Freakonomics: A Review

Off-topic, but isn't every economics blog weighing in on Freakonomics[1]? Not really, but it can't be helped here because in the old days, circa 1970s (?), environmental economists were all thought to be a little bit freaky because they focused on economic issues that happened to arise outside regular market activity.

Anyway, here is my review ...

Review of Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner

I read Freakonomics several weeks ago. The best seller is a great book (surprise! right?), economic analysis is extended to some unusual and interesting places. It is an especially good read for non-economists.

But a few things got under my skin.

Levitt's study on real estate agents is interesting but I'm wondering what the big deal is? Real estate agents wait a little while longer to sell their own houses and make a little bit more money (something like 3%). The costs of obtaining an agent are still significantly lower than the benefits for most of us.

More troubling is the cheatin' Sumo wrestlers. It turns out that a Sumo will throw a match if his opponent/buddy would suffer dire consequences by losing. In a sport based on honor, I'd expect the participants to be at least as honest, fair, and sporting as Major League Baseball Players (remember, steroids weren't banned in baseball; taking them was only a crime [i.e., a legal technicality]).

Most troubling is the study on 5th (I think) grade test outcomes. The authors make a big deal about these, especially how adoptees do worse on 5th grade scores than biological kids enjoying the same household characteristics (e.g., parents' education). Nature trumps nurture, right? Not until the very end of the chapter do they say that the adoptees have caught up by the end of high school. Isn't that when we should really care? The age of semi-adulthood?[2]

My spouse, a sociologist, read it and gave it the thumbs up. Now we're passing it along to the criminologists. We'll see what they say (criminologists really take a beating) ...

Notes:

[1] Arnold Kling disparages Freakonomics at EconLog. I take issue with his full review in the eigth comment.

[2] You guess right, I have an ax to grind here. My biological parents were both real estate agents (an attempt at humor).

Review of Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner

I read Freakonomics several weeks ago. The best seller is a great book (surprise! right?), economic analysis is extended to some unusual and interesting places. It is an especially good read for non-economists.

But a few things got under my skin.

Levitt's study on real estate agents is interesting but I'm wondering what the big deal is? Real estate agents wait a little while longer to sell their own houses and make a little bit more money (something like 3%). The costs of obtaining an agent are still significantly lower than the benefits for most of us.

More troubling is the cheatin' Sumo wrestlers. It turns out that a Sumo will throw a match if his opponent/buddy would suffer dire consequences by losing. In a sport based on honor, I'd expect the participants to be at least as honest, fair, and sporting as Major League Baseball Players (remember, steroids weren't banned in baseball; taking them was only a crime [i.e., a legal technicality]).

Most troubling is the study on 5th (I think) grade test outcomes. The authors make a big deal about these, especially how adoptees do worse on 5th grade scores than biological kids enjoying the same household characteristics (e.g., parents' education). Nature trumps nurture, right? Not until the very end of the chapter do they say that the adoptees have caught up by the end of high school. Isn't that when we should really care? The age of semi-adulthood?[2]

My spouse, a sociologist, read it and gave it the thumbs up. Now we're passing it along to the criminologists. We'll see what they say (criminologists really take a beating) ...

Notes:

[1] Arnold Kling disparages Freakonomics at EconLog. I take issue with his full review in the eigth comment.

[2] You guess right, I have an ax to grind here. My biological parents were both real estate agents (an attempt at humor).