This was good, but worse than the first. I didn't like a lot of the sections (some of them were entirely not illuminating). The section on Global Cooling, surprisingly, was the best part. I'm not sure if it was true, but it's comforting to know that there are a significant number of ways that are being considered away from the public eye for solving our greenhouse gas issues.

Overall, worth reading, but don't expect anything better than the original Freakonomics ( )

right wing propaganda on methane pollution and global warming. I might not be too disgusted to persist through the last chapter in case they say: kidding! ( )

When a library patron told me he liked this volume even better than the first one, I was intrigued. I read it on the bus, and indeed, it was fascinating way to pass time. But since I'm no longer taking the bus, and therefore no longer need to pass time, I don't feel like I need to spend the time to finish this book. I'm having trouble seeing the relevancy to the big picture. It's kind of like the short stories of non-fiction, except that I like short stories. ( )

Just didn't dig this one like I did the first. ( )

The phrase thinking outside the box gets used a lot these days. But these two guys really take this phrase to the extreme. They see things in such a different, fascinating, and often humorous way that it's an absolute pleasure to read their stuff. In fact, the most disappointing thing about this book is thats it's way too short. Only 216 pages. C'mon guys your fans waited years for this follow up, and this is all you could come up with ? ( )

Fascinating, but I prefer the first one. ( )

I LOVED Freakonomics. As an economics major in college, I found it to be absolutely fascinating reading about behavioral economics. Superfreakonomics is more of the same, but not quite as gripping as the original. It addresses topics ranging from the wages of prostitutes to the difficult task of getting health care workers to wash their hands. The underlying theme of these books is how incentives change behavior . . .and you can kinda extrapolate how there are SO many unintended consequences from rules and regulations instituted by the government. Definitely a fast paced and interesting read, but if you haven't read it, then start with Freakonomics. ( )

Fascinating book, a great listen for a car ride. The section about the environment got a little long winded, but otherwise really interesting! ( )

Enjoyable and quick read. Chapter on prostitution is outstanding and up there with the best stuff you'll read in this area. Tails off a little towards the end with the global warming stuff but brings it back with the epilogue on teaching monkeys to money! ( )

Intellectual cotton candy that started alright and then careened into pure speculation and dogmatic thinking. Micro-economics is not in my humble opinion the reasoned study of nearly everything that has cause and effect (or at least observed or even theorized exchange) as Levitt seems to claim at the end of the book. "Thinking like an economist" isn't some kind of dispassionate system 2 superpower - and economics has a fair share of problems looking backwards, let alone near complete failure at times forecasting forward. Fun enough, but not nearly as good as Freakonomics. ( )

Been a while since I read Freakanomics, so hard to compare. From what I can remember, they might as well be packaged in one volume, being stylistically identical with no differences in aproach. While thought-provoking, neither is challenging, and both go down better in large gulps, quaffed in one or two sittings (at least that's how I managed them). The authors present astounding information on nearly every page, showing again and again how easily we are deceived by appearances, and what usually remains unseen. Microeconomics is endlessly fascinating to me, offering an approach to human behavior that is applicable to all disciplines. ( )

Been a while since I read Freakanomics, so hard to compare. From what I can remember, they might as well be packaged in one volume, being stylistically identical with no differences in aproach. While thought-provoking, neither is challenging, and both go down better in large gulps, quaffed in one or two sittings (at least that's how I managed them). The authors present astounding information on nearly every page, showing again and again how easily we are deceived by appearances, and what usually remains unseen. Microeconomics is endlessly fascinating to me, offering an approach to human behavior that is applicable to all disciplines. ( )

Much like the first book "Freakonomics", this book covers a variety of topics from the difficulties of making comparisons of doctors in the emergency room to seat belts, and global warming to prostitution. The authors provide interesting perspectives and a different way to think about common topics. ( )

Good read, but I felt like I had already heard nearly everything from the podcasts. ( )

adult nonfiction (on audio): more interesting revelations from the team that produced Freakonomics. Not all of the logic is entirely clear (I don't really buy the argument about planting trees making the earth hotter because darker leaves=more heat absorption; if the plants are converting sunlight to food energy, how exactly is that worse than bouncing the heat around?) but still really interesting. ( )

I found the topics and the economics behind the topics hugely fascinating. As the chapters went on I found myself laughing at some of the findings and amazed at others. I know nothing about economics apart from what is covered in the popular media with regards the financial markets. This opened up a whole new world to me, one that I didn't even know existed.

As well as the topics being interesting I found the writing style very relaxed and pretty captivating. I would find myself reading a chunk of the book and then coming back to it 20 minutes later to read a bit more. I probably would have finished it in one day had it not been for the fact the I suffer from that most human of afflictions, needing sleep.

This would have been a 5 star book for me without doubt apart from 1 gripe which I have. That gripe lies with the chapter on global warming or as they detail it, global cooling. Although it was probably the most interesting of the chapters I couldn't help but feel that the authors had an angle. After reading books by Ben Goldacre I always read anything involving scientific research looking for flaw or angles. This is not because I am distrustful of science it's because of the prevalence of poor of twisted results.

The gushing way in which the authors discuss certain individuals involved in global warming research while dismissing others is something that just doesn't sit comfortably. I am sure they would claim that the data backs up their claims and they are looking at the issue with an economists eye instead of a human one. Perhaps if they had taken a less critical approach in the writing of this chapter it would have sat better with me. I just hope that their claims are correct, if so we have little to worry about from global warming.

The final chapter is the funniest and all I will say that reading about monkeys using money isn't something I thought would be covered in the book. What they use that money for is even more mind blowing. ( )

Not as amazing as the first one, but tackling more interesting problems. If you listen to the Freakanomics podcast, most of this will be familiar. ( )

Interesting, but not nearly as good as their first book. Where the first book was mindblowing and made me look at the world a bit differently, this book was just kind filled with interesting facts or conclusions, but it felt like a bunch of B-sides of ideas that didn't really get fully realized. Not to mention the end just kind of rambled about global warming for a bit, and it didn't really have anything to do with behavioral economics. ( )

I actually didn't like this as much as the first book, but the chapters on healthcare and climate change have excellent analysis and comments on both sides of each issue that shouldn't be missed. ( )

If you liked their first book, you'll like this one too. More usages of "economics" in odd, human situations, like prostitution and terrorism, etc.

Of course, is it economics if it isn't about the economy? If it's about human behavior, isn't it something different? "Psychology/sociology with mathematics and statistics"? "Microeconomics"? (p. 211). Or "freakonomics"? But what if it isn't freaky? Just normal?

Anyway, I don't always agree with the idea that numbers can tell us everything about human beings. Numbers are rational and human beings are often irrational. And sometimes even the biases of the author show. As good liberals, the authors have to say women are discriminated against, even in pay (pp. 20-22). (Of course, they make the simple economic mistake of adding up male salaries and adding up female salaries and dividing by workers.) But then they admit later that most women have different priorities than men which accounts for most, if not all of the supposed pay gap (pp. 43-46).

But, eye-openingly, is their chapter on global warming (chap. 5). They accept that the globe is warming and that it is probably warming partially because of human actions. Okay. But they point out that humans only contribute about 2% of atmospheric carbon dioxide. And that requiring the US and the developed world to stop carboning and letting developing nations (like China and India) to keep polluting is unfair and wouldn't work. And getting everyone to quit carbon would not be fair to the nations that haven't had the chance to develop yet is unfair and wouldn't work. They point out that volcanoes pollute more. And lower the temperature. So the authors don't really buy the proposals most people have to "fix" the issue. The ideas, like Gore's (or in 2020, the Green New Deal) would cost quadrillions of dollars. And probably wouldn't work. They offer a bunch of relatively cheap solutions to global warming, all of which cost less than $1 billion and would be pretty easy to do. A good chapter.

The epilogue on monkeys was cute and interesting. Notes and index. ( )

Overall, most of the book was interesting, but the authors have a tendency to digress and go on a few tangents. Often, it takes them a while to make their actual point for a particular chapter. The chapter on prostitution to me was the most interesting. The last one on global warming, while it raises some interesting ideas, was just too long and overdone. By this point in the book, I was just waiting for the book to end. A little editing could have helped. On the positive, it is not a terribly long book, so you can probably read it in a day or two. It does include extensive notes if you wish to read those as well. If you liked the first book, you will probably like this one too. ( )

Microeconomics.

Ever since I read the first Freakonomics book years ago, I became a super freak and LOVED the real-world expose on things we always seem to take for granted.

Incentives work. Period. They work more to control our behavior than anything else.

Prostitution was huge, years ago, because it paid very well compared to any other kind of work that a woman could do. Often ten times the going rate of anything. Cops turned a blind eye because they could partake of the services. Those other really moral people who tried to stop it found they couldn't because they didn't understand the full circumstances. So what reduced prostitution? Higher wages for women in general. Choice. It was never a matter of morality. It was a matter of going where the money is.

If we compare a geophysical engineering event such as setting off a volcano to combat global warming, it would cost a lot LESS than Al Gore's whole PR campaign that tried to browbeat everyone into altruism. And it would be more effective.

The threat of terrorism is often much more effective than actual terrorism. So put away your bomb and just do some more talking about it.

Microeconomics uses real data, is only as effective as the questions being posed, but is still extremely interesting. And enlightening.

Car seats for kids? No statistical difference in saving kids' lives versus seat belts. The seat belts are the real saviors. So instead of having this huge weird industry with mismatching standards for car seats, why don't we have cars with easily adjustable seatbelts?

HELLO?

The numbers don't lie. But human psychology is FULL of blind spots.

Like doctors and washing hands. To find out that one hospital's doctors only washed their hands 9% of the time they OUGHT to have been washing their hands, proven by swabs and analysis of their hands, versus their self-reporting of 60% or so? Or the other many excuses such as time and effort? No incentive fixed that situation better than putting screensavers up on all the computers that showed a magnification of a single caught doctor's hand.


What kind of truly effective incentives do we need to roll out now, with the Coronavirus? Will washing hands truly make the grade? Maybe we should all get a picture of the virus for our screensavers.

But will that take care of all the people who don't WANT to take it seriously? Those people who will prolong the problem for everyone else by spreading it to their friends and neighbors and to their own family members... all of whom might be trying, very carefully, to quarantine themselves?

Maybe we need a shame bell. The same shame bell that was so ... yeah ... in Game of Thrones. ( )

Stepping up their game from their previous entry, the authors offer up much more sensational topics in this book. With this, the underlying premise of shattering conventional wisdom is much more robust. The book lost me a bit in the last chapter, playing more like an infomercial for Intellectual Ventures rather than anything based on concrete data. [Side note: it has been over 10 years since publication and where are our mosquito lasers, salter sinks, and sulfur dioxide sky hoses? I've nary heard of a test prototype of these set up to gather data. If these were "slam dunk" solutions worth writing about, why do they still only exist on paper? My questions are not rhetorical. I actually want to know.] I would much rather have read about a previously invented IV product evaluated retrospectively and look how the data changed. Then at that point, give a peak behind the curtain on could be next. Beyond this, the authors clearly took home lessons learned from their first book and brought the topics involved up to the next level.

With more sensational topics, this follow-up is more engaging that its predecessor, but also not free from criticism - particularly with hindsight being 20/20. ( )

Segunda entrega del mítico Freakonomics, en el que los autores vuelven a enfrentarse a preguntas complejas y sin solución clara usando de manera astuta e inteligente los datos de que disponen. Es un libro refrescante, polémico y muy inteligente. Recomendable del todo. ( )

Second time reading and still worth the read. It can be a little disheartening to know that some (many / maybe most) of the things discussed didn't make it into mainstream in the past 10 years. That is a lesson in itself and the concept is supported by a few of the stories in SuperFreakonomics. ( )