Wrestlers Chapter Summary

Chapter 1: What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers have in common? By starting the chapter off with a study between two economists who tried to find a solution for parents who repeatedly came late to pick up their children from daycare, Steven Levitt discusses the concept of incentives and its benefits and weaknesses. An incentive is something that tends to incite an action for the greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity. Basically, an incentive is used to motivate someone to do more “good things and less of the bad things.” Essentially, at root, the study of incentives is economics: “how people get what they want or need, especially when other people need or want the same thing.” Incentives are issued usually for
In this chapter of the novel, the authors explore why many drug dealers still live with their parents despite their dangerous occupations and the risks involved. The answer is simple, because drug dealing isn't a job that involves a lot of monetary and personal benefits except for the people who are high in drug- dealing rank. The drug dealers need a lot of money to have their own house, therefore because of the lack of money the dealers live with their parents. The questions arises why do these drug-dealers do these dangerous jobs and not make money that they are still living with their mothers? The answer is simple: the tournament of life. These “petty drug runners” deal crack because they believe they could move up in social rank and make over 100,000 dollars, even though, the boss and few higher-ups of the gang were the ones that made the big bucks. The possibility that a runner would become a higher-up was slim to none, yet for people from these poor neighborhoods, slim was better than nothing. Hence, the phrase the tournament of life was found. The tournament of life is a phrase that describes people who are at the bottom and work their way up to the highest positions available. A tournament is a series of contests in which a number of contestants compete and the one that prevails through the final round is declared the winner. Therefore the tournament of life is that you are at the
Everyone believes that their name determines their future and that is what Robert Lane thought by naming one of his children Winner and the other Loser. Robert Lane believed by naming his child Winner he will become successful, and even though he had no bad intentions of naming his other child Loser he believe he wouldn’t be as successful. Now, one may believe that Winner succeeded and that Loser did not. However, this is not the case. As a matter a fact, Winner became drug addict while Loser became a dedicated college student and succeeded in life. The question arises Why did Loser succeed, while Winner become involved with drugs even though the names are opposites? As continuing the previous chapter’s idea, Levitt and Dubner mention that the names do not determine the chance of success in your life. It is not what parents do that determines the child’s future; it is who the parents are. This scenario shows us the difference between correlation and causation. Although names may be correlated with success, it necessarily does not mean these names cause success. So, how much does your name determine the success of your future? The answer is simple: zero percent. It's who your parents are that determine the success of your future. However, as families who have higher income the children’s name becomes more increasingly obscure because it has more value. So, when these names become