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CHAPTER 3 - UNBELIEVABLE STORIES ABOUT APATHY AND ALTRUISM

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  Economics suggests that people are primarily self-interested and that they make decisions based on what will benefit them the most. However, this chapter is about altruism, which bucks that trend. However, recent studies and experiments have suggested that people may be more altruistic than originally thought, which has complicated the idea that people are rational, selfish beings who make decisions based solely on what will benefit them. The Dictator Game is one such experiment that has called into question the idea of human self-interest. The authors spend time discussing how people are not always as altruistic as one might think. People may help others for self-serving reasons, including reducing guilt, because they hope to get something in return, or because someone is watching. The authors mention a few different versions of the Dictator Game that were created by John List. These variants suggest that people are not as altruistic as what was originally thought. Though people...
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CHAPTER 2 - WHY SHOULD SUICIDE BOMBERS BUY LIFE INSURANCE?

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   A world-class soccer team's locker room is more likely to interrupt a birthday celebration if you visit early in the calendar year than later. Among the British youth leagues, for example, almost half of the players were born between January and March. The majority of elite players on a similar German team were born between January and March, while only four were born between October and December. It is common for elite athletes to begin playing their sport at a very young age. Youth sports are organized by age, so leagues impose a cutoff date. Like many youth soccer leagues in Europe, the cutoff date for youth soccer leagues is December 31. Imagine you are assessing two players in a league for seven-year-old boys. the first, was born on January 1, the second, was born on December 31. Despite both being seven years old, the first boy is a year older than the second which gives him a considerable advantage at this young age. There is a good chance that the first boy will be ...
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CHAPTER 1 - HOW IS A STREET PROSTITUTE LIKE A DEPARTMENT-STORE SANTA?

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  Males have always had an advantage over females throughout history. However, the lives of women have improved dramatically, especially in developed nations in the 21st century. According to the earliest available statistics, 21 per cent of college students in the United States were female in 1872. The percentage has grown to 58 per cent today, and it's on the rise. Despite this, being a woman still comes with a high economic cost. In the United States, a woman who holds a bachelor's degree and works full-time earns about $47,000 a year, on average. In contrast, similar men make more than $66,000, a 40% premium. Prostitution, however, is a labour market women have always dominated.  Prostitutes in the United States were counted in 310 cities in 26 states in the early 1910s by the Department of Justice. According to the DOJ, one out of every 110 women was a prostitute. It is estimated that 85 per cent of prostitutes were in their twenties. One out of every 50 American women in...
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SUPERFREAKONOMICS - INTRODUCTION

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  According to the author, some decisions are easy to make, such as what groceries to buy, because it's a habit, but others, such as buying your first house or planning for a baby, are complicated because of the uncertainties involved. When discussing decision making Levitt presents us with the example of driving to a friend's house a mile away from yours and having a few drinks. Because drunk drivers are thirteen times more likely to cause an accident than sober drivers, you decide to walk, but did you consider the risk of drunk walking?  Data has revealed that compared to drunk drivers, drunk walkers are five times more likely to get killed on a per-mile basis.  The discussion shifts to India, stating that it might not be the best country to be reborn due to its poverty, low life expectancy, literacy rates, pollution, and corruption. Females are especially unlucky since many Indian parents express a strong preference for sons. It is considered great luck to have a son, ...
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EPILOGUE

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  Economic theory is used to link seemingly disparate topics and fields. The author's purpose was to demonstrate that, given the right data, one could see beyond obvious correlations and conventional wisdom to uncover real stories. There is a common thread among the topics in the book, regardless of whether there is a "unifying theme": how people act in real life. The only thing that needs to be done is to apply a new methodology to discern and measure data. It is intended to make people think twice about conventional wisdom. Economic decisions are not always directly related to morality.
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CHAPTER 6 - WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PARENT? PART II

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  Conventional wisdom suggests that naming is correlated with success, but the authors point out that this correlation extends much farther back than naming. In most cases, the names parents give their children reflect their social backgrounds and social classes.   The author recounts an incident involving a New York City man named Robert Lane who named his son "Winner" and his next son "Loser." Loser Lane succeeded in life, rising to the rank of a police officer in New York City, where he was nicknamed Lou by his colleagues. In contrast, Winner Lane has been arrested nearly 30 times. The author recalls another incident where a mother named her daughter Temptress, intending to call her Tempestt, and the girl later brought many men into the house while her mother was at work. Levitt then poses the question: does a child's name influence his life, or does his name reflect the lives of his parents? Giving a child a name is the first step in parents' belief that...
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CHAPTER 5 - WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PARENT?

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  Statistically, most parents are unaware of the dangers their children face.   There has been a boom in the industry of parenting experts in recent decades, many of which disagree with one another. Since emotions carry more weight than rational arguments, parenting experts have the best chance of gaining attention by engaging the emotions surrounding parenting. Parents often seek out experts out of fear, but they can be poor risk assessors since they fear the "wrong things." It would be misguided for a parent to keep their child away from a friend's house because her parents keep a gun, but allow the child to spend a lot of time at another friend's house with a swimming pool instead since a child is 100 times more likely to die from a swimming accident than from a gun accident. In terms of risks, there is a difference between those that scare people and those that kill them. Risks people believe they can control are less frightening than those they believe they canno...
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