Steven D. Levitt's Freakonomics

Economics: The Study of Incentives
The book, “Freakonomics,” written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, explores and explains the secret causes behind many economic situations. The main argument presented by this book is what economics really is: the study of incentives, and how people are rational, and will do whatever is in their ultimate best interest. Sometimes this will lead them to actions that are moral, and sometimes the very opposite. The first technique the authors used for arguing their case was grouping together two seemingly different subjects and explaining how they are similar. For instance, Chapter 1 explains what teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common. None of us would have ever thought these two subjects were
In Chapter 4, for example, it talks about the crime rate drop in the 1990’s, contrary to economic experts’ earlier beliefs. The authors explain that the case of Roe vs. Wade in the 1970’s, which ended with the legalization of abortions, was the main cause for crime rates to decrease. They point out that the typical child that was unborn in the earliest years of legalized abortion would have been 50 percent more likely to live in poverty and 60 percent more likely to grow up with just one parent. According to their research, these two factors are among the strongest predictors that the child will become a criminal. After the legalization of abortions from the case, the women who didn’t want to have kids did not have kids. Therefore, the children that would most likely turn into criminals weren’t born. In the book it reads, “When a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has good reason. She may be unmarried or in a bad marriage. She may consider herself too poor to raise a child…She may believe that she is too young...For any of a hundred reasons, she may feel that she cannot provide a home environment that is conductive to raising a healthy and productive child.” By this we can see the rational thinking people used in this