A great read. Like Freakonomics, this book applies economic analysis and freakish curiosity to disprove some things you thought you knew or shed light on things you didn't know that you didn't know – especially among numbers you didn’t know were related. Whereas the first book introduced a whole new approach, this one merely picks up where then first left off - with a fascinating but somewhat random series of applications. They could keep up this series forever.
Here's a few interesting tidbits (without the complete explanation):
- On a per mile basis, drunk walking is 5x more fatal than drunk driving.
- As rural India got television, domestic abuse went down and female education and autonomy went up.
- Prostitutes are more likely to have sex with a cop than be arrested; demand goes up during family reunions; and the clients of expensive escorts are price insensitive so will pay more for less sex.
- In the US, teacher IQ and student test scores declined, as the number of women with degrees entered other business fields after 1964.
- Infants conceived shortly before summer Ramadan or other periods of fasting are more likely to be sickly. Babies born in January and February are more likely to be stars.
- The shoe bomber Reid sort of failed, but the time it takes to remove shoes at security takes the equivalent of 14 lifetimes per year in traveler time.
- The DC sniper attacks in October 2002 only accounted for 10 of the average 50 homicides a month in the area.
- The Kitty Genovese murder in March 1964 made famous the 'bystander effect' which has been in the news a lot lately when a crowd witnesses a crime and does nothing, but the original story was sensationalized.
- Washington Hospital Center in DC went from worst to first in Emergency room care by implementing electronic medical records in a patented system now owned by Microsoft and used throughout the US.
-Chapter 4 is devoted to simple solutions and unintended consequences, so its this chapter that's the most controversial. The authors argue that ADA and the Endangered Species Act resulted in fewer jobs for people with disabilities and less habitat for endangered species respectively; but also that whale extinction, polio, and heart disease were easily cured by the discover of oil, vaccines, and drugs. Likewise the biggest improve in car safety was seat belts, which Robert McNamara adapted from airplanes. However, child safety seats are only effective for a small age range, not the range covered by NHTSA rules. Finally, carbon emissions may not be the most important part of global warming and there are some pretty simple solutions available that haven’t been seriously considered. But here they leave their focus on microeconomics and wander into ecology and macroeconomics which they state up front isn't their specialty. The buzz from cutting edge think tanks is interesting though.
Here's a few interesting tidbits (without the complete explanation):
- On a per mile basis, drunk walking is 5x more fatal than drunk driving.
- As rural India got television, domestic abuse went down and female education and autonomy went up.
- Prostitutes are more likely to have sex with a cop than be arrested; demand goes up during family reunions; and the clients of expensive escorts are price insensitive so will pay more for less sex.
- In the US, teacher IQ and student test scores declined, as the number of women with degrees entered other business fields after 1964.
- Infants conceived shortly before summer Ramadan or other periods of fasting are more likely to be sickly. Babies born in January and February are more likely to be stars.
- The shoe bomber Reid sort of failed, but the time it takes to remove shoes at security takes the equivalent of 14 lifetimes per year in traveler time.
- The DC sniper attacks in October 2002 only accounted for 10 of the average 50 homicides a month in the area.
- The Kitty Genovese murder in March 1964 made famous the 'bystander effect' which has been in the news a lot lately when a crowd witnesses a crime and does nothing, but the original story was sensationalized.
- Washington Hospital Center in DC went from worst to first in Emergency room care by implementing electronic medical records in a patented system now owned by Microsoft and used throughout the US.
-Chapter 4 is devoted to simple solutions and unintended consequences, so its this chapter that's the most controversial. The authors argue that ADA and the Endangered Species Act resulted in fewer jobs for people with disabilities and less habitat for endangered species respectively; but also that whale extinction, polio, and heart disease were easily cured by the discover of oil, vaccines, and drugs. Likewise the biggest improve in car safety was seat belts, which Robert McNamara adapted from airplanes. However, child safety seats are only effective for a small age range, not the range covered by NHTSA rules. Finally, carbon emissions may not be the most important part of global warming and there are some pretty simple solutions available that haven’t been seriously considered. But here they leave their focus on microeconomics and wander into ecology and macroeconomics which they state up front isn't their specialty. The buzz from cutting edge think tanks is interesting though.
