Freakonomics: Book Review

Levitt, author of the book said during interview of the New York Times Magazine on August 3, 2003 that given the right data I could figure out how to catch terrorists. It might seem absurd for an economist to dream of catching terrorists. But the author is sure. He believes that numbers don't lie. In spite of being economist, his approach to any particular problem does not involve any simple economics theory to reach any conclusion but what he is exceptionally excellent at is finding out the a story in the millions of data that no one else has found and framing of right questions to measure the effects of one variable on others that many top economists find it unmeasurable. In this book the author explores wide range of topics like cheating, corruption, abortion vs crime, parenting and racial discrimination. The books consists of six chapters and each chapter starts with question like "What do school teachers and Sumo wrestlers have in common ?", "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms ?", "What makes a perfect parent ?". It's amazing that the author explores each case by illustrating the various data and statistics he collected over years and explaining with logic the various patterns and scenarios he finds. He uses personal observation, intuition and freakish curiosity to remove one layer or more from the surface of modern life and seeing what is happening underneath. He gives interesting examples where conventional wisdom is often wrong like money alone wins elections, many police in city means drop in crime, capital punishment deters the hard core criminals, swimming pool in backyard is less dangerous to your children than gun, good parents means reading out books to your children and taking them out for museum regularly, naming of your children doesn't affect their career prospects, the advice you take from an expert like doctor or real estate agent is always good for you. The investigation of the author is for common people to know how the world really works. During analysis of any problem (page no-10), the author makes a point how to frame a good question to know the correlation between two factors-let's say them X and Y. It is possible that X causes Y or it is also possible that Y causes X or it may be that a third factor Z causes X and Y ? He takes few real life cases to explain this correlation-ship. Cities with a lot of murders also tend to have a lot of police officers. Unless you have sufficient data, it's hard to say it's number of murders that is causing increase in number of police or it's extra police that is causing murders in cities. While extending the concept of asking right question, during discussing about parenting and education (page no-163), author gives two similar looking questions to clarify the importance of making other parameters constant while determining the correlation-ship between factors X and Y in any scenario.
1. Does having a lot of books in your home lead your child to do well in school ?
2. Does a child with a lot of books in his home tend to do better than a child with no books ?
The author mentions that simply measuring children with a lot of books against children with no books as in question 1, the answer may not be meaningful. Perhaps the number of books in a child's home merely indicates how much money his parents make. What we really want to do is measure two children who are alike in in every way except one as in question 2 - in this case, the number of books in his home - and see if that one factor makes a difference in his school performance. That's why it is said - To ask an intelligent question is more difficult than to answer same. The book entices readers to think and question the way we accept our normal life. As this book offers explanations for why certain things went wrong or right but it lacks to provide the ways to improve situations if it goes wrong. I have few questions about the author's findings I wish the author would have explained in this book.

1. The author finds how the legalization of abortion in 1970s in USA contributed to massive crime drop of the 1990s after 20 yrs of its legalization. Can we replicate same success in other countries where still abortion is not legalized ? If not, then why ?
2. The author finds that capital punishment is not deterrent to hard core criminals then how to devise an unique system to deter criminal.

3. How to control the cheating by real estate agent/doctors/lawyers/sumo wrestlers ?

This book offers thrill of treasure-hunt when the author explores subjects and binds the readers to the last sentence of the book. This book establishes the fact that whatever be complexity of problem, one can understand only by use of common sense and keen observation.