Freakonomics

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Why does drug dealers still live with their moms? What makes a perfect parent? With data and analysis, this book tries to answer some unrelated random questions.

Freakonomics is divided into six chapters, each starting off with a question. On initial thoughts, the answers look obvious. Using tools to reliably asses tonnes of data, this books comes with interesting and often surprising answers. Rather than being a dull subject, economics here is applied to a variety of common topics with amusing results.

The book drives on a set of fundamental ideas:

  • Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.
  • Conventional wisdom is often wrong
  • Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle causes.
  • Experts use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda.
  • Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so.

A must read if you are a curious cat and interested in knowing where have all the criminals gone.

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2 Comments

If you liked Freakonomics, "The Black Swan" is highly recommended

Thanks, will give it a shot. Just picked up Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell from the library.

-balaji

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This page contains a single entry by balaji published on January 20, 2010 10:51 PM.

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