Comparing Dubner And Levitt's Freakonomics

In chapter one of Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt describe how when incentives are strong enough, many usually honest people from different walks of life will cheat in order to gain financially or climb the ladder in their careers. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing.” This chapter covers three varieties of incentives: Economic, Social and Moral. Economic incentives motivate people with the promise of money or goods. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives motivate people on the basis of right and wrong. We look at four

The author Steven Levitt studied economics at Harvard University and MIT. He is primarily known for his work in the field of crime. The title Freakonomics means a study of economics based on the principles of incentives. The title is related to the book since he emphasizes how incentives drive and affect people’s actions. Although this book does not have a single theme, the main focus of the book is a new way of interpreting the world using economic tools. He explores incentives, information asymmetry, conventional wisdom, crime and abortion, and parenting throughout the six chapters of the book.

In chapter 2 of Freakonomics the main argument is that the absence of information can be used for personal gain. The main example used to display this tactic is when the KKK is compared to real estate agents. Although the crafty practice of real estate agents is in no way similar to the horrors of the KKK, they have a distinct similarity when it comes to the hoarding of information. The majority of the chapter focuses on the history of the KKK and Stetson Kennedy’s effort to stop it through the infiltration and exposure via radio of the Klan. Since the Klan was dependant on their violent—despite not being extremely violent—reputation, the disclosure of the information they had withheld from the public rendered them powerless. The narrators

“An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change anything”(Levitt 20). What professor Steven D. Levitt (a professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s dictum here is that the incentive has a lot of power in this world). And that the metaphor of comparing “incentives”to a bullet really speaks wonders to their strengths. They can change almost any situation by motivating someone to do something in a business situation, all the way to education fields. After many years of college, business and economics students are being taught how to be greedy in college. It is only a matter of time before greed is too powerful. Incentives and greed both have favorable and critical effects on individuals and the populace, but when connected together both can have dangerous effects on future selections.

In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner write in a colloquial fashion and tend to keep their writing informal. For example, when they write, “like the proverbial butterfly that flaps its wings on one continent and eventually causes a hurricane on another” the allusion to the butterfly effect serves to engender common ground with their audience (Levitt and Dubner 5). Additionally, by using the word “butterfly” Levitt and Dubner are able to create imagery which will help their audience better visualize their simile. Also, when Levitt and Dubner write, “it may sometimes feel as if we are peering at the world through a straw or even staring into a funhouse mirror,” the words “straw” and “funhouse mirror” create vivid imagery which helps the audience to better visualize the narrow scope through which people view the world (Levitt and Dubner 14).

One passage that struck me as important was Wheelan's discussion of using incentives to solve social problems. He mentioned public school education, carbon emissions, and recycling as examples of poorly designed policies that promote incentives in the wrong direction. It seems unrealistic that such important issues that are so widely argued are the result of incentives that encourage behaviors we want the public to avoid. We want dedicated teachers and we want to prevent global warming and we want to stop building new landfills, but we can't when there is no motivation to act in society's best interest. Everybody wants to take the easy way out, and when the incentives line up with our desires, there's no stopping the consequences from piling

In Chapter 6, “Would a Roshanda by any other name smell as sweet?,” Levitt and Dubner discuss the power of a name and whether or not they really matter. The authors go on to tell a story of the Lane family who lived in a housing project in Harlem. In 1958, Robert Lane decided to name one of his many sons Winner because he “had a special feeling about this one” (Levitt & Dubner, 2009, p. 181). Then, three years later, they had another baby boy who they named Loser. The son named Winner went on to accumulate a long list of arrests, and Loser joined the New York Police Department where he eventually made sergeant. “The father who named them is no longer alive. Clearly he had the right idea--that naming is destiny--but he must have gotten the names mixed up” (Levitt & Dubner, 2009, p. 182).

Freakonomics is basically a book that explains its own version of the economic history. Dating all the way back to the 1800s with some stated facts explaining what incentives are and what type of incentives there are and what they're used for. Basically there’s a way to motivate someone and set them on a clearer path and bettering themselves in the future. One of the best motivations would be money because well money can get you anything in the world. Clothes, food, and car, Etc. They are a great way to motivate and give people that mind set to work for their money and not just lay there and wait for it on a silver platter. I feel like that people who work against people who never worked. They know more about the struggle than anything. Which is why they actually care when they get money and they spend it wise. Obviously the rich wouldn’t care to get or not because they already have enough to fall back on.

In Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics, they use unconventional wisdom to explain certain events. They use very solid data in order to support their conclusions about certain events. However, some of their conclusions suffer from errors in reasoning, or rather, fallacies. Although they have done several different types of fallacies, the main one they’ve done is the either-or choice.

What is thought to be “conventional” wisdom, is also usually thought as they key to success in economic and social issues. However, in the book the idea of incentives, and collecting and interpreting data are said to be extremely important. With incentives, whether they be money, guaranteed

​The field of economics is often distinguished as a field of studying financial trends and market advancements, but Freakonomics reveals how the tools used in economic research can be put to use to study the events and problems that our society encounter on a daily basis. Freakonomics presents a vivid display of how informal methods of data accumulation and examination are often necessary to have an appreciation of the world around us. Just knowing what to measure and how to measure data from our routine lives makes the complex world around us somewhat less problematic. Oftentimes, Levitt presents situations that challenge our prior beliefs and leaves the reader in a state of amazement. The situations in the chapters without no doubt demonstrate

The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is a book that takes you through facts and statistics that seem reasonable and logical at the beginning but soon they dissect it and show you the true side of the statistic. The whole premise of the book is to show you the “hidden side of everything. (Cover page)” Like how dropping crime rate throughout the 90’s drastically dropped seemingly overnight. This drop was associated with better policing strategies, this idea is great for reassuring the public, but is it really true? Turns out it was probably closer linked to the legalizing of abortion. The authors of Freakonomics throughout the book think outside the box in order to show you

The first chapter in Freakonomics is a long comparison between two types of people you would probably never think to group together, or have anything to do with each other: Sumo wrestlers and school teachers. The main basis of the comparison is the concept of incentives, and how both parties cheat because of the incentives that they have. There are three basic forms of incentives. The first is economic, the second is social, and the third is moral. The authors of the book explain to us how economics is basically just full of incentives, and the rest is just back ground noise. The first chapter does a very good job of showing how this could be a true statement.

After reading chapter three of Levitt and Dubner’s novel Think like a Freak, I learned that in life, human beings oftentimes, worry too much about finding the right answer to the questions that they ask, as well as are not willing to admit that they do not know if they are asking the “right” question. Thus, they do not stop to ask the following: Am I asking the right question? If individuals take the time to ask themselves this question, they can save time and effort, especially if they end up asking the wrong question. The purpose of this writing assignment is to describe how Levitt and Dubner are attempting to inform people that it is pivotal for them to think critically about the questions that they ask, especially since the end goal is to solve their problem.

In the book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner note “An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key: an often-tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation” (16). This is to showcase the amount of power an incentive can have over a person or a situation; either good or bad. Humans are found to use incentives when it comes to making daily decisions. Often, people need motives to proceed with their plans. Some tend to make either moral, social, or economic incentive. The moral incentive is about self-respect; keeping in check with what was taught to believe is right and wrong. The social incentive is how the public views the person; wanting to look good in front others. Economic incentive, however, would relate to monetary benefit. While all three incentives can affect people’s decisions, economic