Book Review: Freakonomics

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
How much money do drug dealers really earn? Does your first name affect your employment prospects? Does your real estate agent really care about how much money your house sells for? When are sumo wrestlers most likely to lose a match on purpose? If you have ever asked yourself any of these questions, then Freakonomics is right for you! Even if you've never asked yourself these questions, it's still probably worth reading.

Each chapter of the book examines a different question of this nature, basing the examination on the premise that conventional wisdom might not always be supported by the data. Several months after reading this book, you will probably forget most of the details and most of the specific case studies; however, the core ideas - that conventional wisdom is not always correct and that it is difficult to predict all of the effects that a certain action will cause - are interesting, although hardly ground-breaking.

In some ways, Freakonomics is a perfect example of the sort of book that you would expect to find written in the age of Twitter and YouTube. There is nothing in this book that will challenge you or take a great deal of effort to understand (both due to the clarity of the writing and the tremendous variety of subject material). It is a book that invites you to be entertained with facts and unfamiliar ideas. If it doesn't change your life, then it will at least entertain you for a few hours. If you are dying to learn about the nuts and bolts of economics, there are probably better books out there for you. For anyone else, I'd recommend Freakonomics


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