Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

Average Customer Rating:

Fun beach read reading, but no dazzle...

Customer Rating:

The cover promises "Prepare to be dazzled" and I expected so much more. This is a very thin book (double spaced & wide margins, 200 pages in total) and can be read in one day at the beach. You can find some interesting statistics, for example which words work best in real estate ads. But by no means should this book be categorized in Popular Economics on Amazon. Save your money and check out this book from your local library.

Review for Freakanomics	Customer Rating:
Great book! The authors made economic topics relevant to social situations, some of which I am able to use in my classroom to highlight some key ideas about economics. It's not a boring economics book, it's a nice read that keeps you wanting to turn the page!

Gave as a gift for my son majoring in Economics	Customer Rating:
I gave it as a gifr for my son majoring in economice... He said "WOW.. I always wanted this book !"

Response to Goosecat

Customer Rating:

Just to respond to a review that was extremely critical of this book - Economics is just that STATISTICS WITH A THEORY. If you took any undergraduate economic classes you'd understand that economics is the formation of theories to explain trends that are portrayed in data. No matter how absurd the theory - with proper support (which Leavitt documents repeatedly) there is absolutely no reason to review this book negatively. The only kind of person who would review this negatively is someone who is looking for concrete answers in a world where nothing is concrete. This is social science and as a result there are no end all statements - instead there are crafy theories which do extremely well to explain trends in data. All in all this book was a blast to read!

Computers	Customer Rating:
Computers, not abortion are the reason for the drop in crime in the 90's. Think about it.