Steven Levitt is now best-known for his findings on America's falling crime-rate during the 1990s. Teenage murder rates were predicted to double. Instead they fell by more than 50% in the space of five years. By 2000 they were at their lowest in 35 years. But why? Well, a lot of people were taking the credit. They were citing economic growth, gun control, policing, imprisonment and even the death penalty as the reason. Levitt proved the cause as Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court decision that lead to the repeal of abortion laws in the US. His research showed that children born into impoverished environments were more likely to grow up to become criminals. His analysis formed the elegant but uncomfortable syllogism: “Unwantedness leads to high crime; abortion leads to less unwantedness; abortion leads to less crime.”

But the book gets to me. The title of Freakonomics tells us that Steven Levitt is a “rogue economist” exploring the “the hidden side of everything.” I have always been up for a rogue telling me about everything. Even a rogue telling me about anything appeals to me; you know that special insight that only a mischievous, perhaps unprincipled, but somehow likeable person has. From the title I even conjured up some noble rogue elephant tearing apart the civilized world after suffering a loss of habitat. I was up for rogue. Economics, I thought, is a damn good place for a rogue. And a rouge that wins John Bates Clark Medal – well yes.

Levitt is saying, according to Dubner, that incentives and motivations are intimately linked in driving human behaviour. No breakthrough – my mum knew that! He does come through with some interesting proofs. His ingenious methods of analysing data reveal sometimes startling conclusions: Chicago public school teachers were helping their students cheat on state exams; Sumo wrestlers were fixing some of their matches; real-estate agents don’t really care about how much they sell your house for – only their own house, and my favourite; dope-dealers rarely make a good living. These results do amuse, surprise and even educate. In all these conclusions there is a haunting. Strangely, within these intriguing anomalies we never find that superbly-skilled rogue practitioner of economics. Instead we are left with a peppy little repertoire of cocktail chatter (beer-chat for me) and little else.

Something went wrong in the writing of Freakonomics. In the reading there was the echo of Mark Twain’s comment that golf was “a good walk spoiled.” Yes it is provocative and interesting but it has a problem. If Malcolm Gladwell of Tipping Point fame says "Steven Levitt has the most interesting mind in America . . ." then the problem is uncompromisingly simple – we can't find Levitt or his mind in this book!

Without question we can find – actually, we can’t get away from – the other Stephen, Stephen Dubner. He is Levitt's coauthor and a contributor to the New York Times. Dubner occasionally genuflects to Levitt’s genius, to his unique insight, and treats us to the odd passing anecdote. For most of the book though he relies on the coattails of Levitt to spin his own story.

Dubner just doesn't get Levitt. A flaw, especially given the hype in the title. He tells us that this very special economist is challenging the established lens through which we see conventional economics. The problem is what is conventional is never argued and the nature of the difference is never revealed. This new lens, we are told, uncovers – no exposes – the patterns of conventional thinking. These come by way of conclusive moments, end points really, that are sometimes remarkably fascinating and clearly capture interest. The question is, are these moments, this shopping-list of results, the only point of the book?

Although Steven Levitt is apparently (or even paradoxically) the coauthor, he never actually appears. Not only is he not there but his methodology is never fully presented nor explained. Gladwell goes on to say “. . . and reading Freakonomics is like going for a leisurely walk with him on a sunny summer day, as he waves his fingers in the air and turns everything you once thought to be true inside out.” Well the problem is we never get to go on that walk with Steven Levitt. He just might be nearby, but you never know for sure.

The book is a first-person telling by Dubner. So it leaves Dubner responsible for that walk. It also leaves him responsible for the non-telling of either process or personality. It is an issue of depth. His preamble, along with the very bad An Explanatory Note are ill-chosen attempts at building an arcane, deified and mystical Steven Levitt. When we get into the book, we think we are going to meet Levitt, this "rogue economist" – but we never do.

Dubner continually misses the mark. He let a good book and a great opportunity slip away. This is because he thinks the mark is simply some captivating Levitt conclusion. Even though I found myself relishing some of these points and was more than willing to tell these little tidbits to my friends; they leave forever undone some important thinking.

The success of the book is that each story is portable. In their portability there is a weakness. If the point is, each story is an indicator of how we can mis-see the world, then how do we understand mis-seeing or recognize mis-telling? The only way to know would be to understand Levitt, economics, and the processes by which we make conventional and sometimes remarkably wrong conclusions.

We never do. Instead, in each story there is an echo of missed opportunity. In each he takes us on some short walk on how we might see the world. The trouble is it is only a short walk with no critical path to understand how we got there or just where we might be going.

Dubner tells us early on that when the publisher approached Steven Levitt, Levitt didn’t want to write a book. He finally did agree to write it, but along with Dubner who had done a story about him for the Times. So Dubner and the brilliant Levitt agree to coauthor. Freakonomics is the result of that division of labour. Presumably Levitt’s job was to continue mining of the reality of the “hidden side of everything.” Then what was Stephen Dubner’s job? The answer: The weaver of these disparate stories; the interpreter; the pattern-finder – the writer! Unfortunately a substantive telling never happens. It takes about half the book to slowly realize Dubner doesn’t really get Levitt – and neither do we.

In the end this book bizarrely peters off into some kind of parenting manual. This is presumably because Dubner and Levitt are young fathers. Who knows? Dubner then thinks he can put Humpty back together by saying in the Epilogue that there is “no unifying theme” in Freakonomics. Well he got that right! Here he is alluding to a quote by the philosopher Robert Nozick where Nozick said that at 26 Levitt didn’t need a “unifying theme” as an economist. This may be right for a young economist – but it is not necessarily true of a book.

Dubner’s patchwork attempt at an ending only exacerbates the reality of missed opportunity. Unfortunately it causes Freakonomics to read a bit like: What my really important really really smart friend did on his summer vacation.

William

i just read your post that replied (only partially) to the Freakonomics question. didn't think i'd get your attention if i left a comment in there. and so, i'm posting one here.

"I believe this is why violent crime began to drop in the early 1990s. As the suburbs began to absorb rap, the esteem economy began to tip in a new direction. Violent crime has become an increasingly pointless enterprise."

i have a couple of contentions -

1.your case is based on an assumption that "the blacks were solely responsible for high rates of violent crime."

2. considering the fact that rap didn't crossover to the whites until recently (eminem), what do you think actually tipped the esteem scales for all those impoverished white chaps back then?

the point is you've only managed to answer half the question. which isn't answer enough, even by your standards.

Posted by: kedar | Mar 28, 2006 12:14:34 PM

http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2005/07/rap_and_the_est.html...

Phancylad, I don't think this breaks out by racial group. It is more genuinely economic. Poor kids vs. rich kids. Now does it strike you as a great explanation? I thought so. Thanks, Grant

Brian had the best comment ever? Man, I can feel the esteem just leaking out of my body as I type!

Steven D. Levitt famously suggested (pdf) that abortion rates explain the sudden decrease in violent crime in the 1990s US.
Grant McCracken has another explanation.

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