Stephen J Dubner

Co-writer of Freakonomics - The Hidden Side of Everything

Freakonomics took economic theory into the real world of suburban parenting and urban drug gangs, turning conventional wisdom upside-down.

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn the conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a ground-breaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: Freakonomics.

Stephen J Dubner is an award-winning author and journalist who lives in New York City. In addition to Freakonomics, he is the author of Turbulent Souls (Choosing My Religion), Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, and a children´s book, The Boy With Two Belly Buttons. His journalism has appeared primarily in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and has been anthologized in The Best American Sportswriting, The Best American Crime Writing, and elsewhere. He has taught English at Columbia University (while receiving an M.F.A. there), played in a rock band (which was signed to Arista Records), and, as a writer, was first published at the age of 11, in Highlights for Children.