How many economics books get their own movie? Exactly, which isn't surprising, given that the subjects they explore--elasticity of demand, money supply and velocity, the role of central banks, inventories and profit margins--don't lend themselves to character development or plot arc, let alone staying awake through the credits. But that's traditional economics and the economy. You study it; you scratch your head; you go see Avatar. Then there's Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics...or more precisely, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotics Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, the two quirky, funny and groundbreaking best-sellers co-authored by University of Chicago Professor Steve Levitt (with journalist Stephen J. Dubner), who will open day two of World Business Forum 2010 with, well, a "freak show," just five days after the release of...drumroll...Freakonomics, the film. Here's the trailer to let you know what you're in for when you see the film and then at WBF10 when Levitt arrives.
While Levitt's books are not your usual economics fare (much more entertaining), there is a reason we wanted Levitt at WBF10 beyond his new-found status as movie icon. Whereas traditional economics seeks to explain the current world situation in traditional ways, Freakonomics tries to reorient how you look at economics by looking at it almost entirely in terms of understanding incentives--that is, how people get what they want or need, "especially when other people want or need the same thing." As the Freakonomics website explains, "If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work." Example: if you want kids to do better in school, maybe you should pay them for performance? That's radical, some would say downright destructive, but if nothing else can pull them away from the Wii... The point is in today's environment, perhaps we all need to think a little bit more outside the outside of the box we always think we're thinking outside of, whether about big-picture economics or about our business models themselves--start to llok for solutions to thorny problems by focusing on the incentives in decision-making and the rational behind them. You wouldn't think of that as Oscar fare, but you never know. Look out, Hollywood, here comes Steve Levitt.
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