Next week, after more than four years in hardcover, Freakonomics is being published in the U.S. in paperback. We’ve been asked to go on TV to talk about the effects (if any) the book has had, whether in the realm of crime-fighting or baby-naming or book-writing. We need your help in gathering good examples to talk about. Nothing is too large or too small, in your life or the lives of others. Thanks in advance.
We're Blegging You: How Has Freakonomics Changed the World?
TAGS: bleg, Freakonomics
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Freakonomics’ high profile definitely spurred a lot of interest (and subsequent books from other authors) in the subject of “pop economics” and to some extent, has revived the notion of “economic intuition” among academic economists.
I think the popularity of behavioral economics (such as Thaler and Sustein’s “Nudge”) owes at least a bit to Freakonomics paving the way.
I just finished reading Freakonomics. I am just not into anything that even distantly echoes of economics. But, wow, you guys have taught me to think! And ask a lot of whys and hows. Its amazing, because I find myself doing a lot more. I’m no longer related to maths and statistics, but I do find myself using the inquisitiveness I gained from this book, in my field. I’m putting in more effort, gathering a lot of data, to just make sure what I end up learning is correct.
If even a fraction of students in my college started doing that, we’d just have a better health system!
And I’ll probably listen to my uncles chanting numbers now…
Like DJ, it helped convince me to be an economics major. And now that I am graduate, I am unemployed.
HAHA, just kidding, I am not unemployed, but Freakonomics DID convince me that the way economists think, the structures and models that we use, are useful in just about every worldy situation.
Freakonomics, quite simply, has made economics not boring. I could list many examples, but I see no need. It has made complicated mathematical analysis interesting to a guy who got B minuses and C’s in math.
It made me study economics instead of international relations…which is the best decision I have ever made!
maybe in a few yeard when they abolish the discretionary “offside” rule in soccer you could also claim credit!
It has made it easier to persuade my (accountancy) students that economics is fun and related to the real world – for the qualification I teach the most they have to do a paper in Economics and I always throw in a couple of examples.
Small downside – people who have only ever read Freak-onomics sometimes mis-quote or over use some of the book’s insights. This can be annoying for a snooty Economics grad like me!
I’ve always been interested in psychology/sociology, but I am also a hardcore scientist at heart (numbers, scientific experiment, etc). Freakonomics bridged my interest w/ my strengths and for the first time gave it a name — behavioral economics. If I can have a do-over in college, I would certainly choose to major in the field!
As a professor teaching micro principles, many of my students have heard of Freakonomics, even if they haven’t actually read it, so I use several examples from Freakonomics (both the book and the blog) to introduce core principles and to hammer home to my students that economics is a SOCIAL science, that we study choices, incentives, etc. and not money. I think that makes economics a lot more interesting to students and like for DJ and Julie in the comment above, makes it more attractive major.