Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Freakonomics

I liked this book a lot. Briefly, the concept behind this book is to use economic strategies to inform problems not immediately identified with economics by the general population. The most famous is the assertion that the legalization of abortion was one of the most influential causes of the dramatic drop in the crime rate of the mid-late eighties for which he make a pretty good argument. He also covers the effects of names on the success of children, cheating among high school teachers and several more.

I'’m not going to get too deep into analysis of this book, but if you are interested in the least, it is written in a very readable style and is otherwise very friendly to the non-specialist. I recommend it. I only wish there were a bit more.

2 comments:

Mike said...

I read a great review of this in the New York Times about a month ago.

Sounds like a great book.

Great blog!

Overread said...

Thanks! I see on your profile that you're a fan of Guns, Germs and Steel. I liked that one quite a bit too. So many good books, so little time...