Steven Dubner - Freakonomics

MOST POPULAR WHITE GIRL NAMES, 1960 AND 2000: The California names data actually begin in 1961, but the year-to-year difference is negligible.

SHIRLEY TEMPLE AS SYMPTOM, NOT CAUSE: See Stanley Lieberson, A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000). A Harvard sociologist, Lieberson is the acknowledged master of (among other subjects) the academic study of names.

For instance, A Matter of Taste details how, from 1960, it was American Jewish families who first popularized many girls’ names (Amy, Danielle, Erica, Jennifer, Jessica, Melissa, Rachel, Rebecca, Sarah, Stacy, Stephanie, Tracy) while only a handful (Ashley, Kelly, and Kimberly) began in non-Jewish families. Another good discussion of naming habits can be found in Peggy Orenstein, “Where Have All the Lisas Gone?” New York Times Magazine, July 6, 2003; and, if only for entertainment, see The Sweetest Sound (2001), Alan Berliner’s documentary film about names.

BOYS’ NAMES BECOMING GIRLS’ NAMES (BUT NOT VICE VERSA): This observation is drawn from the work of Cleveland Kent Evans, a psychologist and onomastician at Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska. A sample of Evans’s work is available as of this writing at academic.bellevue.edu/

~CKEvans/cevans.html; see also Cleveland Kent Evans, Unusual & Most Popular Baby Names (Lincolnwood, Ill.: Publications International/Signet, 1994); and Cleveland Kent Evans, The Ultimate Baby Name Book (Lincoln-wood, Ill.: Publications International/Plume, 1997).

EPILOGUE. TWO PATHS TO HARVARD

THE WHITE BOY WHO GREW UP OUTSIDE CHICAGO: This passage, as well as the earlier passage about the same boy on pp. 155–56, was drawn from author interviews and from Ted Kaczynski, Truth Versus Lies, unpublished manuscript, 1998; see also Stephen J. Dubner, “I Don’t Want to Live Long. I Would Rather Get the Death Penalty than Spend the Rest of My Life in Prison,” Time, October 18, 1999.

THE BLACK BOY FROM DAYTONA BEACH: This passage, as well as the earlier passage about the same boy on p. 156, were drawn from author interviews with Roland G. Fryer Jr.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Jointly, we would like to thank two people who helped nurture this book: Claire Wachtel of William Morrow and Suzanne Gluck of the William Morris Agency.

This is the third book that Stephen Dubner has written under their auspices; he continues to be grateful and, on occasion, awestruck. This was the first such book for Steven Levitt; he has been duly impressed. Many thanks also to the talented and supportive colleagues in each shop: Michael Morrison, Cathy Hemming, Lisa Gallagher, Debbie Stier, Dee Dee De Bartlo, George Bick, Brian McSharry, Jennifer Pooley, Kevin Callahan, Trent Duffy, and many others at William Morrow; Tracy Fisher, Karen Gerwin, Erin Malone, Candace Finn, Andi McNichol, and many others at the William Morris Agency. We would also like to thank the various subjects of this book (especially Stetson Kennedy, Paul Feldman, Sudhir Venkatesh, Arne Duncan, and Roland Fryer) for their time and trouble. Thanks also to the friends and colleagues who helped improve the manuscript, including Melanie Thernstrom, Lisa Chase, and Colin Camerer. And to Linda Jines, who came up with the title: nicely done.

PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe an enormous debt to my many co-authors and colleagues, whose great ideas fill this book, and to all the kind people who have taken the time to teach me what I know about economics and life. I am especially grateful to the University of Chicago, whose Initiative on Chicago Price Theory provides me the ideal research home; and also to the American Bar Foundation for its collegiality and support. My wife, Jeannette, and our children, Amanda, Olivia, Nicholas, and Sophie, make every day a joy, even though we miss Andrew so much. I thank my parents, who showed me it was okay to be different. Most of all, I want to thank my good friend and co-author Stephen Dubner, who is a brilliant writer and a creative genius.

—S. D. L.

I have yet to write a book that did not germinate, or was not at least brought along, in the pages of the New York Times Magazine. This one is no exception.

For that I thank Hugo Lindgren, Adam Moss, and Gerry Marzorati; also, thanks to Vera Titunik and Paul Tough for inviting the Bagel Man into the Magazine’s pages. I am most grateful to Steven Levitt, who is so clever and wise and even kind as to make me wish—well, almost—that I had become an economist myself.

Now I know why half the profession dreams of having an adjoining office to Levitt. And finally, as always, thanks and love to Ellen, Solomon, and Anya. See you at dinnertime.

—S. J. D.

About the Author

Steven D. Levitt teaches economics at the University of Chicago; he recently received the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the best American economist under forty.

Stephen J. Dubner lives in New York City; he writes for the New York Times and The New Yorker and is the national bestselling author of

Turbulent Souls and

Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper .

To receive notice of author events and new books by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, sign up at www.authortracker.com.

Credits

Jacket design by Chika Azuma

Jacket photograph collage by James Meyer/Getty Images; inside orange slice by Jan Cobb

Copyright

FREAKONOMICS. Copyright © 2005 by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

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Microsoft Reader March 2005 ISBN 0-06-083822-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levitt, Steven D.

Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything /

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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