The First Chapter Of Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt

Imagine a perfectly ripe Granny Smith apple. Famished, you bite into it, expecting a crisp, juicy crunch. Instead, it's soggy. Acidic. Different. Confused, you reel back to view the apple's interior: it's not an opaque, light green, it's a glistening orange. The fruit, at least on the inside, is an orange. Your bite, the act of diving into the fruit, revealed a deeper layer, something not expected, something that simply staring at the surface could have never revealed. That is how Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner work. That is Freakonomics.

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

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.

Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them or, often, ferreting them out—is the key to solving just about any riddle, from violent crime to sports cheating to online dating.There are three basic incentives economic, moral and social. How do we profit and what incentives drive us to act unethical? The author describes the research he used to identify a number of Chicago public school teachers who helped their students cheat on standardized tests. According to Levitt & Dubner “In 1996, the Chicago Public School System implemented high-stakes

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.

In chapter one of Freakonomics, the comparison between school teachers and sumo wrestlers is a juxtaposition that was introduced in this book. The Chicago Public School System is an example of how teachers were willing to cheat, thus manipulating their students test results in order to obtain money compensations and prestige. The possibility of promotion or higher pay, provoked teachers to inflate their student 's test scores. Whether through writing the answers to Standardized tests on the

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.

Incentives can either encourage or discourage certain behavior and through various case studies in the novel Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, proves that majority of people act in their own self-interest. Although distinguished through the use of economic, social and moral incentives no matter the stimulation the result is always self-beneficial. Therefore it can be determined that the benefit of self-interest virtually explains all behavior.

As western society has been aggressively expanding, the consumption of materials has followed suit. This leads to a negative effect on the environment. To curb the decay of the planet, it is important for humans to have a handle on how much we consume. One consequence of consumption is the emissions produced by our vehicles. It is crucial to develop a government policy that most effectively controls and reduces the amount of these emissions we give off. While the government has introduced many subsidization policies, the most efficient policy the government could enact is to raise the taxes on gas.

In chapter three of Freakonomics, Levitt answers the question “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Parents?” The chapter begins with a quote by economist John Kenneth Galbraith who said “We associate truth with convenience” . This means that the public will not challenge or doubt a reasonable statistic. For example, an advocate for the homeless named Mitch Snyder compared the recent history of homelessness in the United States, and most of the people being crack dealers. To determine the condition of dealers a man named Sudhir Venkatesh was sent into the field. His assignment was to visit Chicago’s poorest black neighborhood with a clipboard and a seventy-question, multiple-choice survey. The first question started with “How do you

In chapter 1, Levitt and Dubner describe how many people in different cultures and walks of life, which are otherwise inclined to be honest, find subtle ways of cheating to advance their position or increase monetary awards when incentives are strong enough. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing,” and identify three varieties of incentives. Economic incentives are those, which a person responds to in the marketplace. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care or are worried about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives appeal to a person’s sense of right versus wrong. Three case studies of the

​Freakonomics is a book that explores the many possibilities of why some things are the way they are. Principles of everyday life are examined and explained while Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner search for logic in statistical economics. This book answers the questions: how can things affect what people do, why are things the way they are, and why experts routinely make up statistics. This book highlights the commonalities between schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers as well as the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents, the life of drug dealers, criminals, and the art of parenting.