Freakonomics is a book about the exploration of prominent issues in society and going against the conventional thinking in regards to these issues. The book declares connections between two topics that are normally not related to each other. For example, comparisons between sumo wrestlers and teachers are made that eventually connect back to economics, in this case incentives. Questions that are usually not asked are examined in the book using evidence; the questions talk about issues seemingly unimportant to the average person, like drug dealers living with their parents. Also, it uses substantial data to proclaim common knowledge as untruthful, like whether nurturing significantly helps a child or not. These examinations counteract the traditional
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The author tries to establish how any topic, no matter how “freaky,” can be tied to economics, whether it be incentives, information, or correlation vs. causation. He proves this by using data that has always been there, just mostly unused, and researches how this data relates to incentives and how they work in the real world. For example, regarding the cheating teachers in Chicago, the author has data from thousands of test scores, and has found that students that had only one year of surprising success (and afterwards failure) likely had their teachers manipulating their test scores with repeated correct answers in (sometimes) the harder sections. In this case, the author uses data to decipher which teachers cheated and for what incentive: to get a salary bonus. This can further be proven with the drug dealers and why they lived with their moms. The author used financial data from J.T.’s gang to determine that a large majority of gang members earned very little to afford their own places, but then saw that the incentive of leading their own gang and earning thousands overweighed that cost. Also, in order to hold up his thesis, the author makes sure that everything is backed with substantial evidence to prove his point. Freakonomics is meant to make readers realize the extent in which economics covers when the right questions are
The author tries to establish how any topic, no matter how “freaky,” can be tied to economics, whether it be incentives, information, or correlation vs. causation. He proves this by using data that has always been there, just mostly unused, and researches how this data relates to incentives and how they work in the real world. For example, regarding the cheating teachers in Chicago, the author has data from thousands of test scores, and has found that students that had only one year of surprising success (and afterwards failure) likely had their teachers manipulating their test scores with repeated correct answers in (sometimes) the harder sections. In this case, the author uses data to decipher which teachers cheated and for what incentive: to get a salary bonus. This can further be proven with the drug dealers and why they lived with their moms. The author used financial data from J.T.’s gang to determine that a large majority of gang members earned very little to afford their own places, but then saw that the incentive of leading their own gang and earning thousands overweighed that cost. Also, in order to hold up his thesis, the author makes sure that everything is backed with substantial evidence to prove his point. Freakonomics is meant to make readers realize the extent in which economics covers when the right questions are