Freakonomics: A Comparative Analysis

In the book Freakonomics, written by economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubne, the authors go through different parts of modern life to show how economics describes why people act a certain way as well as the way specific outcomes occur. They look into different aspects of society and view them with different perspectives. With the use of specific data and the fundamentals of economics, the very obscure comparisons and the different chapters in the book show correlation between economics and human nature. The main point of this book is to explain a few fundamental ideas through the answers of strange questions and how they play a major role in society.

Because when some are tested most of them turn out to be wrong. Which makes sense, somehow since most of the time they come from someone's opinion, experiences, or just thoughts.

One of the main economic problems that many people, particularly gangs, in Robert Taylor faced was the fact that they didn’t want to trade in their status for entry-level jobs because in many cases, gang leaders made far more than they would have if they worked minimum wage jobs (72). Many of the gang leaders such as J.T. held the false belief that the drug economy was “useful for the community, since it redistributed the drug addict’s money back into the community via the gang’s philanthropy” (115). However, the drug economy is not a stable or lucrative economy compared to your average jobs because it was clearly very hard for people to get ahead in gangs, thus no one ever had a fair shot of earning more money in their life span. Nevertheless, the situation can tend to be a grey area of debate since a lot of the residents did attempt to hold blue-collar jobs but continued to get laid off (60). In this case, the underground economy of drug sales may have been the only choice for residents looking for an income. Another way the gangs play into the economic situation is when there are drive by shootings, in which case parents

In the book, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology student from the University of Chicago starts out simply trying to understand “how it feels to be poor and black,” and ends up spending years and years figuring out the ins and outs of a gang society (Venkatesh 14). Sudhir receives the chance of a sociologist’s lifetime to see first-hand what life is like in the projects. He follows gang leader, J.T. around and studies his life at the Robert Taylor homes for years. Throughout Venkatesh’s experience he witnesses many things some people go a lifetime without seeing. For example, he was no stranger to seeing people use drugs or get beat up by gang members. One interesting aspect of Venkatesh’s experiment

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.

For this review I read Freakonomics written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. This book was published by William Morrow an Imprint of HarperCollins and is copyrighted 2005. Freakonomics is a unique book where there is no central story. It is not a story where it goes from point a to point b and follows a traditional storyline. This book is broken up into a collection of mini stories where the authors try explore issues and approach them from a non-conventional way of thinking. Some of these issues in the book include comparing Ku Klux Klan members to real estate agents, why drug dealers live with their moms, and linking abortion to criminal rates. The book addresses the issues at hand and uses data they have accrued and in their

Everyone around the world can connect together in many forms and today most people get all their information from the mass media. Such as online news articles or getting on your Iphone and opening up the Twitter app. An incredible amount of people go on the websites of The New York Times and CNN to find current articles. However, with this large amount of daily consumers these journalists find it hard to write popular articles. Many times these stories can be mislead to the readers or trick into believing facts that are not true. Information can be misconstrued when it gets taken from an academic article and revised into a more popular article or hot topic in society. The popular article for Time by Alexandra Sifferlin titled “Why Smoking Pot Brings On the ‘Munchies’” accurately tell the reader information of the scholarly article by a team of Yale researchers called “Hypothalamic POMC neurons promote cannabinoid-induced feeding.” Both these article give pressing facts and support the topic at hand, but main difference in these is language and

1. Chapter three, Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?, expresses an intriguing thought by authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The Freakonomics authors follow a courageous man, Sudhir Venkatesh, a student at the University of Chicago, in his effort to understand and research the mysterious drug dealing business. Venkatesh first approached dangerous gangs and dealers in Chicago with a simple survey to learn more about them. After stumbling upon a branch of the “Black Gangster Disciple Nation”, Venkatesh wanted to take his study further. J.T., this specific branches leader, was interested in Venkatesh’s survey and initiated him as a spectator to his group. Venkatesh was integrated with this group for six years an acquired an immense amount of information on drug and gang groups. Thankfully, J.T. kept documents on the group 's wages. By looking at these books, Venkatesh was able to identify the hierarchy of a typical drug cartel. Which is where the main question of chapter is answered. Only the people on the top of the system made good money, for example, J.T. Contrary to popular belief, lower jobs of this business like foot soldiers make only $3.30 an hour, below minimum wage. Despite the fact that the foot soldiers are the ones who physically put their life on the lines. This style is compared to major corporations such as McDonald 's for a more context comparison. However, the people that are

The world is filled with myths. Most of us have been told that Poinsettias are poisonous. We have also been told that dogs sweat through their tongue and that bats are blind. Each of these statements has some truth to it, but each is also categorically false. They are nothing more than myths and urban legends. Small amounts of truth that have been blown up until they become something that extends beyond reality. Believe it or not, even home care for the elderly is not immune from the myth machine.

Conventional wisdom is often wrong. Conventional wisdom can be described as the ideas or beliefs that are accepted by most people that go unquestioned. A prime example of conventional wisdom is the belief that the earth is flat. In chapter three of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt discusses many ways that conventional wisdom is wrong. He asks the question, "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?" He explains the conventional wisdom that most drug dealers are wealthy. People believe that one of the most profitable jobs in America is drug dealing, particularly crack dealing. Levitt examines this conventional wisdom and throughout chapter three explains why this isn’t true. The authors explored the research of Sudhir Venkatesh, a scholar who once lived amongst a gang of drug dealers while researching the crack culture in Chicago. Based off of Levitt’s analysis of the financial records of a Chicago gang, the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, he proved that most drug dealers were not wealthy at all. In fact, the majority of the dealers earned an average of three dollars an hour,

Wheelan argues that statistics, depending on the metrics used, can be framed to draw support for some corporate, political, or otherwise self-serving cause. In one of Wheelan’s examples (2013), he depicts two hypothetical United States political opponents: one who claims that the majority of states have had falling incomes, and another who claims that 70 percent of Americans have had rising incomes (pp. 81-82). Though these statements are not mutually exclusive, they give two contrasting impressions of the American economy—one of weakness and one of strength. Regardless of which metric more accurately describes the economy, either claim could lure in voters, who may lack the context needed to evaluate the claim. This tactic, the use of true statements in support of a dubious claim, is particularly relevant in the 2016

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

What they were all responding to was the force of Levitt’s underly- ing belief: that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not un- knowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more in- triguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. - Stephen J. Dubner.

Krajicek gives an example of how the print media uses a formula to construct and manipulate news stories to generate readership. “The basic formula in newsmag writing is to mentioned in varying places of prominence that crime trends were down, not up. To note near the beginning of the story that the crime anecdotes defy the facts, then

Another example that was given is sweeping generalizations (based on one experience and generalized to a whole group). For example in my experience my kids are always being real quiet when they are in to something they are not supposed to be in, so when they are being really quit I assume that they are in to something. It 's not, always the case though there has been quite a few times that they got really quiet and I went and checked on them and they were just playing and being good.