Title: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Author(s): even D. Levitt , Stephen J. Dubner

[Book Donor: Thanks to Rajesh Madan for giving away this book via sharebooks.org]

The premise of the book is that “everything has a hidden side”. This is applicable to people too – most people around you have a hidden side. How do you arrive at the real nature of people and events?

This book provides some provocative insights from different case studies like cheating by teachers, rigging in sumo wrestling, underworld crime, etc. It has achieved sales of over 4 million copies worldwide by providing unconventional approaches on topics like:

• How do you make decisions?
• Do you believe in conventional wisdom?
• Are dramatic events so obvious as they seem?
• Can “experts” really help you?

A core theme of the book is “incentives”. All of us are driven by incentives – not just economic but also social and moral incentives. The insights from this book can be applied to any area of your life or business or even politics – for example – the amount of money spent by political candidates does not matter greatly in an election.

There is even a chapter on Parenting: Chapter 5 – What makes a Perfect Parent. Here is a wonderful insight: Having books in the home seems to have positive impact on the child. You already knew that right?

Here is the associated insight: Reading books to the child everyday does not correlate with positive impact on the child. Could we stop hovering over the child now!

Another one: it really does not matter whether your child frequently watches TV or not! Can you let go of the remote now please?

Good Luck getting freaked out!