Freakonomics - Steven Dubner

PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe an enormous debt to my many co-authors and colleagues, whose great ideas fill this book, and to all the kind people who have taken the time to teach me what I know about economics and life. I am especially grateful to the University of Chicago, whose Initiative on Chicago Price Theory provides me the ideal research home; and also to the American Bar Foundation for its collegiality and support. My wife, Jeannette, and our children, Amanda, Olivia, Nicholas, and Sophie, make every day a joy, even though we miss Andrew so much. I thank my parents, who showed me it was okay to be different. Most of all, I want to thank my good friend and co-author Stephen Dubner, who is a brilliant writer and a creative genius.

—S. D. L.

I have yet to write a book that did not germinate, or was not at least brought along, in the pages of the New York Times Magazine. This one is no exception.

For that I thank Hugo Lindgren, Adam Moss, and Gerry Marzorati; also, thanks to Vera Titunik and Paul Tough for inviting the Bagel Man into the Magazine’s pages. I am most grateful to Steven Levitt, who is so clever and wise and even kind as to make me wish—well, almost—that I had become an economist myself.

Now I know why half the profession dreams of having an adjoining office to Levitt. And finally, as always, thanks and love to Ellen, Solomon, and Anya. See you at dinnertime.

—S. J. D.

About the Author

Steven D. Levitt teaches economics at the University of Chicago; he recently received the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the best American economist under forty.

Stephen J. Dubner lives in New York City; he writes for the New York Times and The New Yorker and is the national bestselling author of

Turbulent Souls and

Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper.

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Credits

Jacket design by Chika Azuma

Jacket photograph collage by James Meyer/Getty Images; inside orange slice by Jan Cobb

Copyright

FREAKONOMICS. Copyright © 2005 by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

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Microsoft Reader March 2005 ISBN 0-06-083822-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levitt, Steven D.

Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything /

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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