Freakonomics

Of all the interesting books I've read lately (and I've read a lot), Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (HarperCollins 2005) is one of the more fascinating.

I have both a retirement fund a savings account with more than $50 in them and I'm nearly 30. So I figured it was time to start caring about economics. In school, I always found economics to be a freakishly boring subject. Freakonomics is an excellent, intellectually gentle, thought-provoking, and feather-ruffling entrée into this unsexy social science.

Together boy genius economist Steven Levitt and plucky journalist sidekick Stephen Dubner ask new questions to challenge conventional wisdom. The unusual pairing of topics - like the relationship between legalized abortion and crime rates or the common traits shared by American teachers and Japanese sumo wrestlers - yield insightful perspectives on society and the incentives motivating human behavior.

The result is not unlike the surprisingly delightful pairing of French fries and ice cream or Pringles and Twizzlers. Superficially, these flavors don't seem to go together, right? But when presented to you by the right chef (me) or economist (Levitt), you're left wondering why you never put two and two together before. While Freakonomics didn't offer tips to help manage my investment portfolio, it did give me a greater appreciation for economic methodology. The book equips readers with another set of tools to question conventional wisdom and to think about what can happen when you subject the same old data to some brand new questions.

I'm delighted to discover that these freakonomists also maintain a blog.