SuperFreakonomics is a fantastic read!
Readers familiar with my book reviews already know of my keen appreciation for books relating to behavioral economics – including the original Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, Predictably Irrational and many more!
SuperFreakonomics is a fantastic new entry in this line of writing. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner cover a wide range of topics – prostitution, terrorism, apathy, altruism, hospital health outcomes, car safety and even global warming. They employ with great efficacy the same writing technique Malcolm Gladwell and Bill Bryson use in Outliers and A Short Story of Nearly Everything: they make their stories relatable and personal by detailing the lives of the people behind their analysis.
Ultimately, SuperFreakonomics is an analysis of the incentives people face and the consequences of their responses to those incentives, but what gives it such power is the story of Nathan Myhrvold, Ignatz Semmelweis, Robert McNamara and countless others.
If you read the Freakonomics blog, you might be familiar with some of the topics raised in the book, but the analysis and stories only gain from the more detailed and richer analysis in the book.
Read the book!
Hey what about OPEN, the Agassi story, I thought you would have a review of that at least ??
It’s actually not on my current to read list. I usually don’t read biographies of athletes. Have you read it?
[…] Most of his essays cover recent behavioral economics and game theory research. His quoting of Avinash Dixit fondly reminded me of his game theory class at Princeton while his recent mentions of Gary Becker and many Chicago school behavioral economists reminded me of my recent behavioral economics appreciation binge including my recent loving review of SuperFreakonomics. […]
Mike: I just added it to the list. Reply in a few months 🙂