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book2005

Freakonomics

Disciplines:
economics
popular science
behavior
incentives

Summary

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's 2005 book — applying economic analysis to unconventional questions (do real estate agents serve clients' interests? does sumo wrestling involve cheating? did abortion reduce crime?) — the best-selling popular economics book of the 2000s.

Core Contribution

Creates the rogue economics genre — Freakonomics' method (any question is addressable through economic incentive analysis; experts systematically mislead laypeople; the conventional wisdom is usually wrong) generated a genre and validated a research approach that has since become standard in popular social science.

Historical Influences

Gary Becker Paul Ehrlich John Donohue

Intellectual Lineage

Steven Levitt and Stephen DubnerWilliam Morrow

Allied Works

SuperFreakonomics Thinking StrategicallyPredictably Irrational

Contemporaries & Peers

No recorded contemporaries.

Minds Influenced

Popular economics genre

Intellectual Posterity

Freakonomics Rogue economics genre Freakonomics Radio Abortion-crime link

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Freakonomics

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