Free Freakonomics Essay Sample

According to Steven D. and Stephen Dubner, economics is the study of incentives; this is the way people get what they want mostly when some other people want or need the same thing. Economists believe that there is no single problem that they cannot solve given time and support. Incentives are rewards set after an achievement. Incentives therefore are so powerful that they can change a situation. People learn to respond to incentives whether negatively or positively from the issues of life. Incentives are therefore are stronghold in the modern life determining each and every human behavior.

An incentive implies that you work hard to do well and try very much not to do wrong. When one performs well in school he/ she is guaranteed a nice job. A small kid can do something pretty well for a promised bike, this is an incentive. I therefore agree that incentives are the cornerstone in life. Every body reacts to an incentive. There are three basic flavors of incentive; moral, social and economic; it true that some incentives do include the three flavors.

The case of smoking ban for instance it covers the social, economic and moral flavors. The three dollar sin tax discourage people from buying cigarettes, this is an economic incentive. Dictating the legal smoking zones is a social incentive and deterring terrorists from raising their money from black market cigarettes is a moral incentive. This is a true fact and so I agree with it Experts use their information to their own advantage. When a sales agent is hired to sell a house he/she gets the best deal for his/her client.

This is due to the fact that as a human sensitivity to incentive is real. When the best deal is signed, then a good commission will go by it. Moreover, for an expectant mother, medical practitioners are likely to prefer cesarean section for it will give the more revenue that the normal method. Therefore incentives are drivers of our day to day lives.

As for the question of cheating; It is true that even those people who seem so honorable or they can't cheat do so just because of incentives. In Chicago it was noted that teachers help their student pass their examinations because of incentives laid to those teachers who have their subjects performed well. Furthermore schools performing well usually get funding. This therefore means that if there were no incentives laid down on this case, there would be no teachers helping students in their examinations.

Moreover, due to pressure of being fired or schools being abolished, cheating is evidence. In Japan sumo is a game that is valued. It's considered scaring and honorable. Its incentives make it more prone to teaching. This therefore means that incentives really affect the way one behaves. Levitt agued that conventional wisdom is often wrong in that even if a concept is widely accepted doesn't mean that it is usually a fact. In this case his argument was that, many facts from scholars are yet to be scientifically proven. This is a true fact that many things that are specified as facts are yet to be scientifically proven and therefore they are often wrong.

Moreover, many people associate drug dealers with a lot of money but according to Levvit's research they end up making money that one would earn working in an average wage job thereby defying the conventional wisdom that drug dealing results to easy but a lot of money. Finally, I agree that cheating is a common case in life that is aimed at gaining more than loosing in every course of life. I agree with Levitt in all his economic critics.

 

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