ISBN:  0141019018
Godina izdanja: 2006
Oblast: Ekonomija
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner - Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Penguin, 2006
320 str.
meki povez
stanje: vrlo dobro

This is the message at the heart of Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner`s rule-breaking, iconoclastic book about crack dealers, cheating teachers and bizarre baby names that turned everyone`s view of the world upside-down and became an international multi-million-copy-selling phenomenon.

`Prepare to be dazzled` Malcolm Gladwell

`A sensation ... you`ll be stimulated, provoked and entertained. Of how many books can that be said?` Sunday Telegraph

`Has you chuckling one minute and gasping in amazement the next` Wall Street Journal

`Dazzling ... a delight` Economist

`Made me laugh out loud` Scotland on Sunday

Contents:
An explanatory note
Preface to the revised and expanded edition
Introduction: the hidden side of everything
What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?
How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents?
Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?
Where have all the criminals gone?
What makes a perfect parent?
Perfect parenting, Part II; or : would a Roshanda by any other name smell as sweet?
Epilogue : two paths to Harvard
Bonus material added to the revised and expanded 2006 ed

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? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? Freakonomics will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

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 stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins 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 co-author Stephen J. 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 set out to 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 surfeit of obfuscation, complication, 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. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

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.


Nonfiction, Economics, Business, Science, Psychology, Sociology, 0141019018