Superfreakonomics Summary

SuperFreakonomics is a collaboration between Steven D. Levitt a professor of economics at the university of Chicago and Stephen J Dubner an award winning Journalist and author. It is their second book together in the Freakonomics series. There books take a unique view of the world through the eyes of an economist. At first this might sound like a boring idea but it in fact an incredibly insightful one that has led to several different revelations about the way that society works. This paper will analyze and criticize some of the major themes in this book.
The introduction of the book gives us an idea of how the authors think. They are witty and funny and have written this book to give a new perspective on issues. That is through the eyes of an economist. The introduction talks about

This chapter covers many things starting with how women have been mistreated and discriminated against throughout time. Even in the modern era this is still true. They make the claim that women make less money than men now even though there have been efforts made to decrease discrimination and gender inequality. But even though women make less money everywhere else they still dominate one market in particular, prostitution. The authors use data and interviews with prostitutes in Chicago. This Chapter talks about how the high demand for prostitutes allows the prostitutes to make their own price. Including increasing it during the holiday. This follows the economic principle of supply and demand. Besides this it also address that some women become prostitutes out of cold logic. The market shifts and thus it makes sense to go into an illegal occupation for the payout (Dubner 36). They also give reasoning for things like the general decrease in the price of sex. For example the authors claim that oral sex only costs $40 now because of the increase in premarital sex