Venkatarangan Blog

I had bought this book sometime back, but didn’t proceed more than few pages at that time. This week I took it again from my bookshelf, I became interested on the topics discussed by the Authors (Economists) – Steven D.Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner. With reading for few days – few hours every night I finished the book.

The book has a good followup resources including website, a blog and a wikipedia entry – so I will skip the introductions and details about the book. Instead I will just list here on what I liked/learned from this book:

• US Crime rate falling and connection with Abortion made legal two decades back (I think I have read this somewhere earlier as well)
• It is a fact that Real Estate Agents do sell for more there own properties
• Cheating happens even in a disciplined elite group like Sumo Wrestlers
• Drug dealers (other than the big bosses) don’t earn great monies
• Sudhir Venkatesh (An Indian born American Citizen) had the courage to spend considerable time with Drug groups in Chicago in order to understand their behaviours.
• 50% of a child’s chance of success is determined before its birth (Genetics, Family Income, Parents Education, etc.)
• The name of a child does make a difference in the chance of success, but that’s more a side-effect and changing a name doesn’t have a proven effect for reversing fortunes.

Though the title may make the book sound serious read, in reality it is not. It is a light reading book that can be enjoyed over a long journey.