Freakonomics

Black_Couch

An interesting read if you haven't already read it.

MrJoeSoap

Read parts of it on holidays and have to say it does tend to go on some random tangents! Enjoyable, but bits of it have to be taked with a pinch of salt.

The_Minister

I have it since last Christmas, and have only been able to skim it, due to college.

dunkamania

interesting,but not to be taken too seriously

ronbyrne2005

Have it as an audiobook(mp3) but have only listend to first few chapters.

Tricity Bendix

What parts should be taken with a pinch of salt and when exactly should it not be taken too seriously?



The handling of the abortion/crime issue is excellent, in my opinion. Very entertaining light reading.

I'm loving the proliferation of pop-economists at the moment. Undercover Economist is another good one, while I hear Sex, Drugs and Economics is worth a read, but I'm unlikely to get my hands on a copy until christmas morning.

grumpytrousers

the chapter 'why drug pushers live with their moms' is great as well...

mountainyman

The abortion stuff is pretty well disproven.
Why drug pushers live with their moms is someone elses work.

MM

Andrew 83

Read it when it came out but wasn't too impressed. Don't really remember a lot of the chapters to be honest.

While he does it all from a 'I'm just talking hypothetically in economics' way some of his theories could easily be picked up wrong by a reader who takes him to seriously.

Take the abortion argument - his basic argument is that crime went down because, due to abortion, less poor people were born. He's then saying that as there were less poor people there was less crime and so abortion lead to the fall in crime in New York.

While it is true that much crime is carried out, often out of necessity, by those poorest in society, surely the answer is to try and tackle poverty - not to start advocating the poor not to have children. I know he doesn't say that but his writing would lead some readers to that conclusion.

Having looked at the topic the most plausible explanation I have seen of NY's crime fall was the changing drug market - not zero tolerance and certainly not Roe vs Wade.

Kinetic^

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Enjoyable, but bits of it have to be taked with a pinch of salt.

Agreed. I've moved onto "the tipping point" form this but haven't gotten around to finishing it, supposed to be somewhat similar.

mountainyman

Andrew 83 wrote:

Having looked at the topic the most plausible explanation I have seen of NY's crime fall was the changing drug market - not zero tolerance and certainly not Roe vs Wade.

The economist comprehensively debunked that argument.
The section on the economics of drug dealing is just a rehash of someonbe else's work. The section on Superman v the KK was amusing but Leavitt is a chancer.

MM

Stargal

Andrew83 wrote:

Having looked at the topic the most plausible explanation I have seen of NY's crime fall was the changing drug market - not zero tolerance and certainly not Roe vs Wade.

mountainyman wrote:

The economist comprehensively debunked that argument.

Link?

Tricity Bendix

Andrew 83 wrote:

Take the abortion argument - his basic argument is that crime went down because, due to abortion, less poor people were born. He's then saying that as there were less poor people there was less crime and so abortion lead to the fall in crime in New York.

Actually, he was just outlining a position. He wasn't arguing for or against anything. Which is what an economist really should do, I suppose.

I was rather uneasy reading it as I thought he may have been advocating abortion as a means of takling crime. However, he does make the point that if you apply the same moral worth to the unborn child as you do to an adult, murders have increased dramatically.

Andrew 83

b.ie curious wrote:

Actually, he was just outlining a position. He wasn't arguing for or against anything. Which is what an economist really should do, I suppose.

Surely that's just a question of semantics? When you dismiss other explanations and put one forward then surely you're putting forward an argument/explanation? As I clearly said, he doesn't say he supports abortion or anything, but I think he did clearly put forward an argument that abortion led to falling crime rates.

nesf

Andrew 83 wrote:

Surely that's just a question of semantics? When you dismiss other explanations and put one forward then surely you're putting forward an argument/explanation? As I clearly said, he doesn't say he supports abortion or anything, but I think he did clearly put forward an argument that abortion led to falling crime rates.

He pointed out a correlation and then mused on some potential causations but I wouldn't say that he was arguing that abortion leads to falling crime rates. He wasn't generalising the case study out to apply to crime and abortion in general. Which is the point most people seem to miss. It was a descriptive piece more than anything else.

Brethitmanhart

I know I'm posting like a year later on this, but I've read it recently and I think it is a good read. I don't think you could call him a chancer, he is simply given his views as an economist, some maybe controversial but I agree with some of his conclusions and it was an enjoyable read.

Ekancone

Its a sociology book more than anything.

Time Magazine

I disagree with that, daithi. All of the little stories in the book are based on Steven Levitt's academic work, published primarily in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of Political Economy. He's also been published in the AER etc.

leninbenjamin

it's been a while since i read it, but it made for an interesting read... but it wasn't really much more than that in my view.

davej

Can someone recommend a good layman's book on macro / economics then ?

davej

Time Magazine

Depends what you're looking for, davej. Looking to learn the algebra or "how it all works"?

Ekancone

Ibid wrote: »

I disagree with that, daithi. All of the little stories in the book are based on Steven Levitt's academic work, published primarily in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of Political Economy. He's also been published in the AER etc.

Yerrah, im a bit of a snob when it comes to this funomics stuff.

Time Magazine

Rigourous economics on any topic is still rigourous economics.

Now of course there's the argument that it's not all rigourous - there have been debates about some of Levitt's work - but certainly most of it is fine economics. Have a look at the American Economic Review and Journal of Economic Perspectives (both published by the American Economics Association) to see "quirky" economics.

I've decided to back up my point, so some references:
Women in Economics: Moving up or Falling off the Academic Career Ladder?, JEP (2004) 18:3
Making a Name: Women's Surnames at Marriage and Beyond, JEP (2004) 18:2
Witchcraft, Weather and Economic Growth in Renaissance Europe, JEP (2004) 18:1 (Dontcha just love Emily Oster?)
Does School Integration Generate Peer Effects? Evidence from Boston's Metco Program, AER (2004) 94:5
Why Parents Play Favorites: Explanations for Unequal Bequests, AER (2004) 94:5
Inequality Aversion, Efficiency, and Maximin Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments, AER (2004) 94:4
Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates, AER (2004) 94:4
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination, AER (2004) 94:4

And so on...

davej

Ibid wrote: »

Depends what you're looking for, davej. Looking to learn the algebra or "how it all works"?

Well actually, I'd like a bit of a mix if possible - leaning more towards the "how it all works" side of things

davej

Time Magazine

Any Introduction to Macroeconomics book will teach you that, so.

Just in case you're under the impression that economics is only "the study of the economy", that's a little bit like restricting art to pretty paintings. As the links above might suggest, economics has evolved to the general study of human responses to financial incentives - be that the macroeconomy as a whole or whether being named Greg makes you more employable. Unfortunately, though, most papers are essentially a form of applied maths, and require quite a knowledge of quantitative methods to grasp.

You can still learn what generally effects the macroeconomy without much worry though

DeVore

I'd like to see any links to the debunking of the abortion hyposthesis, something based on data and not emotional investment preferably...

DeV.

Time Magazine

DeVore wrote: »

I'd like to see any links to the debunking of the abortion hyposthesis, something based on data and not emotional investment preferably...

DeV.

The Economist covered a rebuttal which to the best of my knowledge Levitt responded to, I just haven't got around to reading his response yet.

There is of course the converse argument that is Team Ivana Bacik are the emotional investment bankers. There are 1.6m abortions in America each year, something like 30% of all pregnancies. Page 20 of this paper suggests that 1.6m abortions lowers America's homicide rate by 8.9%. This is a significant result. But we're talking about 8.9% of a relatively small number insofar as we are not talking about 8.9 percentage points (from my tired, hungover perusal) but a fall of 100 homicides per x people to 91.9 homicides per x people.

This site states that there were 17,000 homicides in America last year which means that, by Levitt's statistics, about 17000*0.089=1500 homicides are avoided by abortion per year. So 1.6m abortions = 1500 homicides avoided. That puts a weight of about 1 person = 1000 unborns. Libertarianism aside, I don't think people (pro-life or not) would put the weight that high. In other words, if 1000 unborns were going to be miscarried (parental grievance aside) or 1 person killed, which would you choose?

Now granted that's analysis done with a desperate hangover (and a very sore knee ) and it excludes the declines in burglary and rape etc. - which should not be overlooked - but it gives you an idea that the connection, although statistically significant, is a little hyped. The emotional-driven logic seems to me to be coming as much from Rosaries-Off-My-Ovaries who are using the crime link as a tool for their general aim of achieving pro-choice as from the A-Life-Not-A-Choice gang.

Pythia

davej wrote: »

Well actually, I'd like a bit of a mix if possible - leaning more towards the "how it all works" side of things

davej

N Gregory Mankiw's books are the ones we used for Macro in college. I thought they explained things well.

Time Magazine

Ibid wrote: »

This site states that there were 17,000 homicides in America last year which means that, by Levitt's statistics, about 17000*0.089=1500 homicides are avoided by abortion per year. So 1.6m abortions = 1500 homicides avoided. That puts a weight of about 1 person = 1000 unborns. Libertarianism aside, I don't think people (pro-life or not) would put the weight that high. In other words, if 1000 unborns were going to be miscarried (parental grievance aside) or 1 person killed, which would you choose?

Bumping this thread. Evidence from this paper published in the latest Economica has found "no clear, consistent relationship between abortion and crime in England and Wales."

Al_Fernz

daithifleming wrote: »

Its a sociology book more than anything.

Economics is a social science!

The thing I liked most about Freakonomics is that my mates were able to read it and it totally changed their perception of what an economist does.

Most people think that economics is simply about Macro and forecasting GDP growth. Levitt's book illustrates just how broad a subject economics is and how interesting different strands of it can be.

Ekancone

Al_Fernz wrote: »

Economics is a social science!

The thing I liked most about Freakonomics is that my mates were able to read it and it totally changed their perception of what an economist does.

Most people think that economics is simply about Macro and forecasting GDP growth. Levitt's book illustrates just how broad a subject economics is and how interesting different strands of it can be.

There is a big difference between sociology and economics. A subject that is categorised as a social science is not sociology by default.

breadmonkey

I read it and thought it was poorly written bird cage lining.

Did it not annoy the crap out of anyone else that the quotes at the start of every chapter telling us how great he is all come from the same article?

regob

i love this book its great

My thoughts on the book are well known - I didn't like it.

What annoys me is that people read and think they now have a clear cut insight into the work which is done by economists, I mean you don't read the bible and then claim to be a theologian...

Ekancone

Deleted User wrote: »

My thoughts on the book are well known - I didn't like it.

What annoys me is that people read and think they now have a clear cut insight into the work which is done by economists, I mean you don't read the bible and then claim to be a theologian...

That particularly annoys me.

What, my post? Or the fact that people think reading Freakonomics is equivalant to a BA in Economics?

Ekancone

Deleted User wrote: »

What, my post? Or the fact that people think reading Freakonomics is equivalant to a BA in Economics?

The latter, I have a friend who has delved into such books, and then talks about economics as if he is an expert. You know what they say about a little knowledge...

Économiste Monétaire

Deleted User wrote: »

the fact that people think reading Freakonomics is equivalant to a BA in Economics?

That was funny. Everyone seems to be an armchair economist today, or have an opinion on why our economy is "in the sh*t" just because they listen to someone like David McWilliams.

nesf

UCD_Econ wrote: »

That was funny. Everyone seems to be an armchair economist today, or have an opinion on why our economy is "in the sh*t" just because they listen to someone like David McWilliams.

I'd say they have opinions because financial news has left the pink pages, David McWilliams was only responding to an existing demand so to speak.

chris_oc

i only got to the 3rd or 4th chapter of it.

entertaining but agree with the some of the other posters, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

the idea of it is great though i must say..

used to read it on my breaks in this bar i worked in until someone robbed it one day:mad:

DiscoHugh

As others have said it can be quite entertaining but is really just a lighthearted way of showing how an economic mind might view things in the world.

For those looking for a basic, digestable introduction to economics, I'd reccommend "the undercover economist". Ive only read the first few chapters but it deals with what I guess you'd call more typical economic matters. I'd compare it to the leaving cert economic course...just without the graphs

Économiste Monétaire

DiscoHugh wrote: »

As others have said it can be quite entertaining but is really just a lighthearted way of showing how an economic mind might view things in the world.

For those looking for a basic, digestable introduction to economics, I'd reccommend "the undercover economist". Ive only read the first few chapters but it deals with what I guess you'd call more typical economic matters. I'd compare it to the leaving cert economic course...just without the graphs

In fairness the L-C course is more technical than 'The Undercover Economist'

If you like Tim Harford's book you should buy his second book, 'The Logic of Life'. There's some funny chapters like, why black males can go without getting married (scarcity) and rational racism.