"Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life--from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing--and his conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head... Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives--how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of, well--everything... If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work."--Book jacket, front flap.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : the hidden side of everything -- What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? -- How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents? -- Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? -- Where have all the criminals gone? -- What makes a perfect parent? -- Perfect parenting, Part II; or, Would a Roshanda by any other name smell as sweet? -- Epilogue : two paths to Harvard -- Bonus material added to the revised and expanded 2006 ed.