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wombat929 's review for:
Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Once again, Levitt and Dubner bring their skewed view of incentives and human reaction to wide-ranging questions. There’s a lot in this book to enjoy, but here are a few of the highlights I took away:
The chapter on the economics of street prostitution in Chicago was pretty interesting, particularly the facts that: pimps actually help women make more money (by recruiting the higher-paying white customers), like Department store Santas, some women just work the holidays, and the biggest competitive force in the prostitution game is the fact that premarital sex is no longer so hard to find.
I also really liked the chapter on car seats, in which they found that children (over two) in car seats really got no extra protection than they would have if they’d just been belted into the adult seats in high speed crashes. In low speed crashes, they add a 25% benefit, but that’s still pretty paltry for such a widely used piece of equipment. Also, the current seat belt use rate is 80%, which means one in five people driving in a car isn’t wearing a seat belt. Jeez.
Being a bit of a technoptimist, I was pleased to read some of the positive solutions to human-caused global climate change they propose. Of course, the danger with these kinds of solutions is that we could cause more unexpected consequences. Levitt and Dubner argue that car-caused pollution is a ramification of the solution to another problem, of course: horse manure.
Lastly, the epilogue about monkeys learning to use money is a must-read. Next time you’re in the book store or library, just take five minutes and read it. It’s hilarious and remarkable.
Over all, I liked Superfreakonomics quite a bit, but it wasn’t as mind blowing as Freakonomics had been. I’ll have to wait and see, though. I remember finding bits of the first book floating around my head for months after I’d read it. I suspect the same will occur here.
The chapter on the economics of street prostitution in Chicago was pretty interesting, particularly the facts that: pimps actually help women make more money (by recruiting the higher-paying white customers), like Department store Santas, some women just work the holidays, and the biggest competitive force in the prostitution game is the fact that premarital sex is no longer so hard to find.
I also really liked the chapter on car seats, in which they found that children (over two) in car seats really got no extra protection than they would have if they’d just been belted into the adult seats in high speed crashes. In low speed crashes, they add a 25% benefit, but that’s still pretty paltry for such a widely used piece of equipment. Also, the current seat belt use rate is 80%, which means one in five people driving in a car isn’t wearing a seat belt. Jeez.
Being a bit of a technoptimist, I was pleased to read some of the positive solutions to human-caused global climate change they propose. Of course, the danger with these kinds of solutions is that we could cause more unexpected consequences. Levitt and Dubner argue that car-caused pollution is a ramification of the solution to another problem, of course: horse manure.
Lastly, the epilogue about monkeys learning to use money is a must-read. Next time you’re in the book store or library, just take five minutes and read it. It’s hilarious and remarkable.
Over all, I liked Superfreakonomics quite a bit, but it wasn’t as mind blowing as Freakonomics had been. I’ll have to wait and see, though. I remember finding bits of the first book floating around my head for months after I’d read it. I suspect the same will occur here.