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Freakonomics is that econs-related tome that so many fellow IB students loved and hated, sometimes simultaneously. I missed reading the book during its brief time in the limelight during IB. Following the media frenzy that was precipitated by the publishing of its similarly themed sequel, however, I decided to address this deficiency in my knowledge by actually going out to purchase and read the book. I found many of the examples and thought experiments therein fundamentally sound and quite useful (especially the quip about how 'informational asymmetry' might help the experts hoodwink you out of their own self-interest), and I must confess that by the hundredth page or so of their fluid, convincing prose, I'd already discarded my critical faculties and gone along with the ride. However, upon finishing the book and chancing upon many critics heaping scorn on their sequel, Superfreakonomics (which I'd declined to purchase in favour of waiting for a smaller, cheaper mass market version), I began to rethink my faith in the logical infallibility of the books' authors. I'd read about the whole drunk-driving vs. drunk walking argument that the latter book had brought up as a simple thought experiment, and found myself unconvinced by the authors' rationalizations.
In that example, the authors compared your risk of dying from drink driving as opposed to drink walking, i.e. collapsing in a ditch while walking along the interstate after having had a glass or fourteen and being set on fire by a passing truck driver's cigarette butt. They first took the statistics for both incidents, which showed that 13 times as many people died from walking drunk as opposed to driving. Then they divided both figures with the average number of miles that people spent walking and driving drunk. They first took the fraction of miles driven drunk, then took an estimate of the total number of miles walked by Americans and made the rather spurious assumption that the fraction of miles walked drunk was equivalent to the fraction of miles spent driving drunk. They then divided the fatality figures for both types of post-intoxication ambulatory methods by the total number of miles spent driving and walking drunk, respectively, and came up with a shocking find: drunk walkers are 8 times as likely, per mile, to die than drunk drivers. Their conclusion was to take a cab. While that is undoubtedly a wise compromise, their overall conclusion was more cavalier:
"So as you leave your friend's party, the decision should be clear: driving is safer than walking. (It be even safer, obviously , to drink less, or to call a cab.) The next time you put away four glasses of wine at a party, maybe you'll think through your decision a bit differently. Or, if you're too far gone, maybe your friend will help sort things out. Because friends don't let friends walk drunk."
This may or may not be construed as irony or levity, but the impression they leave was that on the hierarchy of drunken ambulatory endeavours, driving was safer (and thus more advisable) than walking.
Perhaps I'm missing something, or perhaps two years of NS have made my brain atrophy, but I find that conclusion bizarre. Not only do they not take into account the corollary deaths associated with dangerous driving (in which driver, payload and pedestrian are all at risk) in this rather blithe conclusion, I find their practice of taking the per-mile statistic, i.e. taking the per-mile number of deaths into account rather than the total number of deaths, strange, because you patently do not cover as many miles walking as you do driving. What the authors are saying is that if you were to walk a mile home as opposed to driving a mile home, you would be 8 times as likely to die. But who drives a mile home? Conversely, who walks 30 miles home? Let's put it this way: while you may be 8 times as likely to die when walking a mile home as opposed to driving that mile, if you drive 24 miles, for example, you are more likely to die in the car journey by a factor of 3. Which is what transpires in reality anyway, since 24 miles is too great a distance to walk home. My conclusion is that on average, people who regularly get drunk would probably walk home drunk and drive home drunk on an arbitrary basis, but since one would be more inclined to walk if the bar were 1 mile away and drive if it were 30 miles away, the per-mile statistic doesn't make sense to me. To wit, what seems to matter more to me are the total fatality figures, which show a higher incidence of deaths via driving as opposed to walking, which would make more sense because driving usually implies disproportionately larger distances covered as opposed to walking.
Similarly, the authors use the same tactic in Freakonomics to illustrate that the per-hour probability of death via driving as opposed to death via plane is roughly the same, so you should be feeling equal amounts of existential dread when boarding a plane as you would when getting in your car. But once again, that's untrue to me, since you patently spend far less time on a plane in your entire life as you would driving around your neighbourhood (unless you're a frequent flyer, in which case your fears are somewhat more justified). While the per hour risk of death from flying may be equivalent to the per hour risk of death from driving, people generally spend much less time flying than driving (per mile statistics don't make sense in this example, obviously). So if you only occasionally take flights, disregard Freakonomics' penchant for firing up your latent aerophobia and enjoy the inflight entertainment (if such a system exists in your chosen airline). The corollary points concerning the psychological disparity of both transportation modes are still pertinent, however - people feel safer driving than flying because they are in control of the car, whereas they are not in control of the plane.
In conclusion, while I found the example stated in Superfreakonomics to be bizarre, I'm more inclined to think of it as a lack of understanding about the authors' thought processes rather than it being a failure of their analytical faculties. If anyone bored or crazy enough wishes, feel free to enlighten me on what may be a failure of my own understanding. For what its worth, Freakonomics was a great read, even if many consider its brand of unconventionally-obtained wisdom to be little more than some clever number-crunching to obtain sensational, bestseller-book results.
In that example, the authors compared your risk of dying from drink driving as opposed to drink walking, i.e. collapsing in a ditch while walking along the interstate after having had a glass or fourteen and being set on fire by a passing truck driver's cigarette butt. They first took the statistics for both incidents, which showed that 13 times as many people died from walking drunk as opposed to driving. Then they divided both figures with the average number of miles that people spent walking and driving drunk. They first took the fraction of miles driven drunk, then took an estimate of the total number of miles walked by Americans and made the rather spurious assumption that the fraction of miles walked drunk was equivalent to the fraction of miles spent driving drunk. They then divided the fatality figures for both types of post-intoxication ambulatory methods by the total number of miles spent driving and walking drunk, respectively, and came up with a shocking find: drunk walkers are 8 times as likely, per mile, to die than drunk drivers. Their conclusion was to take a cab. While that is undoubtedly a wise compromise, their overall conclusion was more cavalier:
"So as you leave your friend's party, the decision should be clear: driving is safer than walking. (It be even safer, obviously , to drink less, or to call a cab.) The next time you put away four glasses of wine at a party, maybe you'll think through your decision a bit differently. Or, if you're too far gone, maybe your friend will help sort things out. Because friends don't let friends walk drunk."
This may or may not be construed as irony or levity, but the impression they leave was that on the hierarchy of drunken ambulatory endeavours, driving was safer (and thus more advisable) than walking.
Perhaps I'm missing something, or perhaps two years of NS have made my brain atrophy, but I find that conclusion bizarre. Not only do they not take into account the corollary deaths associated with dangerous driving (in which driver, payload and pedestrian are all at risk) in this rather blithe conclusion, I find their practice of taking the per-mile statistic, i.e. taking the per-mile number of deaths into account rather than the total number of deaths, strange, because you patently do not cover as many miles walking as you do driving. What the authors are saying is that if you were to walk a mile home as opposed to driving a mile home, you would be 8 times as likely to die. But who drives a mile home? Conversely, who walks 30 miles home? Let's put it this way: while you may be 8 times as likely to die when walking a mile home as opposed to driving that mile, if you drive 24 miles, for example, you are more likely to die in the car journey by a factor of 3. Which is what transpires in reality anyway, since 24 miles is too great a distance to walk home. My conclusion is that on average, people who regularly get drunk would probably walk home drunk and drive home drunk on an arbitrary basis, but since one would be more inclined to walk if the bar were 1 mile away and drive if it were 30 miles away, the per-mile statistic doesn't make sense to me. To wit, what seems to matter more to me are the total fatality figures, which show a higher incidence of deaths via driving as opposed to walking, which would make more sense because driving usually implies disproportionately larger distances covered as opposed to walking.
Similarly, the authors use the same tactic in Freakonomics to illustrate that the per-hour probability of death via driving as opposed to death via plane is roughly the same, so you should be feeling equal amounts of existential dread when boarding a plane as you would when getting in your car. But once again, that's untrue to me, since you patently spend far less time on a plane in your entire life as you would driving around your neighbourhood (unless you're a frequent flyer, in which case your fears are somewhat more justified). While the per hour risk of death from flying may be equivalent to the per hour risk of death from driving, people generally spend much less time flying than driving (per mile statistics don't make sense in this example, obviously). So if you only occasionally take flights, disregard Freakonomics' penchant for firing up your latent aerophobia and enjoy the inflight entertainment (if such a system exists in your chosen airline). The corollary points concerning the psychological disparity of both transportation modes are still pertinent, however - people feel safer driving than flying because they are in control of the car, whereas they are not in control of the plane.
In conclusion, while I found the example stated in Superfreakonomics to be bizarre, I'm more inclined to think of it as a lack of understanding about the authors' thought processes rather than it being a failure of their analytical faculties. If anyone bored or crazy enough wishes, feel free to enlighten me on what may be a failure of my own understanding. For what its worth, Freakonomics was a great read, even if many consider its brand of unconventionally-obtained wisdom to be little more than some clever number-crunching to obtain sensational, bestseller-book results.
I enjoy the "economics" of Levitt and Dubner but this book seemed pretty short and a little half-assed. Like they just wanted to push something out before people forgot about Freakonimics.
There were defiantly some chapters I enjoyed more than others and overall I liked it less than the first book but, like the first book, the fast paced tell it like it is then segue into a new topic with a zinger style keeps you reading even through the topics that are a little less interesting to you.
I didn't finish this. I tried reading it right after finishing Freakonomics and maybe I was burned out?
Not as interesting as the first book, but there were quite a few entertaining segments. I particularly loved the epilogue -- I laughed myself silly...
Just like the initial volume, [b:Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything|1202|Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything|Steven D. Levitt|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327909092s/1202.jpg|5397], I found the sequel even more fascinating. While I enjoyed the subject matter more (particularly the section on the economics of street prostitution) in this book, I thought the first one was better written. This one seemed to jump from one thought to the other with less of a logical transition. It's a pretty minor annoyance on my part; the book made me cringe, laugh out loud, and flex my gray matter all at the same time. For anyone who's a total data nerd like I am, you'll enjoy the hell out of this book.
[a:Kelly Hitchcock|5322812|Kelly Hitchcock|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1328755713p2/5322812.jpg]
Author of [b:The Redheaded Stepchild|13438623|The Redheaded Stepchild|Kelly Hitchcock|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328823780s/13438623.jpg|18197340]
[a:Kelly Hitchcock|5322812|Kelly Hitchcock|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1328755713p2/5322812.jpg]
Author of [b:The Redheaded Stepchild|13438623|The Redheaded Stepchild|Kelly Hitchcock|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328823780s/13438623.jpg|18197340]
Audio book, read by one of the authors (Dubbner). Lots of people say they don't enjoy this as much as the first one. Perhaps because when the first one came out, few people wrote of these topics, and now many more do. Still a good read.
Huzzah for microeconomics! I found this book more interesting than [b:Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything|1202|Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Revised and Expanded Edition)|Steven D. Levitt|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157833345s/1202.jpg|5397], probably because there was less statistics, and it was more focussed on incentives.
A few big economics names are mentioned here, which I just want to say I recognise due to my studies in economics. Yay Becker!
A few big economics names are mentioned here, which I just want to say I recognise due to my studies in economics. Yay Becker!