One of the few books about economics to recently hit the New York Times bestsellers list was Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner. The book was so popular they even made a movie about it. The specialty of Levitt and Dubner is applying economics to unconventional controversial or sometimes even downright bizarre topics. Some praise them for bringing economics to a wider audience while others criticize them for not tackling serious issues or for delving into overly conversional areas.
So whats all the fuss about? Take a look for yourself by viewing some of their videos from YouTube including clips from their movie or take a look at some articles at their blog. The links are below:
https://www.youtube.com/user/FreakonomicsVideos/playlists
http://freakonomics.com/category/freakonomics-blog/
Choose one of the videos or blog articles that you find most interesting and share the link with your classmates. Discuss some of the following issues based on what you have viewed or read: