Freakonomics: Introduction

by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
What are the surprising, hidden, and even freakish forces that shape society? In this book, an economist and a journalist team up to explore small truths that have a big impact on the way we live.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5–Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. incentive
    a positive motivational influence
    The final outcome of the Chicago study is further testament to the power of incentives: the following year, cheating by teachers fell more than 30 percent.
  2. ubiquitous
    being present everywhere at once
    It was ubiquitous, with every category of crime falling in every part of the country.
  3. quell
    suppress or crush completely
    If it was gun control and clever police strategies and better-paying jobs that quelled crime—well then, the power to stop criminals had been within our reach all along.
  4. quintessential
    representing the perfect example of a class or quality
    It is the quintessential blend of commerce and camaraderie: you hire a real-estate agent to sell your home.
  5. indispensable
    absolutely necessary
    As the world has grown more specialized, countless such experts have made themselves similarly indispensable.
  6. incumbent
    the official who holds an office
    The one candidate you won’t contribute to is a sure loser. (Just ask any presidential hopeful who bombs in Iowa and New Hampshire.) So front-runners and incumbents raise a lot more money than long shots.
  7. formidable
    extremely impressive in strength or excellence
    Incumbents and front-runners obviously have more cash, but they only spend a lot of it when they stand a legitimate chance of losing; otherwise, why dip into a war chest that might be more useful later on, when a more formidable opponent appears?
  8. intrinsically
    with respect to its inherent nature
    Now picture two candidates, one intrinsically appealing and the other not so.
  9. appealing
    able to attract interest or draw favorable attention
    The appealing candidate raises much more money and wins easily. But was it the money that won him the votes, or was it his appeal that won the votes and the money?
  10. incidentally
    as a subordinate or chance occurrence
    Often we will take advantage of patterns in the data that were incidentally left behind, like an airplane’s sharp contrail in a high sky.
  11. wont
    an established custom
    It is well and good to opine or theorize about a subject, as humankind is wont to do, but when moral posturing is replaced by an honest assessment of the data, the result is often a new, surprising insight.
  12. assessment
    the act of judging a person or situation or event
    It is well and good to opine or theorize about a subject, as humankind is wont to do, but when moral posturing is replaced by an honest assessment of the data, the result is often a new, surprising insight.
  13. moralist
    a philosopher who specializes in ideas of right and wrong
    It is worth remembering that Adam Smith, the founder of classical economics, was first and foremost a philosopher. He strove to be a moralist and, in doing so, became an economist.
  14. innocuous
    lacking intent or capacity to injure
    What might lead one person to cheat or steal while another didn’t? How would one person’s seemingly innocuous choice, good or bad, affect a great number of people down the line?
  15. impartial
    free from undue bias or preconceived opinions
    "Smith held that the answer lay in our ability to put ourselves in the position of a third person, an impartial observer,” Heilbroner wrote, “and in this way to form a notion of the objective...merits of a case."
Created on Mon Mar 07 19:21:52 EST 2016 (updated Mon Aug 04 14:57:42 EDT 2025)

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