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Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Steven Levitt is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and an editor of The Journal of Political Economy. In January 2004 he was awarded the John Bates Clark medal -- for the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contribution to the discipline -- by the American Economic Association. Stephen J. Dubner is the author of Confessions of a Hero Worshiper and Turbulent Souls and is a former writer and editor at the New York Times Magazine. He lives in New York City with his family.

Chapter 1: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?

In which we explore the beauty of incentives, as well as their dark side-cheating.

Chapter 2: How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?

In which it is argued that nothing is more powerful than information, especially when its power is abused.

Chapter 3: Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?

In which the conventional wisdom is often found to be a web of fabrication, self-interest, and convenience.

Chapter 4: Where Have All the Criminals Gone?

In which the facts of crime are sorted out from the fictions.

Chapter 5: What Makes a Perfect Parent?

In which we ask, from a variety of angles, a pressing question: do parents really matter?

Chapter 6: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

In which we weigh the importance of a parent's first official act-naming the baby.