SuperFreak!

Yes, the crazy minds behind Freakonomics are back! The new book (and sequel to Freakonomics) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. (For ease of discussion, I will only refer to the main title when discussing the book.)

This is basically the same kind of book as Freakonomics - various data that one would not normally associate with economics is analyzed in an economic manner. Various interesting and entertaining conclusions are drawn. In this book, Levitt and Dubner analyze such big themes as prostitution, global warming (climate change) and terrorism. Again, like Freakonomics, the book is interesting and intelligently written, without being overly academic. For those who want to check out some more academic work, the authors cite numerous studies in the appendix which they used in their research for the book.

The book is organized slightly differently than Freakonomics. Instead of one or two main stories to a chapter, each chapter seems to be made up of a number of different essays (blog posts, if you will) on different topics and different research and data sets that are all connected to the main theme of the chapter. In this respect, it is slightly less organized and unified than Freakonomics. However, there are some broader unifying economic themes that recur throughout the work; such as incentives, cost-benefit analysis, externalities, and the law of unintended consequences. These themes are not discussed in an academic sense, but explained for the layperson.

For many people, their main criticism of economics is that it often assumes people behave rationally, which is definitely not the case all of the time. Humans' emotions and past experiences affect their decision-making processes, often leading to irrational decisions being made. The authors address this in the book and show how economists are studying emotions like altruism and discuss the emerging field of behavioral economics.

Freakonomics was so entertaining just because it was so unexpected. With SuperFreakonomics, the reader now knows what the conceit behind the book is, and no longer has that jolt of surprise. However, it is still an interesting, entertaining, and thoughtful read.