Levitt, Steven D. 1967(?)-

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LEVITT, Steven D. 1967(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1967; married; children: Andrew (deceased), Amanda, Olivia. Education: Harvard University, B.A. (summa cum laude); Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1994.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Economics, University of Chicago, 1126 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author, economist, and educator. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, assistant professor, 1997–98, associate professor, 1998–99, professor, 1999–2002, Alvin H. Baum professor of economics, 2002–. Corporate Decisions, Inc., management consultant, 1989–91; Harvard Society of Fellows, junior fellow, 1994–97; American Bar Foundation, research fellow, 1997–. Faculty research fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1994; John M. Olin Research fel-low in Law and Economics, Harvard Law School, 1995–97; national fellow, Harvard University Program in Inequality and Social Policy, 1998; Alfred P. Sloan research fellow, 1999; fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2002; fellow, Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences, 2002–03.

MEMBER: Phi Betta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: John Bates Clark Medal, 1998; Quantrell Award, 1998, for outstanding undergraduate teaching at University of Chicago; National Science Foundation Career Award, 1999; Duncan Black Prize (with James Poterba), 2002, for paper in Public Choice; Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, National Science Foundation, 2000; Faculty Appreciation Award, University of Chicago Department of Economics graduate students, 2000.

WRITINGS:

The Black-White Test Score Gap through Third Grade (electronic resource), National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

(With Chad Syverson) Market Distortions When Agents Are Better Informed: The Value of Information in Real Estate Transactions, National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

(With Stephen J. Dubner) Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2005.

Quarterly Journal of Economics, associate editor, 1998–99; Journal of Political Economy, editor, 1999–.

Contributor to journals, including American Law and Economics Review, American Economic Review, Contributions to Economic Policy and Analysis, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Political Science Review, Criminology, International Review of Law and Economics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly; contributor to periodicals, including Chicago Sun-Times and Slate. Contributor to books, including Risky Behavior by Youths, edited by Jonathan Gruber, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2000; Crime, edited by James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia, ICS Press (San Francisco, CA). 2001; and Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence, edited by Jens Ludwig and Phil Cook, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Steven D. Levitt is an economist whose unusual way of looking at the world and asking questions led him to collaborate, with journalist Stephen J. Dubner, on the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Levitt first gained attention when he wrote a journal article with law professor John Donohue in which the coauthors' correlated the unexpected drop in crime in the early 1990s with legalization of abortion in the 1970s. The authors provocatively argue that aborted children, as unwanted children, who had a greater statistical chance of growing up to be criminals because they often came from lower socioeconomic groups and would have received less parental guidance. To support their theory, the authors cited the fact that states like California and New York, which legalized abortions earlier than other states, have since experienced earlier decreases in their crime rates.

In Freakonomics Levitt—with the help of Dubner—looks at a wide range of issues and topics, everything from questions such as why crack dealers live at home with their parents when they make so much money to analysis revealing that children under ten who visit homes with a swimming pool and firearms are one hundred times more likely to die from drowning than from shooting. "I use the same tools as other economists, a very similar magnifying glass," Levitt told Vicki Haddock in the San Francisco Chronicle. "I just choose to look under different rocks." Amanda Ripley, writing in Time, profiled Levitt this way: "Imagine a whip-smart economist with a sprawling imagination. Now imagine he's 9 years old and wants to know everything."

Levitt and Dunbar organize Freakonomics in six chapters, with each chapter focusing on specific social issues and questions. The authors then set out to address the issues and provide answers based on empirical research and statistical analysis conducted by Levitt and others. Often the analysis and data appear to have little to do with the subject at hand. For example, the authors tie real estate agents to members of the Klu Klux Klan. In their far-ranging look at things, they also provide information on relationships that exist in more practical day-to-day life, such as their look at real estate sales and newspaper advertisements for houses. The coauthors indicate how readers can read an advertisement and determine if the house is associated with a higher-than-normal sale price (for example, the ad contains words like state-of-the-art, maple, gourmet, granite) or to a lower sales price (if an advertisement contains words like spacious, charming, and great neighborhood). The authors also set out to verify or debunk certain cultural and social myths. In the case of young crack dealers and the myths that surround them, Levitt and Dunbar show that most of these individuals earn less than minimum wage because many of the drug gangs they belong to are structured like large corporations and only the leaders make more than 100,000 dollars a year tax free.

Writing in the Washington Post, Gregg Easterbrook called the book's structure "confusing" and disjointed, but noted that "Freakonomics is packed with fascinating ideas." Time contributor Ripley commended the authors, writing that, "unlike academics who usually address these matters, they don't clutter the prose with a lot of caveats. They just show you the goods." As a Publishers Weekly contributor commented, "Levitt has a knack for making that principle relevant to our daily lives." Another reviewer, writing in Kirkus Reviews, called the book "an eye-opening, and most interesting, approach to the world."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 17, 2005, Richard Halicks, review of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, p. E1.

Business 2.0, May, 2005, Steve Powers, review of Freakonomics, p. 32.

Chicago Sun-Times, May 14, 2005, Thomas Roeser, review of Freakonomics, p. 18; May 15, 2005, Gregg Easterbrook, review of Freakonomics, p. 17.

Crain's Chicago Business, November 3, 2003, Steven R. Strahler, "Steven Levitt," p. E8.

Entertainment Weekly, April 15, 2005, Benjamin Svetkey, review of Freakonomics, p. 88.

Fortune, May 16, 2005, Justin Fox, review of Freakonomics, p. 198.

Free Inquiry, fall, 2001, Vern L. Bullough, "When Research Rouses Passions," p. 15.

Guardian (London, England), May 16, 2005, John Sutherland, review of Freakonomics, p. 5.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005, review of Freakonomics, p. 337.

Library Journal, May 1, 2005, Carol J. Elsen, review of Freakonomics, p. 98.

NEBR Reporter, summer, 2003, "Levitt Receives John Bates Clark Medal," p. 39.

New York Times, May 15, 2005, Jim Holt, review of Freakonomics, p. 12.

Psychology Today, May-June, 2005, review of Freakonomics, p. 36.