The Book That Caught My Eye Was Freakonomics A Rogue...

Economics has never been a class I had interest in or felt that I excelled in. Since attending Boise State I have realized that I really enjoy economics and have been learning to understand more about how economics works. In taking this class, we were told to choose a book and do a bibliography. The book that caught my eye was Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Lewitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I chose this book because after looking through multiple books, I decided this one was the most interesting. I read the back of the book and was intrigued by Steven Lewitt and how he studies riddles of everyday life. I am going to assess the 6 chapters and give an overall summary and my evaluations of the novel. Freakonomics has three main concepts relating to economics: winner takes all labor market, supply demand and equilibrium price and incentives matter. Chapter 1 starts out with a study on ten day-care centers in Haifa, Isreal. This study lasted twenty weeks. The first four weeks of the study economists kept track of parents who arrived late picking up their child. As a result of these findings, a fine was instilled. This fine was $3 fee for any parent arriving ten minutes late. Economists were thinking that with this fee, the number of child pick ups would drop, but instead the number of late pickups actually increased. Economics found that the incentive had backfired. Here we see one of the concepts found in the book, incentives