我不是对经济学很有兴趣。一个偶然的机会听到罗胖子讲到这本书。又让我大吃一惊。《魔鬼经济学》这套书让人大开眼界，带出了经济学的新概念：不是以往研究经济问题主要是“体察人对利益和成本的比较”，而是研究人的行为，人在激励的前提下如何改变自己的行为。似乎是以心理学的行为学来观察对经济学的带动。真是中国人的功利功利，功夫里欲练出利益。呵呵
Freakonomics《魔鬼经济学》:
A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. It was published on April 12, 2005 by William Morrow. The book has been described as melding pop culture with economics.[1] By late 2009, the book had sold over 4 million copies worldwide.[2]
Overview[edit]
The book is a collection of 'economic' articles written by Levitt, an expert who has already gained a reputation for applying economic theory to diverse subjects not usually covered by "traditional" economists; he does, however, accept the standard neoclassicalmicroeconomic model of rational utility-maximization. In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner argue that economics is, at root, the study of incentives. The book's chapters cover:
- Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers, as well as a typical Washington DC area bagelbusiness and its customers
- Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
- Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocainedealers
- Chapter 4: The role legalized abortion has played in reducing crime, contrasted with the policies and downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu (Levitt explored this topic in an earlier paper entitled "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime," written with John Donohue.)
- Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
- Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children (nominative determinism)
One example of the authors' use of economic theory involves demonstrating the existence of cheating among sumo wrestlers. In a sumo tournament, all wrestlers in the top division compete in 15 matches and face demotion if they do not win at least eight of them. The sumo community is very close-knit, and the wrestlers at the top levels tend to know each other well. The authors looked at the final match, and considered the case of a wrestler with seven wins, seven losses, and one fight to go, fighting against an 8-6 wrestler. Statistically, the 7-7 wrestler should have a slightly below even chance, since the 8-6 wrestler is slightly better. However, the 7-7 wrestler actually wins around 80% of the time. Levitt uses this statistic and other data gleaned from sumo wrestling matches, along with the effect that allegations of corruption have on match results, to conclude that those who already have 8 wins collude with those who are 7-7 and let them win, since they have already secured their position for the following tournament. Despite condemnation of the claims by the Japan Sumo Association following the book's publication in 2005, the 2011 Grand Tournament in Tokyo was cancelled for the first time since 1946 because of allegations of match fixing.[3]
The authors attempt to demonstrate the power of data mining, as a number of their results emerge from Levitt's analysis of various databases. The authors posit that various incentives encourage teachers to cheat by assisting their students with multiple-choice high-stakes tests. Such cheating in the Chicago school system is inferred from detailed analysis of students' answers to multiple choice questions. But first Levitt asks, "What would the pattern of answers look like if the teacher cheated?" The simple answer: the more difficult questions found at the end of test sections will be answered correctly more frequently than the easy questions at the beginning of test sections.
这本书是由莱维特（Levitt）撰写的“经济”文章的集合，这个专家已经获得了将经济理论应用于通常不被“传统”经济学家覆盖的多样主题的声誉。但是，他确实接受了理性效用最大化的标准新古典微观经济模型。在“魔鬼经济学”中，莱维特和杜布纳认为，经济学根本上是对激励的研究。本书的章节包括：
第一章：发现适用于教师和相扑选手的作弊，以及典型的华盛顿特区贝果商业及其客户
第二章：适用于三K党和地产代理人的资讯管制
第三章：毒品交易的经济学，包括可卡因经销商令人惊讶的低收入和恶劣的工作条件
第四章：合法流产在减少犯罪方面发挥的作用，与罗马尼亚独裁者尼古拉·齐奥塞斯库（NicolaeCeauşescu）的政策和垮台形成鲜明对比（莱维特在早些时候的一篇题为“合法流产对犯罪的影响”的论文中探讨了这个话题。
第五章：好的养育对教育的微不足道的影响
第6章：命名儿童的社会经济模式（主格决定论）
作者运用经济理论的一个例子就是证明在相扑手中存在作弊行为。在相扑比赛中，顶级赛区的所有摔跤选手参加15场比赛，如果不至少赢得8场比赛，则将面临降级。相扑社区非常紧密，顶级摔跤手倾向于相互了解。作者看了最后一场比赛，并且考虑了一场摔角手的情况，他以七胜七负的战绩和一场比赛战胜了八一六的摔跤手。从统计上看，7-7摔跤手应该有一个稍微低于偶数的机会，因为8-6的摔跤手略胜一筹。然而，7-7摔跤手实际上赢得了大约80％的时间。莱维特用这个统计数据和从相扑比赛中收集到的其他数据，以及腐败指控对比赛结果的影响，得出结论，那些已经有8胜的球员与7-7的球员勾结，让他们获胜，因为他们已经确定了他们的位置为以下比赛。尽管日本相扑协会在2005年出版这本书后谴责了这一说法，但是自从1946年以来首次取消了东京2011年的东京大奖赛，因为有关匹配的指控[3]。
作者试图证明数据挖掘的力量，因为他们的一些结果是从莱维特对各种数据库的分析中得出的。作者认为，各种激励措施鼓励教师通过帮助学生进行多选高风险考试来作弊。对芝加哥学校系统的这种作弊是从对学生对多项选择题的回答的详细分析中推断出来的。但莱维特先生问：“如果老师被骗，答案的模式会是什么样子？”简单的答案：在测试部分结束时发现的更难题将比测试部分开始时的简单问题更为正确地回答。
