Summary Of Freakonomics

In chapter one of Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt describe how when incentives are strong enough, many usually honest people from different walks of life will cheat in order to gain financially or climb the ladder in their careers. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing.” This chapter covers three varieties of incentives: Economic, Social and Moral. Economic incentives motivate people with the promise of money or goods. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives motivate people on the basis of right and wrong. We look at four

The author is very affective with his argument, he uses logos and rhetorical questions the most to make the audience form their own opinions, but also listen to his. The main point in this book, Freakonomics, written by Steven Levitt, is to show that economics can explain many phenomenons. Levitt uses logos and rhetorical devices the most to display this argument. The audience is made to question if “It might be worthwhile to step back and ask a rudimentary question; what is a gun?” (Levitt 118). The audience asked to think about what the consequences of a gun can be. Levitt also uses data so show that these moments can be discomforting and dangerous. The most discomforting example that Levitt provided was that “The most famous gun-control

They explained that: “Changes in incentives influence human behavior in predictable ways”. The main point of this concept is that the more attractive an option is the more likely an individual to choose it. Another point that they also focused on was the fact that if a particular product more costly, the more unappealing it will become to the consumer. They used examples such as employees will worker harder if they feel that they will be greatly rewarded or a student will study material that they feel will be on an

When you look at my older sister you might think that she kind and helpful girl because the way she acts in public and helps my mom out. Also you might think that she is a kind sibling. But in reality that not who she is while she is home. When she is home she always on her phone and doesn’t really help with things and can be mean to my little brother. Even though this is a example of something that is good it's actually bad. In some situations bad can be good because the bad can help you get past things in your life or solve some things in your life. In the book freak the mighty by Rodman Philbrick give a great example of that.

A major social problem in America today is its inequality of the distribution of income. "Income inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. The United States has the most unequal income distribution in the industrialized world, and it is growing at a faster rate than any other industrialized country" (Eitzen & Leedham, pg. 37). The main reason as to why income is distributed so unequally is because of the gap between social classes.

America: Wealth and Poverty Henry Veldboom’s “Our Wealth: Where Is It Taking Us?” and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?” discuss North America’s wealth, the subject of mass marketing, and laws that are ruinous to the poor and homeless. In “Our Wealth: Where Is It Taking Us?”, Veldboom investigates how mass marketing affects young children; in “Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?”, Ehrehreich argues that the criminalization of poverty is detrimental to the poor. Both authors examine American social and economical traditions.

(An Analysis of Why The Rich Are Getting Richer And the Poor, Poorer, by Robert B. Reich)

I originally chose this book because the brief summary given to us in class had caused me to become more interested Klinenberg's findings throughout his extensive research. This book proved to correlate directly with many of the ideas we discussed in class. Through this close examination of being a certain age (elderly), of being part of a certain race/ethnicity, and of being part of a certain social class (poor), I was able to see the web of causation in action as it applied to Chicago's heat wave. I especially applied the ideas in Chapter 5 "Social Organization, Health, and Illness" of our text to

This first lecture gave us a close look into the unequal share of wealth and the factors that determine the wealth of individuals in the American society. One of the first factors that affect immensely the inequality in America is the obsessiveness of wanting to classify people and make them mark a box for their gender, race and class. Where men and whites have more privileges than any other person and are not only paid higher, but would most likely spend less time in prison for committing the same crime as an African American. The United states is so unequal that the top 1% of the population has 38.1% of the wealth and the bottom 40% which is a little less than half of the people living in America only have 0.2% of the wealth. And as if that statistic alone was not scary enough, we learn in this

     It is claimed in the Backwoods Home Magazine that because of welfare checks given to the blacks, which eliminates the head of the household, lead to an increase in crime. The politicians now try not to admit that they were wrong, and made a mistake, but rather place the blame on guns for the high crime rate in America. The writer of this article also seems to be racist. He writes things like “particularly the black poor,” “the latter half of the plan worked fine: most poor now vote Democratic and 95% of blacks to” (Silveira, Gun Control, race, and rotten politicians, 1). My understanding is that the writer singles blacks out as being poor.

The five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counter-balance a great one in others: first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the

In Russell Roberts’ economic romance novel, The Invisible Heart, Roberts expands on economic concepts while creating an intriguing, fictional story. Within the novel, there are major themes, ideas and characters of two separate stories. One which is the main story of two high school teachers and the other which is a television broadcast. The author switches back and forth through these two stories to create a better vision and explanation of principal economic concepts.

As I started to look at different research to work on this paper I discover how much of my life and family live is controlled by Economics. Everything from where we live to how much money I spend on food for us to eat. To begin with I have a small family with a limited income so to live a safe and happy life we live on a budget. This means that eating out and going to the movies are a rare event for my family. But we have the benefit of being able to live in a safe apartment complex with security and my daughter goes to schooling a good district. Now your probably think what does this have to do with Economics. Well it goes to show that some safific have to be made to be able to afford this life style. We have health and life insurance. And let me tell you that is a job in itself trying to find the best insurance to protect your family and still be able to afford to put food on the table every day.

In developing his theory Spence makes numerous foundational assumptions. He assumes that for employers to go out and start scouting for prospective employees there must be a vacancy existing that needs a specific set of skills and personality. He understands the pool of skills existing at the time can be divided into a symmetrical set of “bad” and “good” employees. This selection depends on the real value that these employees will bring to the organization. The employer may not predict if the person he is signing up will be good or bad hence he pegs the question of pay on some evidence given by the education credentials submitted by the prospective employee. Though Spence identifies that education may not necessarily increase the rate of production, he concurs with the idea that good employees have a less opportunity cost.

In the early 1990’s, Washinton D.C had an all-time high murder rate around 450 murders per year. This alarmed people across the country and gave rise to the single mother theory. More disturbingly, black single mothers were specifically blamed. A story from 1985 pointed to the intense desire for material things amid deprivation, easy access to handguns, and the inability of parents-often young, unmarried mothers, to control or instill values in their children (Cohen, 2012). Amazingly, they young, single, black mother theory