Steven D. Levitt, dubbed “the Indiana Jones of economics” by The Wall Street Journal, is a so-called ‘rogue’ economist. In this 2005 bestseller Freakonomics (co-authored by writer/journalist Stephen J. Dubner), the University of Chicago Professor applies economic theory to a series of diverse, and apparently, non-economic, topics. His essays cover everything from cheating sumo wrestlers to the business of drug dealing; in addition, he presents his well-known theory: “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.” In this paper, Levitt seeks to demonstrate (through endless statistics) that the legalization of abortion in the US was followed 20 years later by a reduction in crime. Well researched and documented, Levitt’s work has led to a re-examination of the way economic theory can be applied to sundry social issues, and, along the way, stirred much controversy. The author expresses his desire to replace “moral posturing by an honest assessment of the data, because only numbers will scrub away layers of confusion and contradiction”. For the most part, largely due to the author’s jargon-free prose, he succeeds in peeling back at least several of these layers.
Penguin Books

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Chief editor: Steven Crane
July 2006 issue