July 22, 2005
"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side to Everything"
I recently did some driving through Nevada and California, working remotely from a number of hotels. I loaded up my iPod (which I connect to a Pioneer black box installed behind the dash, itself interfaced with the sound system's head unit) with music, podcasts, and audio books (almost all of it purchased on iTunes,) including an unabridged copy of:
"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side to Everything," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.
I thoroughly enjoyed the 6 hours of sometimes humorous, often surprising and counterintuitive anecdote. I highly recommend it: I do enjoy economic storytelling, from Braudel to Postrel to Friedman Jr. and now these guys.
Anyone else encountered this book or its audio equivalent?
I will add the qualification here that the work does gloss over the correlation between concealed carry laws and violent crime, primarily since the authors took John R. Lott as the authority on the matter... which is a double shame, since there's much there to explore, and since Lott seems to have screwed the pooch with respect to the issue of academic integrity.
Curt Howland has pointed me to a relevant blog entry hosted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Posted by Russell Whitaker at July 22, 2005 12:49 PM | TrackBackwhat with it being at the top of the NYT bestsellers list for weeks, I bet a few people have encountered it :).
Posted by: Patri Friedman on July 22, 2005 05:55 PMI have a copy of the book on loan from a lady I used to work with; a former gun banner. These guys completely turned her around on that and several other issues.
Posted by: Crispin Metzler on August 7, 2005 05:13 PM