Freakonomics

Freakonomics can be seen as the study of economics based on the principle of incentives. In the movie, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner gives multiple examples of how incentives govern our thoughts and actions and its role in economics. The first example explored was the unlikeliness of a house agent to wait to sell a client house for a higher price. The simple reason is the low incentive. If the agent was to wait another week to sell the house for a price that is only 10k higher, they would get…

“Freakonomics” by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven levitt was something that i was interested reading when i seen the title on Mr. Seal’s shelf because, I am in Economics, and I wasn’t too sure if I would understand everything in that class, so I thought maybe reading a book about economics in my english class could help boost up my knowledge for econ. This book was a great book, I finished it within a 3 week period, reading not every night, but catching up on the nights I missed out on by reading a…

First of all, how do I reflect or react about a book that has a mutated green apple—assuming it is mutated, as its insides are that of an orange—for its cover? Ultimately, I judge books (literally books, not people) by its cover. The cover of Freakonomics looks quite complicated to me no matter how simple it looked, and led me to the conclusion that the book probably is not my cup of tea (as if I like tea and books in the first place). However, I have to admit that it made me curious about the…

The purpose of the introduction is to introduce you to the idea of Freakonomics and how this method of thinking is relative to many instances of the modern world. How many statistics or instances can be explained from a rooted event. Using examples such as elections, house sales, and crime. This kind of thinking can also be brought to the sale of things like tissues, things so simplistic in life that could be favored for their containers vs. actual quality. Or something such as the sale of cars,…

According to Freakonomics, “An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing”. In economics, incentives are offered to set an objective or a goal and accomplish a task for a specific purpose. For instances, buyers buy merchandise when the items benefit them. In 2012, my employer motivated his employees to achieve outstanding fourth quarter sales by giving away IPads; this incentive was given to encourage employees to become more productive.…

From start to finish, Freakonomics is a very factual novel with a comical side. Levitt and Dubner add humor towards their facts in order to keep the audience entertained. Within the fifth chapter of the book, the authors write about precautions obsessive parents go to and how they…

My overall impression of Freakonomics pertaining to the subject matter is that the documentary segments focus in on real-life struggles that families from all different walks of life go through. It was interesting to find out names can have an affect how well a child performs in school and their future careers. The definition of causality seems unnecessary in everyday life. We define causality as a connection between two events or states that one produces or brings about the other; where one is…

Freakonomics Critique This article was really confusing to read. I didn’t quite understand what was going on until about mid-way through the paper because of how it began. The title was How Freakonomics is Ruining the Dismal Science, but that title and anything related to the book itself, didn’t even show up in the article until it was nearing it’s end. How is an author going to write an article and only have around 4 sentences even related to the title? It’s extremely misleading and not likely…

Mathematical economics Freakonomics This movie has been adapted from a book written by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. The entire movie has been divided into parts highlighting various phenomenon. The movie begins with Dubner and Levitt stating an example of a real estate agent and his client. The agent will convince his client to accept an offer lesser than what is being demanded rather than wait for another week. This is because the commission that the agent gets on the extra money that…

Freakonomics Analysis Economics is traditionally thought to be uninteresting study of financial trends or market development. The authors of Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner, 2006) show us that the study of economic research can also be used in studying the relationships behind social problems. The authors attempt to show readers that incentives are the cornerstone of our society and sometimes those incentives are so great that people will cheat to get them. Looking at the financial side of drug…