Freakonomics
A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
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- USD 8.99
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- USD 8.99
Descripción editorial
Here’s a first-year book that encourages critical thinking and sparks discussion. Freakonomics addresses current social questions that students will enjoy arguing about both in the classroom and over coffee in the student union:
• Which is more dangerous—a gun or a swimming?
• Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers?
• What makes a perfect parent?
These may not sound like typical questions an economist asks, but Levitt is not your typical economist. He studies the mysteries of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing—and his conclusions regularly turn conventional wisdom on its head, helping students develop a critical eye to many things that are presented as fact.
Freshman Common Read: Appalachian State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Louisville
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Forget your image of an economist as a crusty professor worried about fluctuating interest rates: Levitt focuses his attention on more intimate real-world issues, like whether reading to your baby will make her a better student. Recognition by fellow economists as one of the best young minds in his field led to a profile in the New York Times, written by Dubner, and that original article serves as a broad outline for an expanded look at Levitt's search for the hidden incentives behind all sorts of behavior. There isn't really a grand theory of everything here, except perhaps the suggestion that self-styled experts have a vested interest in promoting conventional wisdom even when it's wrong. Instead, Dubner and Levitt deconstruct everything from the organizational structure of drug-dealing gangs to baby-naming patterns. While some chapters might seem frivolous, others touch on more serious issues, including a detailed look at Levitt's controversial linkage between the legalization of abortion and a reduced crime rate two decades later. Underlying all these research subjects is a belief that complex phenomena can be understood if we find the right perspective. Levitt has a knack for making that principle relevant to our daily lives, which could make this book a hit. Malcolm Gladwell blurbs that Levitt "has the most interesting mind in America," an invitation Gladwell's own substantial fan base will find hard to resist. 50-city radio campaign.
