Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

In Freakonomics, the economist Steven Levitt and the reporter Stephen Dubner pair up to co-write a book that explains the true nature of a small series of contemporary topics, ranging from the real-estate industry to the drop in crime-rates of the 90's to the inner workings of the urban crack cocaine market. Through analysis of huge amounts of data, Levitt and Dubner come to some startling conclusions: real-estate agents, on average, do not work as hard as we think they do at getting the best possible price for our houses when we sell them, a large number of public school teachers in Chicago were found to be cheating by physically changing the answers on the test sheets of their students so as to meet the standards set by policies like the No Child Left Behind Act, and perhaps the most controversial one in the book, the drop in crime rates that took place during the 90's is in a large part due to the legalization of abortion enacted by Roe v. Wade in 1973.

If you haven't read the book, this last finding may be particularly confusing, so I'll give a brief overview of the argument. Levitt and Dubner argue that after the legalization of abortion, more women, especially single mothers of low socioeconomic status, had abortions. This led to a significant decrease in the number of children born into the kinds of households that statistically tend to produce more children prone to commit crimes as they grow older. By the time the 90's rolled around, these unborn children would have been in their late teens, which is high-time for people to commit crimes. Thus since there were fewer would-be-criminal teenagers from poor, single-parent households alive during the 90's, Levitt and Dubner conclude that the increase in abortion during the 70's provides a reasonable explanation for the drop in crime that took place two decades later. The co-authors do, however, make sure to state that they do not advocate abortion as any sort of crime-fighting strategy.

They cover several more topics throughout the book, many of which are equally as interesting as the theory on Roe v. Wade's effect on crime in the 90's. Although there is no clear tie from one topic to the next within the book, I think what they all point to is the value of questioning the things you hear from newspapers, TV, people, and any other source from which we receive information about the world. As it is pointed out in the book, there are a good number of cases where reports are made that appeal to us mainly because they are in accordance with our own beliefs but that, in reality, don't line up with the data.

This isn't a book intended only for those who have already studied economics. On the contrary, it is well-written and engaging. It is, after all, an "International Bestseller" (or so says on the cover of the book, although I'd like to see the numbers). So if you're looking for a non-fiction book that's an enjoyable read and never becomes tedious, I know few, if any, that fit this description better than Freakonomics.