Economics In Steven D. Levitt's Freakonomics

In Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the reader is introduced to the idea that economics is everywhere and can be found in places where you'd never think of. The book explains that economics is the study of incentives, and shows how motives can affect human behaviors. It's broken down into different types of incentives-- economic, social and moral. Economists often change incentives to try to affect human behavior, though an incentive can cause unforeseen consequences.

In Chapter 1, the authors use a daycare in Israel, where parents are charged a $3 fine if they're late picking up their kids. After the fine is introduced, the number of late pick-ups rises. Researchers concluded that the $3 fine was a poor incentive for parents to pick their children up on time because the fine was too low. They then turn to discuss cheating and how some incentives can encourage dishonesty, comparing school teachers to sumo wrestlers. Using the Chicago Public School System they discuss the connection between incentives and cheating. In 1996, the school system began to give small bonuses to the teachers whose students had a rise in standardized test scores. Researchers then found that a rise in cheating also occurred in 1996. They compared this to the amount of sumo

Wade Supreme Court decision generally legalizing abortion. This theory is weighed against other theories like “tougher gun laws”, “number of police officers per capita", and “increased use of capital punishment”. Of all these possible explanations, states with high abortion rates were the cause for a 30% drop in crime. The authors argue that because of Roe v. Wade, babies that would have been born were likely end up being criminals, and they would have hit the peak of their criminal careers by the 1990s, when crime rates began to