(Note: This is a re-post with minor edits. I once posted this summary in my old blog in 2006, which does not exist now).
Book Title: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner)
This is a very interesting book, gives a new perspective on how economics/economists can explain things, answer questions, in unusual ways. Some of the problems covered: how crimes fell dramatically in the 90s in the US (author’s conclusion: legalized abortion), how the sumo wrestlers in Japan and teachers in the US are or were cheating, the economics of drug dealers, socioeconomic patterns in naming children.
By clever algorithms and asking the right questions, correct information can be gathered, and things can be explained.
Books, Arts and Beyond 