Levitt, Freakononics

Although this is described as economics, it really is the application of statistics to sociology or to current affairs. Levitt and Dubner — Levitt is the economist and Dubner the writer — have taken methods more commonly used in economics, and applied them to such questions as:

• cheating by school teachers and sumo wrestlers
• the abuse of information by real estate agents and the Klu Klux Klan
• the economics of crack dealing
• the decline in the crime rate, and
• the extent that parents contribute to their children's success.

Levitt, Steven D and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakononics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. 2005, Allen Lane, . paperback. 242 pages.