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Freakonomics Book Review

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Freakonomics Book Review
Maria Vega
March 9, 2010 Freakonmics: A Rougue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
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.
Freakonmics is a book written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubuer. Steven d. Lennits is the living definition of the phrase “ Think Outside the Box” He is not a typical economist, he even states it in the book’s introduction, “I’m not good at math, I don’t know a lot of econometrics, and I also don’t know how to do theory.” This marks right away Lennits to a different approach of ways to get his audience attention, he steps outside of the boundaries most people in society live by. Freakonomics, is a book that really triggered my imagination as a kept on reading, I really loved it. I myself started asking myself a great amount of questions that I had never looked at before. Especially toward the end that he asks the importance of ones parents with him. Levitt uses a smart technique to catch the audience attention, he uses really weird questions as chapter titles like: What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? This chapter focuses on what incentive you need to lie or cheat. How the Ku Klux Klan is like a group of real estate agents? This chapter focuses on how to use context clues to determine what is the truth behind the idea people are trying to sell you. Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? This chapter tries to go in the underlying logic of why do some people take the risk of being a drug dealer if they are getting paid minimum wage or less. Where have all the criminals gone? This chapter exposes a hypothesis of how abortion helped reduce crime rates. What makes the perfect Parent?

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