Summary Of The First Chapter Of Freakonomics

In the first chapter of Freakonomics, the authors of the book used a quote that in my opinion best describes the whole idea of the chapter. That quote is “a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for” by W. C. Fields. This quote perfectly summarized the whole chapter’s idea incentives, the idea that incentive “is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing” and how incentive “is a bullet, a lever…, [and] an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation.” This is clearly depicted by answering the question, “What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?” By telling the stories of cheating teachers, rank concerned sumo wrestlers, and a boss-turned-bagel man he was able to answer the question and give readers an idea of how significantly a person’s incentive can affect behavior. In this chapter, Levitt explains how incentives, whether it be, economic, moral, or societal can drive individuals to cheat for something that is worth having.
Using algorithms that looked for patterns, teachers that cheated standardized exams were easily found and removed from the system. Statistics on sumo wrestling data also proved rigged matches between wrestler in the “bubble” and ones who are safe from rank demotion. And data on payment rate collected by the “bagel man” proved an unintentional experiment on human behavior. One thing that these stories have in common is the presence of an incentive driven environment. Statistics showed that we can: weed out cheating teachers and prove their economic incentive to gain money, distinguish which sumo wrestlers are willing to throw a match to secure a future victory and prove their moral incentive to honor their opponent , and use data to analyze behaviors of office workers and prove their societal incentive to do what others think is