Freakonomics Chapter 4, 5, 6

Chapter 4

1. In economic terms, what was Nicolae Ceau_escu’s rationale for banning abortion in Romania, i.e., how did he see banning abortion befitting the Romanian economy?

2. Describe the incentives Ceau_escu used to increase the birth rate in Romania.Were these incentives effective? Explain.

3. As a result of Ceau_escu’s policies, what happened to the average quality of life in Romania? Provide an economic explanation for the change that occurred.

4. Describe the general behavior of the crime rate in the United States between 1970 and 1999, i.e., indicate whether it was increasing or decreasing from year to year.

5. List each of the explanations of the drop in the crime that occurred in the 1990s that are evaluated by Levitt and Dubner.

6. Of the explanations you identified in the previous question, which ones do not appear to in fact be valid? Which ones do appear to in fact be valid?

7. The argument linking the drop in crime to the robust economy in the1990s would seem to be quite strong. Provide a brief explanation of what the data have to say about the viability of this explanation.

8. What rationale do some criminologists offer for the argument that imprisonment rates should be lowered as part of the effort to reduce crime in the United States? Was their logic sound? If not, what fallacy did they commit?

9. What does the available evidence have to say about whether increased reliance on prisons is a viable explanation for the drop in crime in the 1990s?

10.What does the available evidence have to say about whether increased reliance on capital punishment is a viable explanation for the drop in crime in the 1990s?

11. Explain how an increase in the number of police officers could cause the crime rate to decline. Does the evidence support this explanation of the drop in crime in the 1990s? Explain.

12. Many observers maintained that the drop in crime in the 1990s was at least in part due to the adoption of innovative policing strategies. Focusing on the experience in New York City, what do the data tell us about the viability of this assertion? Should we then conclude that smart policing is not a good thing? Why or why not?

Chapter 5

1. Why are parents more susceptible to “fearmongering” than other people?

2. What market forces give rise to parenting books that appeal to a parent’s fears and inadequacies rather than books which present an objective and evenhanded articulation of the state-of-the- science of good parenting?

3. How does the information in this chapter regarding the contradictory and confusing assemblage of information from parenting experts support the major theme of this book (Hint: incentives matter)?

4. Based on the example of perfect parenting in this chapter, provide examples that illustrate how the combination of asymmetric information and fear can lead to inefficient outcomes.

5. When looking at statistical data over a period of time, what does “correlation” mean? How is it different from “causation?”

6. What tool does an economist use to make sense of data which include many variables? In general terms, how does regression analysis sort out the data?

7. Describe the difference between normative and positive analysis.What can you learn about the utility of this distinction from this chapter on perfect parenting?

8. Describe, in general terms, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS)? Who conducted it, who was the target of the study, and what was the purpose of the study?

9. According to the data in this chapter, what are the main differences between a school which overwhelmingly has black students versus a school which overwhelmingly has white students?

10. Academically, how well does an average black student do in a “bad” school? How is this different from an average white student in a “bad” school?

11. According to the data developed from the ECLS, what is more important regarding a child’s success on standardized tests: what a parent does for a child or what a parent is? In your opinion, what might be an explanation for such a strange conclusion?

12. According to the data developed from the ECLS, having lots of books in the home is correlated with higher scores on a child’s tests, reading to the child nearly every day is not. If a parent were only interested in having his or her child achieve higher scores on standardize tests, what would you imagine his or her benefit/cost considerations to be when it came to the purchase of books and this use of his or her time?

13. According to the data developed from the ECLS, a low birth weight is correlated with lower test scores on standardized tests, but the attendance by a child in the Head Start program is not. If you were a government official with limited financial resources, how would this inform your decisions regarding the allocation of government funds?

Chapter 6

1. What do the experiences of Winner Lane, Loser Lane, and Temptress tell us about the likely relationship between a child’s name and his/her prospects for success in life? Are these examples sufficient for us to draw any definitive conclusions? Why or why not?

2. Explain what Roland G. Fryer was trying to get at when he decided to explore the following question: is distinctive black culture a cause of the economic disparity between blacks and whites or merely a reflection of it?

3. Why is the California birth certificate data set so valuable from the economist’s perspective? In particular, what type of data does it include that would be of interest to economists? Why are the variables you listed so useful/valuable?

4. What do the California names data tell us about the similarity between the names black parents and white parents gave their children up until the early 1970s and in the period of time since then?

5. Summarize the degree of uniqueness of names given to black girls and black boys revealed in the California names data.What do the authors cite as the most likely cause of this phenomenon?

6. Summarize the characteristics of a black parent who is most likely to give his/her child a distinctively black name.

7. Explain how an “audit study” is used to determine whether having a very “white” name or a very “black” name matters.

8. Are the results of audit studies regarding the effects of a person’s name on that person’s prospects for success reliable? If not, why not?

9. According to the analysis of the California names data, does a person with a distinctively black name have, on average, a worse life outcome than a person with a distinctively white name? If so, is it the fault of the name? If not, explain what the data are telling us.

10. Is there a discernible pattern in how certain names move through the population over time? If so, describe it.

11. Is a low-income parent more likely to choose the name of a celebrity or the child of an upper-income family for his/her own child.Why?

12.According to the California names data,what are many parents trying to signal when they choose a particular name for their child?