Freakonomics Book Review
Justin Rayome
Dr. Ditloff
International Relations
6 March 2014
Levitt, Steven D, and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. New York: Harper Collins, 2005. Print.
The authors of Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, were very clear in the fact that they did not want their book to simply revolve around one single theme, thus making it difficult to discern a distinct thesis statement or theory. Some may perceive this type of approach as a weakness, but I believe it is the appropriate method for the subject matter at hand.
Levitt, a renowned economist, met the journalist Dubner for the first time in the summer of 2003, on an assignment from the New York Times. Levitt’s credibility had just taken off due to being awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, a sort of Junior Nobel Prize for young economists. During this period Levitt was meeting with many journalists and found that their thinking was not very robust, but he decided that Dubner wasn’t a complete idiot and decided to further their relationship. Although Levitt obtained an undergraduate degree from Harvard, and PhD from MIT, he approached economics in a rather unorthodox way. He looked at the world not like an academic, but as an unbiased third party, much like a documentary filmmaker or perhaps a forensic investigator. Levitt isn’t so much interested in the conventional methods of econometrics or theory, but more so with the “riddles of everyday life” (6). Dubner states in an article about Levitt that, “ …economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions.” (6). This statement could almost be considered a sort of pseudo-theme to the rest of the book. By breaking down the correlation of seemingly unrelated subject matter, Levitt and Dubner have been able to unlock some of the most pressing questions from the past few decades.
Of course, after the release of the book, Levitt began to
Dr. Ditloff
International Relations
6 March 2014
Levitt, Steven D, and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. New York: Harper Collins, 2005. Print.
The authors of Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, were very clear in the fact that they did not want their book to simply revolve around one single theme, thus making it difficult to discern a distinct thesis statement or theory. Some may perceive this type of approach as a weakness, but I believe it is the appropriate method for the subject matter at hand.
Levitt, a renowned economist, met the journalist Dubner for the first time in the summer of 2003, on an assignment from the New York Times. Levitt’s credibility had just taken off due to being awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, a sort of Junior Nobel Prize for young economists. During this period Levitt was meeting with many journalists and found that their thinking was not very robust, but he decided that Dubner wasn’t a complete idiot and decided to further their relationship. Although Levitt obtained an undergraduate degree from Harvard, and PhD from MIT, he approached economics in a rather unorthodox way. He looked at the world not like an academic, but as an unbiased third party, much like a documentary filmmaker or perhaps a forensic investigator. Levitt isn’t so much interested in the conventional methods of econometrics or theory, but more so with the “riddles of everyday life” (6). Dubner states in an article about Levitt that, “ …economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions.” (6). This statement could almost be considered a sort of pseudo-theme to the rest of the book. By breaking down the correlation of seemingly unrelated subject matter, Levitt and Dubner have been able to unlock some of the most pressing questions from the past few decades.
Of course, after the release of the book, Levitt began to