By Loyd Eskildson

"People respond to incentives, although not necessarily in ways that are predictable" is the unifying theme claimed by Levitt and Dubner's latest book--SuperFreakonomics (HarperCollins/Oct 2009). They go on to state that their reports rely on accumulated data rather than individual anecdotes, opinions, and anomalies.
 
Levitt and Dubner's first exposition concludes that walking drunk leads to five times the deaths per mile as driving drunk. Validity, however, requires both walking and driving drunks be equally intoxicated. My experience with ambulatory inner-city 'down and outs' is that they are probably far more intoxicated than the average drunk driver - an important distinction. Then its on to concluding that rural Indian families with cable TV had lower birthrates and were more likely to keep their daughters in school, and reporting that Indian penises are generally too small for standard condoms (why do we need to know this?). As for agents, prostitutes using an agent (pimp) earn more and are beaten up less, while home-sellers using an agent (realtor) get little or no monetary value - though their homes did sell about three weeks faster. Their rhetorical question: "Why is a street prostitute like a department store Santa?" "They both take advantage of short-term job opportunities brought about by holiday spikes in demand." Milking their salacious topic one more time, readers also learn that the demand for prostitutes is far lower now than 60 years ago - in large part because of the feminist revolution and 'giving it away for free.'
 
The book then turns briefly to education, covered in their original Freakonomics through detailing teacher-led cheating on pupil standardized tests. This time the authors sort of make amends for any prior slight to teachers by attributing a decline in female teachers' IQ (in 1960, about 40% scored in the top quintile, with only 8% in the bottom; in 1980 less than half as many scored in the top grouping, and over twice as many in the bottom) to increased opportunities for women in business, law, etc. (The authors' point is that teachers should be paid more.) Meanwhile, U.S. test scores reportedly fell by about 1.25 grade-equivalents. (I have followed pupil test results for three decades, and have never heard such an allegation before. Prior reports have always been 'improvement at the lower grades, stagnation or slight decline at the 12th grade.')
 
Ramadan calls for a daytime fast from food and drink for its entire month -- certainly not conducive to productivity for those doing outside manual labor. Worse yet, babies in utero during that period are more likely to exhibit developmental after effects, with the strongest effects occurring when fasting coincides with the first month of pregnancy and when a mother lives where summer daylight hours are longer. If you want to be a major league ballplayer, having a father who did so increases a son's chance of following this path 800 times.
 
Cancer patients make up 20% of Medicare cases, and consume 40% of its drug budget. Chemotherapy, per SuperFreakonomics is remarkably ineffective for many cancers, especially lung cancer. Patients often discontinue treatment due to severe adverse effects. (Maybe those 'death panels,' once renamed, aren't such a bad idea.)
 
The September 11, 2001 tragedy was funded for little more than $300,000. Preventing a repeat is an obvious priority for many nations. Levitt and Dubner report that a British bank fraud expert has found that (university) students with first and last names of Muslim origin, making an initial deposit of about $4,000 followed by small withdrawals, not conducting transactions on Friday (mandatory prayer), renting, having a mobile phone, and not having life insurance are much more likely than others to be a terrorist - and suggest such an individual would reduce his odds of being detected by eg. buying life insurance. (I'm amazed at the 'benefits' of a free press to terrorists. First bin Laden learns to stop using his cell phone, now front-line terrorists learn to buy life insurance, make withdrawals on Friday, etc.)
 
The chapter titled "Unbelievable Stories About Apathy and Altruism" begins with a recounting of the notorious Kitty Genovese murder in Queens, NYC during 1964 --38 eyewitnesses supposedly did nothing to help. Later investigation, also covered in the book, sharply reduced the number of supposed witnesses, and suggests slow police response may have been part of the delay. What any of this has to do with economics, though, escapes me. Moving on, SuperFreakonomics recounts how childbirth death rates 100 years ago were 50 times those today, and how a concerned Dr. Semmelweis at one hospital linked the deaths to doctors failing to wash their hands after autopsies, ordered correction, and thereby saved hundreds of lives in just the next 12 months at that hospital. (Unfortunately, Dr. Semmelweis' insight was not immediately adopted worldwide, and thousands more lives were unnecessarily lost as an unintended consequence of doctors trying to improve through performing autopsies.) The 'good news' is that Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles recently boosted hand-washing rates to nearly 100% after culturing the germs on its doctors hands and displaying the result on hospital screen-savers. Again - an interesting but fairly well known story, with dubious connection to economics. The authors, however, do present a very good explanation of why many/most economic experiment participants are likely to bias their responses and the researchers' conclusions.
 
On to global warming, reporting that methane is 25 times as potent a global warming gas as CO2 and that some experts contend most global warming may be the result of unintended consequences of good environmental stewardship-- reducing air pollution that formerly reflected sunlight. Further, proposed efforts to limit CO2 would have too little impact, and be too slow to take effect. The authors support Nathan Myhrvold's (former Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer) and associates' proposal to disperse about 34 gallons/minute of sulfur dioxide into the troposphere 18 miles up through each of possibly several light-weight pipes suspended by balloons. Upward flow would be facilitated by lightweight suspended motors, and in a worst-case scenario, cost $150 million to start up and $100 million/year to operate. (Jet stream winds of up to 240 mph, airline objections, and temperatures of -60 degree F. notwithstanding.) The authors also suggest eating kangaroos (they do not produce methane) instead of cows would be a major help in reducing methane. Perhaps these are all valid recommendations. However, the stakes are enormous, and the possibilities of failure or unexpected consequences must also be taken into account.
 
Next, pages of hair-splitting rumination on seat belts versus car seats for those aged 2 - 6 -- no need to read, just keep the car seats, trust me. Finally, the book concludes with a brief summary of experiments with capuchin monkeys and coins serving as money. One result was the first witnessed case of monkey prostitution! (Again, why are the authors so interested in prostitution and sex?)
 
Bottom Line: SuperFreakonomics is an easy read, though not an in-depth analysis and does not represent unassailable or even always useful conclusions. Much of the material is tenuously related to economics, at best. Finally, while the authors may be qualified to discuss and make micro-economic recommendations, I'd look elsewhere for important science advice.

Steven D. Levitt is a professor or economics at the University of Chicago and the recipient of the John Bates Clark medal, awarded to the most influential economist under the age of forty.

Stephen J. Dubner is the author of Confessions of a Hero Worshiper and Turbulent Souls and is a former writer and editor at the New York Times Magazine, where in 2003 he wrote the cover story about Steven Levitt that launched FREAKONOMICS.

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Loyd Eskildson is retired from a life of computer programming, teaching economics and finance, education and health care administration, and cross-country truck driving.  He's now a reviewer for Basil & Spice.

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