Kid in a candy store - Freakonomics

Like most of my book referrals, this one came from Chari who is probably the most widely read guy I know.  I borrowed his Freakonomics book yesterday and just devoured it.  Read in that afternoon and could not wait for more.  Turns out that the authors also have a blog in which they write about a variety of topics from the book. 

For those who are not familiar with this book, it joins the canon of books like The Tipping Point and Blink in which the authors use intuition combined with deep analysis of data to make very insightful conclusions. 

Steven Lewitt who is a John Bates Clark Medal winner and a Professor of Economics at University of Chicago is an unusual economist. Instead of poring over mathematics to extend the framework of economics, he instead applies age old economics principles to sociological situations and garners great insights.  He analyzes incentives for real estate agents (surprise - they are really interested only in their commission and not in the interests of the seller) and looks at why school teachers and Sumo wrestlers cheat (the answer my friend is incentives).

Turns out Seth Levine at Mobius is also a big fan of this book . . .