Chapter 3 Conventional Wisdom - 1091 Words

Chapter 3: Conventional Wisdom Freakonomics was one of the best novels that I have ever read! I am truly amazed at how Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner compared their study and research to the economy that we live in today. Out of all of the chapters in Freakonomics, Chapter 3: Conventional Wisdom, is the one that stood out the most. This particular topic relates to the world in many different ways. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. Conventional wisdom can be described as the ideas or beliefs that are accepted by most people that go unquestioned. A prime example of conventional wisdom is the belief that the earth is flat. In chapter three of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt discusses many ways that conventional wisdom is wrong. He asks the question, Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? He explains the conventional wisdom that most drug dealers are wealthy. People believe that one of the most profitable jobs in America is drug dealing, particularly crack dealing. Levitt examines this conventional wisdom and throughout chapter three explains why this isn’t true. The authors explored the research of Sudhir Venkatesh, a scholar who once lived amongst a gang of drug dealers while researching the crack culture in Chicago. Based off of Levitt’s analysis of the financial records of a Chicago gang, the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, he proved that most drug dealers were not wealthy at all. In fact, the majority of the dealers earned an average of three dollars an hour,Show MoreRelatedThesis Of Freakonomics1352 Words   |  6 Pages the main focus of the book is a new way of interpreting the world using economic tools. He explores incentives, information asymmetry, conventional wisdom, crime and abortion, and parenting throughout the six chapters of the book. There are five important principles in this book which are â€Å"Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life†, â€Å"The conventional wisdom is often wrong†, â€Å"Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes†, â€Å"Experts—from criminologists to real-estate agents—use theirRead MoreFreakonomics Essay811 Words   |  4 PagesFreakonomics Book Report In chapter 1, Levitt and Dubner describe how many people in different cultures and walks of life, which are otherwise inclined to be honest, find subtle ways of cheating to advance their position or increase monetary awards when incentives are strong enough. The authors define an incentive as â€Å"a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing,† and identify three varieties of incentives. Economic incentives are those, which a person responds toRead MoreEssay on Review of Freakonomics1663 Words   |  7 Pagesincentives. Incentives are described in a funny way as means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing, and in this chapter we find some examples Ââ€"public school teachers in Chicago, sumo wrestling in Japan, take care center in Israel and Paul Feldmans bagel business Ââ€" of how incentives drive people and most of the time the conventional wisdom turns to be wrong when incentives are in place. Read MoreConventional Wisdom, By John Kenneth Galbraith1119 Words   |  5 Pagescreated the phrase â€Å"conventional wisdom†, and found that social and economic behaviors prove to be complex. The passage uses an example of the homeless in 1980s in the U.S. A spokesperson for the benefits of the homeless states that there were around 3 million homeless in the U.S. The American public found that this was absurd, since this meant that 1 in every 100 people was homeless. However, it was found that he made up those amounts. Another example of this so called conventional wisdom, is listerineRead MoreFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt Stephen J. Dubner  Is Based  on These Fundamental Ideas: Incentives, Conventional Wisdom, â€Å"Experts†-Use Their Informational Advantage897 Words   |  4 PagesFreakonomics By Steven D. Levitt Stephen J. Dubner  is based  on these fundamental ideas: Incentives, conv entional wisdom, â€Å"Experts†-use their informational advantage Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them or, often, ferreting them out—is the key to solving just about any riddle, from violent crime to sports cheating to online dating.There are three basic incentives economic, moral and social. How do we profit and what incentives drive us to act unethical? TheRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt895 Words   |  4 Pagesway as well as the way specific outcomes occur. They look into different aspects of society and view them with different perspectives. With the use of specific data and the fundamentals of economics, the very obscure comparisons and the different chapters in the book show correlation between economics and human nature. The main point of this book is to explain a few fundamental ideas through the answers of strange questions and how they play a major role in society. One of the primary fundamentalRead MoreFreakonomics by by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dunbar Essay1723 Words   |  7 Pagesassociates them. From comparing teachers and sumo wrestlers, to inquiring why crack dealers still live with their mothers Levitt and Dunbar manage to successfully put a spin on conventional wisdom by looking at it through very different perspectives. Unlike most books this book has no central idea, in fact in the opening chapter Levitt makes clear that this is by design. The key concern was to make people challenge ideas and thoughts that are commonly believed to be true. One of the main fundamentalsRead MoreArgument Analysis : Freakonomics 1467 Words   |  6 PagesFreakonomics Argument Analysis: Chapter Three 1. Chapter three, Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?, expresses an intriguing thought by authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The Freakonomics authors follow a courageous man, Sudhir Venkatesh, a student at the University of Chicago, in his effort to understand and research the mysterious drug dealing business. Venkatesh first approached dangerous gangs and dealers in Chicago with a simple survey to learn more aboutRead MoreThe Book Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt2418 Words   |  10 Pagesis cheating, even though the entire chapter is not about cheating. He begins talking about the human needs for economic incentives. In which he brings up this example of a daycare in Israel, which he shows that it is a fine to grab the attention of parents to use this service and pick up their children on time, which at the end of the day is an incentive we don’t pay attention to in our everyday lives. Although this book does not go over the names of it s chapter, it is about â€Å"stripping a layer orRead MoreThe Book That Caught My Eye Was Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist1967 Words   |  8 PagesI 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