Superfreakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

   2009; 244 pages.  Full Title: Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and why Suicide Bombers should buy Life Insurance.  New Authors? : No.  Genres : Economics; Statistics; Data-Mining; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Which is more dangerous: driving drunk or walking drunk?

 

    What’s the difference, if any, between a hooker and an “escort”?  Give your answer in dollars-per-hour, please.

 

    If we could find a cheap and simple way to reverse global warming, how easy would it be to get every country in the world to buy into it?

 

    If we could teach monkeys the concepts of money and gambling, how much would that help them evolve?

 

   Do questions like those pique your interest?  If so, then you’ll love Superfreakonomics; those are all major topics there.  Along with dozens more.  Plus how to develop data and determine the answers without skewing the results.

 

What’s To Like...

    Superfreakonomics is the follow-up to Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s breakthrough bestseller Freakonomics, and is divided into the following catchy-titled sections:

        Introduction : Putting the Freak in Economics

        Chapter 1 : How is a Street Prostitute like a Department Store Santa?

        Chapter 2 : Why Should Suicide Bombers buy Life Insurance?

        Chapter 3 : Unbelievable Stories about Apathy and Altruism

        Chapter 4 : The Fix is in — and It’s Cheap and Simple

        Chapter 5 : What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in Common?

        Epilogue : Monkeys are People too

 

    The Table of Contents at the start of the book lists the various sub-topics addressed in each of those sections, which makes referencing any of them a snap.  There is also a “Bonus Matter” section at the tail-end of the book, including the fascinating parts: Q & A with the Authors, The Things our Fathers Gave Us, and Transcript from the First Freakonomics Radio Podcast, as well as the obligatory Acknowledgements, Notes, and Index. 

 

    It should be noted that the Teaser Questions posed in three of the chapter titles above are all answered therein.  The sub-topics are too numerous to list here, but some of my favorites are:

 

    1. Pimps vs. Realtors (which has the greater impact?)

    2. Some families produce baseball players; others produce terrorists (the 2002 D.C. snipers)

    3. Why did 38 people watch Kitty Genovese be murdered? (1964)

    4. How much good do car seats do? (and seat belts too)

    5. The “garden hose to the sky” (how to do global-cooling)

    The book is a trivia-buff’s delight.  You’ll learn what the acronyms FSBO, RIMPACT, and PIMPACT mean; how major cities dealt with horse poop before the automobile came along; and how the first letter of your surname and the month you were born in will affect your life.  The question of how TV-watching impacts crime rates is finally answered, and you’ll marvel at how nitrate fertilizers have prevented global starvation.  Last but not least, you’ll be introduced to Ignatz Semmelweis, thank him for his contribution to the wellbeing of humanity, and mourn his sad demise.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 4,311 ratings and 1,297 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.00/5 based on 130,191 ratings and 4,826 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    If you know someone in southeastern Uganda who is having a baby next year, you should hope with all your heart that the baby isn’t born in May.  If so, it will be roughly 20 percent more likely to have visual, hearing, or learning disabilities as an adult.

    Three years from now, however, May would be a fine month to have a baby.  But the danger will have only shifted, not disappeared; April would now be the cruelest month.

    What can possibly account for this bizarre pattern?  Before you answer, consider this: the same pattern has been identified halfway across the world, in Michigan.  In fact, a May birth in Michigan might carry an even greater risk than in Uganda.  (pg. 57)

 

    Keep in mind that externalities aren’t always as obvious as they seem.

    To keep their cars from being stolen off the street, a lot of people lock the steering wheel with an anti-theft device like the Club.  The Club is big and highly visible (it even comes in neon pink).  By using a Club, you are explicitly telling a potential thief that your car will be hard to steal.  The implicit signal, meanwhile, is that your neighbor’s car—the one without a Club—is a much better target.  So your Club produces a negative externality for your non-Club-using neighbor in the form of a higher risk that his car will be stolen.  The Club is a perfect exercise in self-interest.  (pg. 173)

 

Sure, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?  (pg. 115)

    There’s really not much to nitpick about in Superfreakonomics.  I only saw two cusswords, both of which were necessary since they were in direct quotes.  If you’re counting on the topics like terrorism and prostitution to be gory and/or spicy, you’ll be disappointed.

 

    The Notes and Index sections comprise one-sixth of the (paperback) book, which may not be tree-friendly, but are sadly a requirement in any reference book like this.

 

    That’s all I can kvetch about.  It should be noted that I may not agree with every conclusion Levitt & Dubner propose (one example is their Sulfur Dioxide recommendation), but that doesn’t mean I don’t find their propositions well thought-out, easy to understand, and worthy of consideration.

 

    9 Stars.  Superfreakonomics is a fast, easy, fact-filled read, and every bit as interesting and good as Freakonomics was, which I read a couple years ago and is reviewed here.  I have the next book, Think Like a Freak, on my TBR shelf, and am aware that there is a fourth book in the series, When to Rob a Bank.  I think I’ll have to go looking for that last one at my local Half-Price Books store.