Freakonomics

by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

Unabridged 7CD Audio Book Set

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Freakonomics - Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - Audio Book CD  

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About Freakonomics

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn the conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a ground-breaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: Freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of … well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

Originally published in the U.S. in 2005, Freakonomics has gone on to spend more than two years on the N.Y. Times best-seller list, having sold more than 3 million copies around the world, in more than 30 languages. Keep up with their latest news and writing at the Freakonomics blog, which can be found on NYTimes.com.

About Steven Levitt

Steven David "Steve" Levitt (born May 29, 1967) is an American economist known for his work in the field of crime, in particular on the link between legalized abortion and crime rates. Winner of the 2004 John Bates Clark Medal, he is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, director of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy published by the University of Chicago Press. He co-authored the best-selling book Freakonomics (2005) and its sequel Superfreakonomics (2009). Levitt was chosen as one of Time Magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World" in 2006.

Levitt was born into a Jewish family and attended St. Paul Academy and Summit School, graduated from Harvard University in 1989 with his B.A. in economics, and received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1994. He is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor and the director of the The Becker Center on Price Theory at the University of Chicago. In 2004 he won the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded bi-annually by the American Economic Association to the most promising U.S. economist under the age of 40. In April 2005 Levitt published his first book, Freakonomics (coauthored with Stephen J. Dubner), which became a New York Times bestseller. Levitt and Dubner also started a blog (www.freakonomics.com).

About Stephen Dubner

Stephen J. Dubner (born August 26, 1963) is an American journalist who has written four books and numerous articles. Dubner is best known as co-author (with economist Steven Levitt) of the pop-economics book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and its 2009 sequel, SuperFreakonomics.

Dubner grew up in Duanesburg, New York as the youngest of eight children in a devout Roman Catholic family. His parents, Paul and Veronica Dubner, had converted to Catholicism from Judaism. Stephen Dubner explains his own choice to practice Judaism as an adult as follows: "I did not grow up Jewish, but my parents did. . . . But for my parents -- and now, for me, as I am becoming a Jew -- there is a pointed difference. We have chosen our religion, rejecting what we inherited for what we felt we needed."

Dubner's first published work was in the American children's magazine Highlights for Children.[citation needed] Dubner received a scholarship from Appalachian State University in North Carolina, and graduated in 1984. At Appalachian he formed a band, "The Right Profile," which was signed to Arista Records. In 1988, he stopped playing music to focus more on writing, going on to receive an MFA in Writing from Columbia University (1990), where he also taught[citation needed] in the English Department.

Dubner currently resides in New York City with his wife, Ellen Binder, and their two children.

Freakonomics - Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - Audio Book CD