understand what occurs under the hood of a human being. Psychology opens doors and creates pathways vital to understanding the human mind. This understanding is very intriguing and has led me to pursue further in the study of why we do what we do. Recently I read Freakonomics, by Stephen J. Dubner & Steven Levitt, the book spoke about psychology, not just the concepts and theories, but also the direct application and correlation to actual occurrences in society. They spoke of how money affects the psychological side of people and even more how irrationality can stem in decisions regarding consumer and corporate economics.
Matthew Nasuta Mrs. Hogan Period 2 English 12 7 August 2015 Freakonomics: The New Generation of Economics Chapter one explains about the intention of someone cheating. Cheating is a complex network of people taking advantage of a subject or someone. Often people cheat because they don’t want to disappoint academically or they have manipulated their mentality. “With high-stakes testing has so radically changed the incentives for teachers that they too now have added reason to cheat” (Dubner and Levitt 23). Levitt tries to explain that teachers will take the approach to try and get better test scores by reworking student’s tests so they could get a pay raise.
