Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
I recently read Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and it was a good, quick, fun, intriguing read.
Each chapter goes over an interesting “economic” analysis of a non-traditional area for such analysis. The most controversial chapter looks at the reason for a dip in crime in the 90′s, and ut oh, according to Levitt it was the legalization of abortion years earlier that lead to a later drop in crime.
I also liked the chapter on cheating in yes, Sumo wrestling. He looks at matches between the same opponents under different circumstances, and the stats seem to show that at times one wrestler lets his opponent win, and he’s “paid back” by being given a victory in their following match. It would be interesting to apply a similar analysis to chess, as there definitely have been stores of chess professionals cheating.
For the other side of the crime/abortion relationship, see:
Pre-emptive Executions? The notion that legalizing abortion drives down crime rates is logically flawed and morally repugnant, and Did Legalizing Abortion Cut Crime.
Levitt’s papers are hard to find -well, without paying, as the sites he puts them on want to charge money for anything more then the abstract. However, at times going thru a couple of pages of a Google search, or following links from the coauthor’s page, will turn up an easy download. Also putting “ext:pdf” and the paper’s title into Google helps a lot. Here are some I’ve found:
- Market Distortions When Agents are Better Informed: The Value of Information in Real Estate Transactions.
- Winning Isn’t Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling
- Rotten Apples: An Investigation Of The Prevalence And Predictors Of Teacher Cheating
- How Dangerous are Drinking Drivers?
- How do markets function? An Empirical Analysis of Gambling on the National Football League.
- Why are Gambling Markets Organized so Differently than Financial Markets?
- Testing Theories of Discrimination: Evidence from Weakest Link
- The Impact of Crack Cocaine
