Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Abstract

Bestsellers are rarely written by academic economists. Freakonomics, however, written by Steven D. Levitt of the University of Chicago (who recently won the John Bates Clark Medal), together with the New York Times journalist and author Stephen J. Dubner, is currently ranked fourth in Amazon.com sales rank. This raises the question, what can an economist say that is so interesting that so many people want to read it? As you might imagine, the book is neither on real business cycles, nor on advances in auction theory. It is on topics that are not mainstream economics. Nevertheless, the observation that research conducted by Levitt and other economists and published in top economics journals can make a bestseller when presented in the right form, is encouraging. It is good news that at least some of the research economists do is interesting even for people who are neither academics nor policy makers. Early on, the authors make a pretentious claim about the power of economics: “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work – whereas economics represents how it actually does work.” They also justify what has been called the imperialism of economics – the study of various topics that are unrelated to markets by economists, using economics tools – by claiming that “Since the science of economics is primarily a set of tools, as opposed to a subject matter, then no subject, however offbeat, need be beyond its reach.” Many people probably do not agree that economics is not a subject matter, and think that there are subjects that should be beyond economics reach. But Levitt and Dubner do a good job in supporting their claims, by showing that the application of economic analysis (e.g. the careful consideration of incentives) can often provide insights, and even turn the conventional wisdom on its head.

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