Author blends economics into everyday live

June 13, 2012

He is a gifted writer, and researcher. Freakonomics
(book) is awesome because it combines economics with
everyday live. For instance, in his book one topic he
write about is cheating such as in teachers cheating in
schools and compares it to sumo wrestlers cheating in
Japan. While many might scratch their heads, wondering
what the two have to do with one anther- he combines
them beautifully. The books are not just for the
economics student, or professor, but for anyone that
likes to think outside the box. I cannot comment much
on the blog - except that the NY times now only allows
10 free articles per month. This is a real bummer since
the Freakonomics blog is on their site.

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Fascinating author, although I do have a gripe

July 28, 2009

Levitt is brilliant both for the topics he chooses to
research (and write about), and for the way he
approaches his research. As is well-documented in his
best seller, he chooses quirky issues that people don't
normally associate with economics and attacks them with
an economic framework. The Freakonomics blog is an
extension of this approach--he writes a bit about his
own research, his own musings on a variety of topics,
and links to a lot of other offbeat economics articles
and posts.

I do have a big gripe though. About a year ago, the
Freakonomics blog was bought out(?) by the NY Times.
As soon as they migrated to the Times, the stopped
their normal RSS feed and replaced it with a partial
RSS feed. So this basically means that only the first
few sentences of Levitt's posts will show up in your
RSS feeder. It's a tactic to try to get you to go to
the NY Times website so that you can stare at their
advertising.

I find this to be really annoying--to the extent that
I now very rarely read the Freakonomics blog.

2 / 2 found this review helpful:

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In Levitt We Trust

May 15, 2009

I tend to trust best-selling non-fiction authors for
one major reason: many other people (a literary agent,
an editor, a publishing house team) have done the same.
I had this mentality when I began reading Steven
Levitt, and my trust stands. He is a strong writer with
sound ideas and a clear method for conveying his
thoughts. I think he would have a wider audience if he
took a lighter tone with some of his material (without
compromising its integrity), but then again ... he
seems to be doing just fine.

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That Freaky Freakonomics Guy

April 09, 2009

You are more likely to have heard of the term
freakonomics than Steven Levitt, but he happens to be
the author of that famous book. He is a professor and a
blogger with the New York Times. The Times bought his
blog.

He looks at the familiar from peculiar angles. That
is what he did in his book. That is what he does at his
blog. You have to respect the University of Chicago
Economics Department which is where he is at.

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