Steven Levitt

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner shows that in life, everything has a hidden side. The book in addition discusses many topics, such as inducements be the cornerstones of modern life, the customary fellowship is frequently wrong, dramatic effects practic each(prenominal)y have distant causes, experts often use their randomnessal advantage to serve their own ag differencea, and knowing what to poster and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so. (Levitt & Dubner 12).In this essay, I impart be focusing on how incentives are the cornerstones of modern life, conventional apprehension is often wrong, and how experts often use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. An incentive is always a tiny object with astonishing power to transfigure a situation. (Levitt and Dubner 17) All incentives muckle be categorized by tierce types of incentives moral, social, and economic. Some of which, may have adverse effects, such as wi th day care in Israel decided to start charging people a $3 mulct per child for anyone that was to a greater extent than than ten minutes late.One would assume that in chemical reaction to this, parents would be more likely to pick up their kids in a timely fashion, but instead, the opposite happens. The amount of late pick-ups increase dramatically. The logical system behind this is parents were able to pay off their guilt for being late. In other words, they saw paying the extra $60 a calendar month as a way to substitute a moral incentive. (Levitt & Dubner 19-20). These adversaries, nevertheless, can be predicted and utilise to the advantages of others.In illegal drug-dealing countries, such as Brazil, the government is legalizing all drug use and treating it as an addiction problem, rather than a crime. Surprisingly, this has take down the amount of drug-related matters. In the United States, we try to crack down on drug use with strict laws and police enforcement. Consequen tly, this has caused the amount of drug-related delinquencies to sky-rocket in the sometime(prenominal) decade. It is like a teenage kid. If you tell them not to do something, they are some likely loss to do it anyways just to spite you and renegade opposed to allowing them to do it and them just not doing it.Most incentives though, can be predicted and used to stimulate or punish people, but like in the daycare Dilemma, are stronger and more enhanced for some circumstances than others. For showcase, police departments started plug-in pictures of johns and prostitutes in local papers and news stations to shame the blameworthy party. As Levitt & Dubner put it, Which is a more horrifying deterrent a $500 fine for soliciting a prostitute or the thought of your friends and family ogling you on www. HookersAndJohns. com? (Levitt & Dubner 18).In this case, a social incentive was more humiliating and punishing to them than an economical one. Another key value in Freakonomics, is that conventional wisdom is often wrong. We form certain notions about how things and people should be. Such as a womens rights activist. Studies have shown that they actually dramatize the statistics they give to guilt more people into standing behind their foundation. Most people would cipher that if anyone treasured to the right thing it would be activists, but thats not always the case. In chapter 6, we learn about two boys representd Winner and Loser.Some might think Well, with a name like Winner, he is better off to succeed. strange his brother, Loser, who is set up to fail. Conversely, Loser went on to thrive. He went to prep rail on a scholarship, graduated from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and joined the New York practice of law Department, where he made detective and, eventually, sergeant. (Levitt & Dubner 182) Winner however, was not so stir by his name. He grew up to be a criminal with more than thirty arrests. Most people would think that with a sure-fire name like Winner he was bound to succeed, so how did he end up in jail?Well, another example of someone not quite living up to their destiny is Ted Kazinsky, also known as the Unabomber. Kazinsky grew up in a white-suburban neighborhood with two parents. As a child he was known to be incredibly bright, like his parents. He later went on to attend and graduate from Harvard. In this case, he had everything going for him, yet, he became an infamous terrorist. These are just a few instances of Jewish-Orthodox thinking and knowledge being proven to be mistaken. W. C. Fields at once said, A thing worth having, is a thing worth stealing. (Levitt & Dubner 21)In this case, knowledge is used to exploit consumers. It happens every day, to almost everyone professionals use their information to their benefit. A common example is in autorepair shops. Most people have bypast in to get an inspection or to have a weensy problem fixed, and gotten a bill for WAY more than expected. Even by and b y the mechanic has assured you that it wont be costly. Furthermore, another example of it is in existing estate. One would think that since real estate agents conk out off commission that they would want to get you the maximum profit affirmable which they do, but they dont at the same time.Studies have shown that real estate agents will hold out for the best deal come-at-able when selling their own home, but encourage you to take the first courteous deal to come along. (Levitt & Dubner 8). The best way to stop this, is to do a little research on your before consulting an expert. In conclusion, economics is the playing area of incentives and how people react to them. Freakonomics, however, studied the hidden meanings beyond that and the cases where incentives not further reacted as expected, but where they were reacting differently as wellLevitt and Dubner did that by sticky to five main philosophies in their book, knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complic ated world much less so, experts often use their information to their advantage, dramatic effects often have more subtle causes, conventional wisdom is often wrong, and incentives are the cornerstones of modern life. (Levitt & Dubner 12).Three of which, I believed to be the most important specialists often use their information to their advantage, conventional astuteness is recurrently false, and incentives are the keystones of contemporary life.