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*SuperFreakonomics*
Doing the math, you find that on a per-mile basis, a drunk walker is eight times more likely to get killed than a drunk driver.
The subtitle of the book is Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance and you can pre-order it here. The authors are...come on guys...need I tell you?
The Harper and Collins press blurb offers this summary:
"SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:
- How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
- Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
- How much good do car seats do?
- What's the best way to catch a terrorist?
- Did TV cause a rise in crime?
- What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
- Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
- Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
- Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?"
I would stress different angles. My favorite part of the book was the presentation of the List-Levitt critique of experimental economics. In particular the authors discuss whether the subject participants are more cooperative to begin with and also whether they are primed to please the experimenter. The biographical information on John List is fascinating. There is a very good revisionist account of the Kitty Genovese story; the neighbors didn't perform as miserably as many people think. Terrorists are especially likely to rent rather than buy, especially unlikely to take out life insurance (which doesn't pay off in cases of suicide), and likely to have a large number of cash withdrawals relative to other transactions.
Geo-engineering, as a response to global warming, receives more pages than any other single topic.
This book is recognizably in the style of Freakonomics, a book I suspect you already have made up your mind about. I will say only that SuperFreakonomics is a more than worthy sequel, a super sequel you might say. If you're a fan of Freakonomics, you'll like this too. This really is the fall season of big, big books.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 29, 2009 at 07:33 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
I've been looking forward to this book. I really enjoyed Freakonomics, so I'm excited that this one should also be appealing.
Posted by: Andy at Sep 29, 2009 8:34:49 AM
> Terrorists are especially likely to rent rather than buy, especially unlikely to take out life insurance (which doesn't pay off in cases of suicide), and likely to have a large number of cash withdrawals relative to other transactions.
uh oh. therefore i am a terrorist in all but action and intent.
Posted by: babar at Sep 29, 2009 8:44:57 AM
babar, no need to admit it, the DHS already knows.
Maybe the TIA people could set up a MMORPG where terrorists could play out their angst virtually and we could make political mistakes in response to the panic without any damage actually having to be done.
Posted by: Andrew at Sep 29, 2009 9:21:35 AM
Yeah, but what's the likelihood of a drunk walker killing someone else, in comparison to a drunk driver?
That's what I'm worried about, not whether the drunk walker or driver gets killed.
Posted by: Mason at Sep 29, 2009 9:37:07 AM
Life insurers *DO* pay out on suicides. In fact, there's virtually no standard claims exclusions in the life insurance area, with fraud on an application as pretty much the only reason a life insurer would ever deny a claim.
Posted by: R.J. Lehmann at Sep 29, 2009 9:49:53 AM
R.j.Lehmann, that sounds to me like a good example of Freakonomics stuff in general. It sounds clever, sometimes even insightful, but once you know a few details of the subjects, it becomes clear that the authors did not.
Posted by: Zamfir at Sep 29, 2009 10:06:29 AM
@ Zamfir & R.J. Lehmann:
Do you think the public/government would allow an insurance company to give money to the family and/or friends of terrorists after a suicide bombing? Can you imagine the outcry if insurance companies were shoveling cash over to Al-Qaeda after September 11th, 2001?
Posted by: libert at Sep 29, 2009 10:39:57 AM
Freakonomics was interesting for sure, but I remain skeptical for reasons well explained here by Willem Buiter
http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/09/i-know-i-know-nothing-but-at-least-i-know-that/
Posted by: William at Sep 29, 2009 10:51:05 AM
"Doing the math, you find that on a per-mile basis, a drunk walker is eight times more likely to get killed than a drunk driver."
A drunk driver is most likely traveling more that eight times faster than a drunk walker which would mean the drunk driver is more likely to be killed for a given unit of time.
You can do this little trick when it comes to airplanes vs. cars -- time compared to distance for fatalities.
Posted by: Richard A. at Sep 29, 2009 11:06:39 AM
>>How much good do car seats do?<<
Dunno the economics of this, but as a driver, I'd be hard pressed to manage without one.
Posted by: Nigel at Sep 29, 2009 11:24:06 AM
"Doing the math, you find that on a per-mile basis, a drunk walker is eight times more likely to get killed than a drunk driver."
Most sentences that begin with "Doing the math," tend not to be very convincing.
Posted by: Rob at Sep 29, 2009 11:41:55 AM
This is developing into a nice franchise, but it's getting less freaky (the doctors washing hands things is very old news, although a fantastic project) and a lot less like anything you can call economics. Still, it is serving as a great conduit for good ideas into the mainstream.
Posted by: Gabe at Sep 29, 2009 12:04:56 PM
I am actually surprised that List remains under-appreciated more boradly. His story is great, and his research is nobel-worthy. He started the field of field experiments for goodness-sake!
Posted by: boyz2men at Sep 29, 2009 12:27:51 PM
Freakonomics reminded me of this old saying, hmm, something that had to do with correlation and causation... Well, I just don't remember.
Posted by: Stephen M at Sep 29, 2009 1:06:52 PM
Life insurance contracts generally have two-year exclusion periods from their date of issue. They do pay claims in cases of suicide after two years.
Posted by: AADL at Sep 29, 2009 1:20:29 PM
I can answer most of these just off the top of my head:
How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
They both are either a) desperate enough to do something degrading for money, or b) enjoy what they do but have non-standard preferences. (Liking sex is normal, liking frequent sex with strangers for money when you're a woman isn't.)
Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
Because they're elitist, overconfident f---s who refuse to adapt to improved methodology because it destroys their "sacred priesthood" aura.
How much good do car seats do?
Lots. Who wants to stand while driving?
Did TV cause a rise in crime?
Yes, at least in TV theft.
What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
Being common.
Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
Yes and yes -- they're hardwired to be altruistic sometimes and selfish sometimes, depending on the circumstances.
Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
If kangaroos get too big, too common, and too threatening, yes.
Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?"
Is there a difference?
Posted by: Silas Barta at Sep 29, 2009 1:28:19 PM
"Terrorists are especially likely to rent rather than buy, especially unlikely to take out life insurance (which doesn't pay off in cases of suicide), and likely to have a large number of cash withdrawals relative to other transactions."
Terrorists sound a lot like college students
Posted by: KBurt at Sep 29, 2009 2:22:51 PM
1 - Car seats are for infants and small children, not drivers ... in most cases.
2 - KBurt: yes, there are very few 50-something people with a mortgage and a couple kids willing to blow themselves up. (Blowing others up on their behalf is another matter.) These factors all speak of people who live in the moment and don't value the future very much.
Posted by: D. Watson at Sep 29, 2009 2:39:25 PM
Drunk drivers are probably less drunk than drunk walkers. And I'd say the more relevant measurement is probability of death per period of time, not distance.
Posted by: Mattw at Sep 29, 2009 3:18:15 PM
"Doing the math, you find that on a per-mile basis, a drunk walker is eight times more likely to get killed than a drunk driver."
This is perhaps obvious, but are they doing this analysis for journeys within a reasonable walkable distance? There are many distances covered by drunk drivers (long empty roads) that walkers will not cover.
Posted by: Kinch ahoy at Sep 29, 2009 3:50:20 PM
I am surprised that List is not a coauthor. He is one of those rare folks who started out at a
fairly obscure academic institution (University of Central Florida) only to rise to the highest
level (University of Chicago by way of the CEA and the University of Maryland).
He did not begin field experiments, although he revived them more recently in an article in JEBO
in the mid-1990s with his major prof from Wyoming, Jason Shogren. Vernon Smith says that the first
economics experiments were field experiments, the Taylor time and motion studies.
What the three "h's" have in common is that they all begin with "h" :-).
I suspect that the poop on the kangaroos is that they eat grass in areas where one cannot grow crops.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 29, 2009 4:03:26 PM
The theory that made Levitt famous back in 1999, that legalizing abortion cut crime a generation later, has taken a drubbing in the scholarly journals in recent years.
The impact of this on Levitt's celebrity: zero.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Sep 29, 2009 4:05:43 PM
Isn't "Freakonomics" Exhibit A in how economists, deluded by their seeming success in understanding the, you know, economy took their eye off the ball and instead attempted to imperialize other fields beyond economics?
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Sep 29, 2009 4:07:27 PM
Don't be jealous, Steve Sailer. You can just turn Why Lesbians Aren't Gay into a bestselling book.
Posted by: Is Apple Going to Sue iSteve? at Sep 29, 2009 4:43:29 PM
Freakonomics was interesting for sure, but I remain skeptical for reasons well explained here by Willem Buiterhttp://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/09/i-know-i-know-nothing-but-at-least-i-know-that/
He addresses some important points-- it's true that economists really don't have huge sample sizes to work with--, but I feel he greatly underestimates the value of explanation (or, as it's called in science, "theory").
He references the big bang theory, saying, "Scientists at CERN may be able (wittingly or unwittingly) to create little bangs and mini black holes a few miles below ground in Switzerland and France, but this does not amount to a test of the big bang theory. They have no more than one dodgy observation on that."
And I think the big bang theory is a great example... because it shows how very little we actually need empirical precedent sometimes. See, the big bang theory came long before any conclusive data validating it came out. After the CERN mission, it was blindingly obvious that the big bang theory was very precise.
For a supposed econ professor, he really understates the value of models.
My point is this: if Freakonomics can come up with some really sensible explanations for their observations, then that's fine. It's certainly more productive than dismissing observations and explanations on the grounds that there may have been flaws in collecting the data.
Posted by: Daniel Reeves at Sep 29, 2009 7:04:31 PM
