As a sequel to "Freakonomics" this one is fine, with some insightful behavioral economic thoughts like:
1. A drunk walker is eight times more likely to die than a drunk driver, on a per mile basis.
2. Lower birthrate in India when cable TV introduced because of more autonomy of women.
3. Negative externalities using horses for transportation, too much manure and accidents, led to more modern form of transportation. Title 9 for women's athletics led to more male coaches of women's teams.
4. Averages can be misleading because the "average" person has one breast and one testicle, but a good place to start. People are more scared of sharks than elephants yet elephants kill many more people per year than sharks.
5. Expert performers are almost always made, not born, so best to work at what you love since likely you'll worker harder at that.
6. Terrorists are less likely to come from poor families.
7. "Cognitive drift" can lead to many errors, because people can become distracted easily in just a few seconds.
8. Women ER doctors generally are better than men.
9. Nobel Prize winners live longer, so do baseball Hall of Fame members. Also, do annuity buyers because of incentive to collect more.
10. Chemo for cancer is questionably effective.
11. TV watching increases crime - any kind of TV programs.
12. Humans are naturally altruistic, but affected by context, like when being under scrutiny.
13. Law of unintended consequences is very powerful, Seemingly good laws many times lead to the opposite happening more.
14. Simple and cheap fixes are more frequent than one might think. Ammonium nitrate most responsible for feeding the world. Polio vaccine to conquer polio. Car seat belts to save lives. Book offers some possible simple ways to stop bad hurricanes (send some surface warm water down deep) and solve global warming (send sulfur dioxide high in the sky). Don't have doctors wear ties - ties hardly ever cleaned, have doctors follow good hand hygiene in hospitals.
15. Capuchin monkeys can be taught to use money, hence basic economic laws hold for them, also like humans show irrational economic behavior like favoring loss aversion even if it isn't the wisest choice.
If the book is not as rigorous in its proof of assertions, that is OK with me, as it is an easy read and made me think a little deeper about some subjects worthy of deeper thought.
4 out of 5 stars.
