Freakonomics Book Report

Book report 2

Freakonomics

Ruozhu Wang

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Before I have an understanding of economics, I think that economics should be boring numbers and symbols, it does not make any sense for real life (at least for me). It is this book that makes me realize that economics is not any specific subject but a philosophical, the value of this subject can be prevalent in all aspects of social life, for everyone, every family, every organization, every economic entity, and for even every country, it also has extraordinary significance and value.

When I read this book, I think I chose the right one, and I also so agree with the authors ‘evaluations about the economics book which wrote by the great man of United States. "This book allows you to understand the world around us from one of the most interesting angles that will make you eye-opener," Cox said.

In this book, Levitt and Dunbar are drawn materials from everyday life to explore the world that behind everyday things in an economic way: Will a baby become a good student in the future if reading a book to the him every day? Is the swimming pool more dangerous than firearms? In fact, the structure of the drug syndicate is like that of McDonald's, and neither the grassroots staff nor the younger are profitable, the money is all fall in the pocket of the president and the big brother; the difference in parenting style has little effect on the child.

"Freakonomics" establishes a view that is contrary to traditional wisdom: if ethics represents the ideal mode of social operation in our minds, then economics is telling us how this society works in the end.

The famous book critic Lanzi Berg assimilate "Freakonomics" as a detective novel, he said when he was reading the book in the process, he should always "hold him breath”. So, he can exactly to focus on what the author is reading. In his view, every chapter of "Freakonomics" contains all the elements of a first-class detective novel. But the goal of detection of Levitt is not to "find the murderer", but "open the real world of camouflage." Almost every word in the book of " Freakonomics "is a subversion of traditional wisdom, and many of his discoveries are shocking, and some may even lead him to death.

No matter from which point of view, this is a book will lead the people to a new world.

This book focuses on five issues that are often occur in everyday life: (1) deceit; (2) the controlling force of information; (3) the cause of high-risk occupations such as drug trafficking attract the people; (4) Acquired education and congenital inheritance play a different role in the process of child growth; (5) The evolution of the name. Levitt's inconsistency with traditional wisdom in these five areas is believable because it uses many survey data to prove, and through analyzing the data, the authors find that if a policy can stimulate people's economic motives, social motives and moral motives. And that can be a good way to prevent people from cheating, in which case the people be more honest than imagined.

In addition, Levitt also described the common ground between the 3K party and the real estate business is that it has grasp some information that the people cannot easily grasp, so that everyone is afraid of 3K party, ordinary people are ignored by the real estate business; To buy a house of comrades, we should unite together to break the real estate business which has the advantage about the information, so as to deal with the process of taking advantage of this and it same as the sale of things when the bargain, let them consider that you are experts. Of course, this requires the concerted efforts of most comrades. It is useful when just one person make efforts, after all, it is the seller's market world.

Similarly, according to the data, we found that ordinary drug traffickers get the income is not as high as imagined. At least same as the risk that they must to bear, why so many people are also wild about this, because the treatment of the common drug Molecular is not so good, but once mixed with a small subject, it may not be the same, and they do not have to take the risk, so everyone is thinking that one day he can go to that extent, but unfortunately most people will never fail, this is the power of temptation. Illegal pyramid schemes are same. The growth of the child is very important to everyone's parents, but Levitt through the results of the data analysis tells us that the child's success or not, there is not relationship between the child's intelligence and parents’.

The following example lists the examples in the book.

About the chapter 3 of this book: why drug traffickers still live with their mothers. This chapter explores how traditional wisdom is fabricated. Why do experts often categorize statistics? Because journalists need them to create news, create traditional wisdom.

Every year the drowning children dead in the pool are many times more than the children who have been shot, but the shooting will be reported many times, and drowning is too common to be reported, so, in fact, your backyard swimming pool is dangerous than your pistol in the drawer of dozens of times; people who deaths in the accident every year many times more deaths than aircraft accident, but the plane accident will be reported several times, people think the aircraft is more dangerous, because they can control the car and cannot control the aircraft; in fact, the time we stay in the car will also be much longer than stay in the plane, so calculate the probability of occurrence the accident, the aircraft and the car is actually quite the same.

Why are prostitutes’ earnings higher than architects?

The level of pay is determined by following reasons: the number of competitors in the position; the skill level; the degree of comfort; the level of the work itself requires the pay of practitioner.

Why the drug traffickers still live with their mothers, are they not have the great wealth as traditional wisdom said? Obviously because of their occupation and the film and television circles have in common: the successful probability is low, but it is high in return; competitors are more; so most of them are destined to poverty.

In the fifth chapter: how can we become perfect parents. Many experiments tell us that the impact of the congenital genetic factors on the subsequent is 50%. Whether the 50% influence of the non-congenital is from parental education or from friends? The answer is from friends and another external environment.

Using the regression method to study the association between events, we get the following results: eight factors that are highly relevant to student scores: the first, parents of the students received a good education. The second, the parents of students have a high socioeconomic status. The third, the student's mother is 30 years old or older giving birth to the first child. The forth, students born with lighter weight is negative impact. The fifth, the parents of students speak English at home. The sixth, the students are adopted - negative impact. The seventh, the parents of students participate in PTA. The eighth, students have a lot of books at home.

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