Freakonomics
Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Introduction: The Hidden Side of Everything
There are several things required to understand the world through economics: first, knowing the incentives of all parties; second, realizing that conventional wisdom is usually wrong; third, understanding that most effects have subtle and distant causes and the most obvious is often the wrong one; fourth, specialists like salesman and lawyers use obscure knowledge to achieve their own ends and the internet helps to erode this advantage by making knowledge more freely available to people; lastly, data is invaluable to understanding the world.
Chapter 1: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?
People all learn to respond to incentives, whether positive or negative from the outset of life. An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social and moral. Economic incentive is something material or tangible; moral is based of self-judgments; social is terribly powerful as it depicts what other people think of you resulting from your own actions or choices. Any incentive is inherently a trade-off; whatever the incentive, whatever the situation, dishonest people will try to gain an advantage by whatever means necessary.
Cheating is a natural act getting more for less. The government required the High-Stakes Testing as part of the No Child Left Behind policy. A teacher whose students test poorly can be censured or passed over for a raise or promotion. To catch a cheater it helps to think like one. The Chicago public school system fired dozens of teachers for cheating. It is true that sports and cheating go hand in hand. Sumo, the national sport of Japan, is said to be less about competition than about honor itself. Sumo wrestlers are ranked according to complex schemes. The eight victory is very critical, the line between promotion and
Introduction: The Hidden Side of Everything
There are several things required to understand the world through economics: first, knowing the incentives of all parties; second, realizing that conventional wisdom is usually wrong; third, understanding that most effects have subtle and distant causes and the most obvious is often the wrong one; fourth, specialists like salesman and lawyers use obscure knowledge to achieve their own ends and the internet helps to erode this advantage by making knowledge more freely available to people; lastly, data is invaluable to understanding the world.
Chapter 1: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?
People all learn to respond to incentives, whether positive or negative from the outset of life. An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social and moral. Economic incentive is something material or tangible; moral is based of self-judgments; social is terribly powerful as it depicts what other people think of you resulting from your own actions or choices. Any incentive is inherently a trade-off; whatever the incentive, whatever the situation, dishonest people will try to gain an advantage by whatever means necessary.
Cheating is a natural act getting more for less. The government required the High-Stakes Testing as part of the No Child Left Behind policy. A teacher whose students test poorly can be censured or passed over for a raise or promotion. To catch a cheater it helps to think like one. The Chicago public school system fired dozens of teachers for cheating. It is true that sports and cheating go hand in hand. Sumo, the national sport of Japan, is said to be less about competition than about honor itself. Sumo wrestlers are ranked according to complex schemes. The eight victory is very critical, the line between promotion and