1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
5443
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5619
6757
7581
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 821285a | People will do some things for great sums of money that they would not do for smaller amounts. | InstaRead | ||
| 549135d | The next time you're in a real jam, facing an important question that you just can't answer, go ahead and make up something--and everyone will believe you, because you're the guy who all those other times was crazy enough to admit you didn't know the answer. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| fa25ed6 | Were writing Freakonomics, we had grave doubts that anyone would actually read it--and we certainly never envisioned the need for this revised and expanded edition. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 0c0661c | No CEO in the world, therefore, is so delusional as to expect his employees to show up every day and work hard for no money. But there is one gigantic workforce asked to do exactly that. In the United States alone, they number nearly 60 million. Who is this massive, underpaid throng? Schoolchildren. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 7b404f4 | Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them--or, often, deciphering them--is the key to understanding a problem, and how it might be solved. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 78f37bd | Your argument may be factually indisputable and logically airtight but if it doesn't resonate for the recipient, you won't get anywhere. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 8baefb0 | The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 0c85b52 | But one need not oppose abortion on moral or religious grounds to feel shaken by the notion of a private sadness being converted into a public good. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 17ac97b | It was Klan custom, for instance, to append a Kl to many words. (Thus would two Klansmen hold a Klonversation in the local Klavern.) | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| bffe724 | We associate truth with convenience," he wrote, "with what most closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem." | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 4da091d | If you are willing to confront the obvious, you will end up asking a lot of questions that others don't. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 8e05560 | But guns are not the whole story. In Switzerland, every adult male is issued an assault rifle for militia duty and is allowed to keep the gun at home. On a per capita basis, Switzerland has more firearms than just about any other country, and yet it is one of the safest places in the world. In other words, guns do not cause crime. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 5685982 | Here's a guess: anybody who bothers to change his name in the name of economic success is--like the high-school freshmen in Chicago who entered the school-choice lottery--at least highly motivated, and motivation is probably a stronger indicator of success than, well, a name. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| fa6b3b7 | Roland G. Fryer Jr., while discussing his names research on a radio show, took a call from a black woman who was upset with the name just given to her baby niece. It was pronounced shuh-TEED but was in fact spelled "Shithead."*" | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 579f290 | A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they're not); that there is a bright line between right and wrong (when often there isn't); and, worst, that you are certain you already know everything you need to know about a subject so you stop trying to learn more. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| a382fa4 | There is no proven connection between being serious and being effective. | InstaRead | ||
| ccf0d23 | The evidence linking increased punishment with lower crime rates is very strong. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 61596a8 | conventional wisdom dies hard. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 564a270 | Most of us have a lot more experience being consumers than producers, so we tend to view things through the lens of demand rather than supply. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 98400b8 | When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue--whether it's fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food--it's easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they're not); that there is a bright line between right and wrong (when often there isn't); and, worst, that you are certain you already know everything you need to know a.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 30f2f9a | Consider the Iraq War. It was executed primarily on U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with al Qaeda. To be sure, there was more to it than that--politics, oil, and perhaps revenge--but it was the al Qaeda and weapons claims that sealed the deal. Eight years, $800 billion, and nearly 4,500 American deaths later--along with at least 100,000 Iraqi fatalities--it was tempting to consider what migh.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| adcad62 | Running with the herd means we are quick to embrace the status quo, slow to change our minds, and happy to delegate our thinking. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 122b20a | When was the last time you sat for an hour of pure, unadulterated thinking? | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 3596f3f | When it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass. Why? When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue--whether it's fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food--it's easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they're not); that there is a bright line between right and wr.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 84297e3 | So there is little doubt that financial incentives work well, even if the outcome is undesirable. Consider a 2011 traffic accident in the Chinese city of Foshan. A two-year-old girl, walking through an outdoor market, was hit by a van. The driver stopped as the girl's body slid beneath the vehicle. But he didn't get out to help. After a pause, he drove away, running over the body again. The girl later died. The driver eventually turned hims.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| e5bec7e | The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think like--ahem--a Freak. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 6c20d85 | You may not like this idea; none of us wants to admit that we are pack animals. But in a complicated world, running with the herd can make sense. Who has time to think through every decision and all the facts behind it? If everybody around you thinks that conserving energy is a good idea--well, maybe it is. So if you are the person designing an incentive scheme, you can use this knowledge to herd people into doing the right thing--even if t.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 70557f7 | That is a lethal combination--cocky plus wrong--especially when a more prudent option exists: simply admit that the future is far less knowable than you think. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 1d04a94 | Stories also appeal to the narcissist in all of us. As a story unspools, with its cast of characters moving through time and making decisions, we inevitably put ourselves in their shoes. Yes, I would have done that too! or No no no, I never would have made that decision! Perhaps the best reason to tell stories is simply that they capture our attention and are therefore good at teaching. Let's say there's a theory or concept or set of rules .. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 70399f3 | Correlation does not equal causality. When two things travel together, it is tempting to assume that one causes the other. Married people, for instance, are demonstrably happier than single people; does this mean that marriage causes happiness? Not necessarily. The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place. As one researcher memorably put it, "If you're grumpy, who the hell wants to marry you?" | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 9857269 | Pay attention to how people respond; if their response surprises or frustrates you, learn from it and try something different. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 5a0c1c5 | Human beings aren't the most candid animals on the planet. We'll often say one thing and do another--or, more precisely, we'll say what we think other people want to hear and then, in private, do what we want. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| cc6aacb | People are complicated creatures, with a nuanced set of private and public incentives, and that our behavior is enormously influenced by circumstances. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 61e8d9d | It also means that the pain of negative feedback will for most people trump the pleasure from positive feedback. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 61b5f9f | We'd like to bury the idea that there's a right way and a wrong way, a smart way and a foolish way, a red way and a blue way. The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think l.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| dab191e | A story, meanwhile, fills out the picture. It uses data, statistical or otherwise, to portray a sense of magnitude; without data, we have no idea how a story fits into the larger scheme of things. A good story also includes the passage of time, to show the degree of constancy or change; without a time frame, we can't judge whether we're looking at something truly noteworthy or just an anomalous blip. And a story lays out a daisy chain of ev.. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 2e0d5e1 | A person who is lying or cheating will often respond to an incentive differently than an honest person. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 70429ee | The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 05b8a26 | Could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| f30299a | The market was particularly strong in Chicago, which had more than a thousand known brothels. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 867c3c7 | Karen Abbott reports that the Everleigh also offered sexual delicacies that weren't available elsewhere--"French" style, for instance, commonly known today as oral sex." | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| 5465588 | We are blind to our blindness. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| de10ccc | Name-calling will make you an enemy, not an ally, and if that is your objective, then persuasion is probably not what you were after in the first place. | Steven D. Levitt | ||
| bab60f2 | The same lesson can be learned from one of the most widely read books in history: the Bible. What is the Bible "about"? Different people will of course answer that question differently. But we could all agree the Bible contains perhaps the most influential set of rules in human history: the Ten Commandments. They became the foundation of not only the Judeo-Christian tradition but of many societies at large. So surely most of us can recite t.. | Steven D. Levitt |