Freakonomics (edit title)

• Rated 4 stars

“Interesting use of economics and statistics. I learned a lot from this book.”

• Rated 3 stars

“I good lesson in not believing everything that you hear/read, examining your assumptions and examining motivations and incentives.

For example, your real estate agent does have incentive to get you more money for your house, but not enough to justify the time required to do so. Therefore, s/he will
likely encourage you to take the first offer you get (most likely in a less than straight-forward manner).

The authors kept the subject matter entertaining”

• Rated 0 stars

“Interesting on marketing, unintended consequences, screwball outcomes with
new product.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Very fun read. Poponomics can add an interesting analysis/perspective on just about anything. Looking forward to reading more from Levitt. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“In Freakonomics, Nobel Prize winning economist Steven D. Levitt demonstrates how the analytical tools used to measure economic performance can also be used to identify and interpret a wide variety of social and cultural trends. The key is knowing how to pose the right questions in order to extract meaningful and reliable information from a large body of statistical data. Levitt's genius is his ability to not only ferret out tell-tale patterns but to recognize what they mean. In this way, he is able to set conventional wisdom on its head by finding cause and effect relationships between seemingly unrelated phenomena. For example, one of his most controversial findings was that there was strong evidence linking the sharp drop in America's crime rate in the 1990's to a Supreme Court ruling two decades earlier which had, in effect, legalized abortion. According to Levitt's research, unwanted children statistically have a much greater tendancy to become criminals. It follows, therefore, that greater access to abortion would result in fewer prospective criminals being born each year. Yet, in spite of the fact that Levitt's research often involves such weighty social issues, the book is very accessible and contains many fascinating examples of how easily data can be misinterpreted and misused.”

• Rated 4 stars

“This was a very interesting twist on economics. The authors cover a variety of subjects that you may not even associate with the word "economics", and cover them with a unique viewpoint. I enjoyed listening to this book, and found myself being surprised by their conclusions!”

• Rated 4 stars

“Interesting essays on random things, such as teacher's cheating in order to raise their student's test scores. There's also an controversial essay regarding abortion.”

• Rated 5 stars

“fun and interesting! ”

• Rated 4 stars

“A pretty interesting book, it explains economics of totally absurd things with a ton of witty remarks..

For eg.
Ever thought about the similarity between silk stockings and crack cocaine?”

• Rated 3 stars

“Very interesting indeed. This book made me rethink a lot of things I have believed on hear-saying without reflecting upon them, such as all the jazz about children failing because their parents weren't loving enough or their neighbourhood too shabby. Perhaps I would have wanted the authors to go a little deeper into each issue, and even add more issues to their argument (though they do state that there is no unifying theme, I would have liked them to dissect some more conventional attitudes). It is not often that I think that a book isn't long enough, but this time it feels as if the read was over a little too soon. One expects a follow-up.”