Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded] A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

I rarely do this, but today I'm going to start by reading a couple sentences from Freakonomics, which Steve Levitt and I published in 2005.

Cheating, we wrote, may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. Cheating is a primordial economic act, getting more for less. So when you think about it, why shouldn't we expect cheating even among scientific researchers?

I rarely do this, but today I'm going to start by reading a couple sentences from Freakonomics, which Steve Levitt and I published in 2005.

In the first Freakonomics book, published in 2005, Steve Levitt and I wrote about one such consequence of the original Roe v. Wade ruling, and in 2019 we put out a Freakonomics radio episode called Abortion and Crime Revisited.

If you've ever read Freakonomics, the namesake book of this show, you may recall this controversial link between legalized abortion and the fall of crime.

Levitt eventually wrote a paper called Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s, four factors that explain the decline and six that do not.

Legalized abortion, they wrote, appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.

In 2001, the economist Steve Levitt and the economist slash legal scholar John Donahue published a paper arguing that the legalization of abortion in the U.S. in 1973 accounted for as much as half of the nationwide reduction in crime a generation later.

I am best known for co-authoring Freakonomics with Stephen Dubner.

This was around the time that Levitt and I published our first Freakonomics book.

In the Freakonomics movie, he gets a chapter on names and he does it completely backwards.

And we tell him that it's completely backwards. And he's completely unbothered by the fact that he's gotten it completely backwards and makes names destiny.

When we wrote about names in Freakonomics, we made it pretty clear that naming is not destiny.

If you've ever read Freakonomics, the namesake book of this show, you may recall this controversial link between legalized abortion and the fall of crime.

My favorite book of the last 20 years is Freakonomics. Now, I don't know who wrote that book, but it's a great book. And if you ever meet the author of that book, I'd like to meet that person.

Steve Leavitt is the guy I write books with, freakonomics and super freakonomics

In our first book, Freakonomics, we analyzed the Bagel Man's payment data and wrote up the findings, what the payment rates told us about honesty as it relates to the size of a company, time of year, company morale, things like that.

Their 2005 book Freakonomics used economic theory to offer...

In order to prompt the Google ads, Sweeney needed to find real first and last names, some black and some white. So she would type in a search like Shaunice PhD or Molly MBA to find real people, some of whom were like herself professionals.

So when we wrote about names and Freakonomics, we made it pretty clear that naming is not destiny.

And we made we told that story to reinforce the point that naming is not destiny.

It is amazing how everyone thinks that we said the opposite.

He completely he gets a chapter on names and he does it completely backwards. And we tell him that it's completely backwards. And he's completely unbothered by the fact that he's gotten it completely backwards and makes names destiny.

If you do it right, we'll send you a Freakonomics Radio t-shirt or coffee mug or a signed Freakonomics book.

It's that moment every couple of weeks we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything.

It is altogether now the hidden side of everything.

From WNYC and APM American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything.

If you want more Freakonomics Radio, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or go to Freakonomics.com where you'll find lots of radio, a blog, the books and more.

Time now for a little bit of Freakonomics Radio, that moment in the broadcast every couple of weeks where we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog.

Oh, geez, Kai, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Fight through it. Okay, all right. Books and the blog of the same name. It is, of course, the hidden side of everything.

the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything.

So what Leavitt is talking about is the freakonomics documentary that came out a couple years ago

He completely he gets a chapter on names and he does it completely backwards and we tell him that it's completely backwards

And he's completely unbothered by the fact that he's gotten it completely backwards and and makes names destiny

When we wrote about names and freakonomics We made it pretty clear that naming is not destiny, right?

In fact we told the story of these two brothers in New York whose parents had named them loser and winner and The fact was is that loser turned out to have a great life as an upstanding citizen

It is, yes, yes, it is the hidden side of everything.

One of the questions that we posed in our first book, Infreakonomics, was simply this.

It is the hidden side of everything.

Every two weeks we talk with Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and blog about the hidden side of everything.

Stephen Dovener, Freakonomics Radio. He also puts out a podcast, which you can get on iTunes and hear more at Freakonomics.com.

The hidden side of everything is what it's all about.

Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name.

the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything.

Stephen Levitt, the co-author of the books in the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything.

It is the hidden side of everything.

my daughter bought your book because of the, quote, funny title, end quote, and has read sections to us, her father and me, in the car and at home. She's 16.

What I would like to know is what you think the perfect meal is to match up with your book at our book club discussion.

So for instance, after we published Freakonomics, some of my colleagues were not that wild about the book and the attention we received.

Books in the blog of the same name, it is of course the hidden side of everything...

Time now for a little bit of Freakonomics Radio, that moment in the broadcast every couple of weeks where we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything.

Time now for a little bit of Freakonomics Radio, that moment in the broadcast every couple of weeks where we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything.

Time now for a little bit of Freakonomics Radio, that moment in the broadcast every couple of weeks where we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name.

Our once every couple of weeks chat with Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It's all about the hidden side of everything.

It's the hidden side of everything.

So in Chapter one of Freakonomics, Dr. Leavitt explores cheating by Chicago school teachers and with what and what type of elite athlete? Oh, was it the fencers? Right. Yeah, I think they're elite or the sumo wrestlers maybe. Yes.

Dr. Leavitt took an observation step further, researching the dangers of childhood. According to this research, a child is 100 times more likely to die in one of these than playing with a gun.

It's in a swimming pool. Swimming pool. It's a swimming pool.

And in Freakonomics, we learn about the financial structure of drug gangs with the leaders prospering from the work of a large number of very low income workers.

To which major corporation did Leavitt compare these drug gangs? Wasn't it like AIG? And your answer, Captain? AIG.

Can I tell one Freakonomics story?

Yeah, okay. So one of my professors at UChicago was a political science guy, or I guess he's public policy.

And there's a thing that Freakonomics guy wrote where he was trying to prove that money doesn't actually influence like doesn't actually influence elections.

You know what? My professor wrote a paper about that, which is that, you know, again, this is a perfect example of how dumb this guy is.

And so he did this whole thing where he was - he had this great - he had this great metric called like - oh, God.

It was called like the dairy cow coefficient, which is like measuring like how someone should vote versus like how many dairy cows -

This is the same as the position that some people tried to make in Freakonomics, which is, well, you know, abortion did lower the crime rate.

So Stephen, so Freakonomics, you have a podcast yourself I do. It's called Freakonomics Radio

It did, yeah I liked writing books a great deal But, you know, interviewing people, which is, I mean, I'm a writer

So Freakonomics Radio is kind of a blend To put in all the stuff that is not choice Yeah, exactly That's what he just said Exactly

Bestselling book Internationally bestselling book Congratulations on that

Steven and I are having lunch You were worried, I'm not gonna say what you said But you were worried You didn't know how the book would do it And you were scared And I said, I was lying, I was just being nice

Freakonomics is a bestselling book Internationally bestselling book

So Freakonomics, you have a podcast yourself I do. It's called Freakonomics Radio

It did, yeah I liked writing books a great deal But, you know, interviewing people, which is, I mean, I'm a writer

But you were wrong Wait, wait, that's a story That's a story

Highly recommend Freakonomics just if you want to learn interesting things about the world.

Highly recommend Freakonomics just if you want to learn interesting things about the world.

We actually wrote about cheating a good bit in Freakonomics, our first book, and a variety of settings.

She writes that her dad, whose name is Neil Bonner, is who quote, got me into your podcast.

She writes, he inspired me to read all the Freakonomics books and he was the reason I wanted to major in economics.

She says, I have gotten him Freakonomics books the last three years, poor fella.

And that is about the only thing he has actually enjoyed.

It reminds me a little bit of the argument that we made in the first Freakonomics book about names.

That was partly driven by the fact that there was a film made called Freakonomics that we didn't make. We kind of participated in it and they sort of got it backwards.

She's supposed to be like the nerdy one. Gosh, I can't remember. I think they were at a swimming pool and everybody's jumping around having fun and she's sitting by the pool reading Freakonomics.

You know why I watched it is because Freakonomics was on it. It was in the first season.

One example that we highlighted in Freakonomics in our first book was about how in America, especially in the last 50 to 100 years, new names tend to be adopted by higher income families who see them as kind of interesting and maybe classy.

Back in our first Freakonomics book we did write a bit about how most people are pretty terrible at assessing risk and one example we used is let's say that you have a child and the neighbor has a child and you send your child to play at your neighbor's house which should you be more scared of if your neighbor has a swimming pool or a gun in their home.

Our first book Freakonomics came out and then as we were working on the second book, there was a movie being made.

I did take these 40 or 50 crates of work product and I did start to triage and I did get rid of one or two categories entirely that I felt like I could let go of.

They were the contracts for all the foreign additions of Freakonomics that we signed when Freakonomics first came out.

Like the Bulgaria contract.

We had contracts from I don't know 60, 80 countries and first of all, when they came in, I thought it was like an awesome document just to have.

But at a certain point, I decided that I didn't need the Bulgarian contract.

but it is funny when you ask it in the context of like a life story whether it's a memoir or biography the first book that I wrote I think we've talked about this a little bit in the past on this show is about my parents

a lot of the stuff that we've written in Freakonomics deals with this directly

Our first book, Freakonomics, came out. And then as we were working on the second book, there was a movie being made.

So we wrote a bit in our first and second Freakonomics books about different kinds of cheating.

The cheating school teacher data that we wrote about in Freakonomics, the way that the teachers cheated was they would give an exam, they would collect the score sheets from the kids, and then they would literally erase wrong answers and fill in correct ones.

Let's take Freakonomics, for example. You have a skill, skill, and then you have to apply that skill. So that's the time.

I can't pull the trigger. I can't get rid of them. I did take these 40 or 50 crates of work product and I did start to triage and I did get rid of one or two categories entirely that I felt like I could let go of.

They were the contracts for all the foreign editions of Freakonomics that we signed when Freakonomics first came out. Like the Bulgaria contract. Exactly. We had contracts from, I don't know, 60, 80 countries.

And you wrote the book Freakonomics among quite a few others.

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He's like, he's like, Freakonomics talked about that.