Comparing Levitt And Dubner's The Awakening

One instance being when Levitt and Dubner speak about incentives in the very first chapter of the book. According to Levitt, “An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation” (Levitt 1). Levitt mentions how incentives are the most important discipline of economics and how incentives cause individuals to react in a number of ways. They then correlate the idea of incentives to how parents react to picking up their children from a day care center in Israel. He mentions how a price is attached to showing up late to pick up one’s child at the daycare in Israel, in turn the parents showed up late more frequently. The reason being is before the fine was imposed parents merely picked their children
up on time to avoid feeling guilty. However, as soon as the fine was imposed the parents began to face an economic incentive, so the parents revaluated the cost and benefits and decided that the fine was worth the extra time. The evidence that Levitt and Dubner provide leads the reader to believe that what they are claiming is true, due to how they present and organize their evidence. They make a claim that incentives cause people to react in multiple ways and they proceed to give examples ranging from Israeli day cares to sumo wrestlers cheating in order to defend their honor. It persuades the reader because they provide proof that incentives actually matter in this world, no matter where the person is; by the way they defend and illustrate their claims.