Steven D. Levitt Quotes & Sayings

I don't expect perfection, I expect excellence. I expect 100 percent effort in all you do. — Steven D. Levitt

Ideas nearly always seem brilliant when they're hatched, so we never act on a new idea for at least twenty-four hours. — Steven D. Levitt

That may not be a simple conversation. But when you are dealing with root causes, at least you know you are fighting the real problem and not just boxing with shadows. — Steven D. Levitt

So what does all this mean if you desperately want to persuade someone who doesn't want to be persuaded?

The first step is to appreciate that your opponent's opinion is likely based less on fact and logic than on ideology and herd thinking. If you were to suggest this to his face, he would of course deny it. He is operating from a set of biases he cannot even see. As the behavioral sage Daniel Kahneman has written: "We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness." Few of us are immune to this blind spot. That goes for you, and that goes for the two of us as well. And so, as the basketball legend-cum-philosopher Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once put it, "It's easier to jump out of a plane - hopefully with a parachute - than it is to change your mind about an opinion. — Steven D. Levitt

This theory rapidly became an article of faith because it appealed to the factors that, according to John Kenneth Galbraith, most contribute to the formation of conventional wisdom: the ease with which an idea may be understood and the degree to which it affects our personal well-being. — Steven D. Levitt

Whatever problem you're trying to solve, make sure you're not just attacking the noisy part of the problem that happens to capture your attention. — Steven D. Levitt

Failure may be an option but quitting is not. — Steven D. Levitt

Most of us want to fix or change the world in some fashion. But to change the world, you first have to understand it. — Steven D. Levitt

Come up with a terrible idea? No problem - just don't act on it. — Steven D. Levitt

After all, your chances of winning a lottery and of affecting an election are pretty similar. From a financial perspective, playing the lottery is a bad investment. But it's fun and relatively cheap: for the price of a ticket, you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings - much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy. — Steven D. Levitt

It might be worthwhile to take a familiar question - why there is so much crime in modern society? - and stand it on its head: why isn't there a bit more crime?
After all, every one of us regularly passes up opportunities to main, steal, and defraud. The chance of going to jail - thereby losing your job, your house, and your freedom, all of which are essentially economic penalties - is certainly a strong incentive. But when it comes to crime people also respond to moral incentives (they don't want to do something they consider wrong) and social incentives (they don't want to be seen by others as doing something wrong). — Steven D. Levitt

Figure out what people really care about, not what they say they care about. — Steven D. Levitt

Why do so many frown so sternly at the idea of having fun? Perhaps out of fear that it connotes you aren't serious. But best as we can tell, there is no correlation between appearing to be serious and actually being good at what you do. In fact an argument can be made that the opposite is true. — Steven D. Levitt

For emotion is the enemy of rational argument. — Steven D. Levitt

The best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in Australia, and snakes in India is to pay a bounty on their scalps. Then every patriot goes to raising them. — Steven D. Levitt

And while it sounds bad to hear that Americans underpay their taxes by nearly one-fifth, the tax economist Joel Slemrod estimates that the U.S. is easily within the upper tier of worldwide compliance rates. — Steven D. Levitt

Don't listen to what people say; watch what they do. — Steven D. Levitt

And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality — Steven D. Levitt

Why is it so important to have fun? Because if you love your work (or your activism or your family time), then you'll want to do more of it. You'll think about it before you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up; your mind is always in gear. When you're that engaged, you'll run circles around other people even if they are more naturally talented. From what we've seen personally, the best predictor of success among young economists and journalists is whether they absolutely love what they do. If they approach their job like - well, a job - they aren't likely to thrive. But if they've somehow convinced themselves that running regressions or interviewing strangers is the funnest thing in the world, you know they have a shot. — Steven D. Levitt

On a per capita basis, Switzerland has more firearms than just about any other country, and yet it is one of the safest places in the world. In other words, guns do not cause crime. — Steven D. Levitt

There are three basic flavours of incentive: economic, social and moral. — Steven D. Levitt

Are people innately altruistic?" is the wrong kind of question to ask. People are people, and they respond to incentives. They can nearly always be manipulated--for good or ill--if only you find the right levers. — Steven D. Levitt

That is in part because the very words "education reform" indicate that the question is "What's wrong with our schools?" when in reality, the question might be better phrased as "Why do American kids know less than kids from Estonia and Poland?" When you ask the question differently, you look for answers in different places. — Steven D. Levitt

When failure is demonized, people will try to avoid it at all costs - even when it represents nothing more than a temporary setback. — Steven D. Levitt

It is often possible to elicit the behavior you want through nonfinancial means. — Steven D. Levitt

Perhaps the most dramatic effect of legalized abortion, however, and one that would take years to reveal itself, was its impact on crime. In the early 1990s, just as the first cohort of children born after Roe v. Wade was hitting its late teen years - the years during which young men enter their criminal prime - the rate of crime began to fall. What this cohort was missing, of course, were the children who stood the greatest chance of becoming criminals. And the crime rate continued to fall as an entire generation came of age minus the children whose mothers had not wanted to bring a child into the world. Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime. — Steven D. Levitt

Poverty is a symptom - of the absence of a workable economy built on credible political, social, and legal institutions. — Steven D. Levitt

The way economists see it, the chances of an individual's vote influencing an election outcome is vanishingly small, so unless it is fun to vote, it doesn't make much sense to do so. — Steven D. Levitt

But his graduate advisor, the eminent poverty scholar William Julius Wilson, promptly sent Venkatesh into the field. His assignment: to visit Chicago's poorest black neighborhoods with a clipboard and a seventy-question, multiple-choice survey. This was the first question on the survey: How do you feel about being black and poor? a. Very bad b. Bad c. Neither bad nor good d. Somewhat good e. Very good — Steven D. Levitt

One thing we've learned is that when people, especially politicians, start making decisions based on a reading of their moral compass, facts tend to be among the first casualties. — Steven D. Levitt

But being confident you are right is not the same as being right. — Steven D. Levitt

By the time most people pick up a parenting book, it is far too late. Most of the things that matter were decided long ago - who you are, whom you married, what kind of life you lead. If you are smart, hardworking, well educated, well paid, and married to someone equally fortunate, then your children are more likely to succeed. (Nor does it hurt, in all likelihood, to be honest, thoughtful, loving, and curious about the world.) But it isn't so much a matter of what you do as a parent; it's who you are — Steven D. Levitt

Prediction," as Niels Bohr liked to say, "is very difficult, especially if it's about the future. — Steven D. Levitt

Consider the kind of questions that kids ask. Sure, they may be silly or simplistic or out of bounds. But kids are also relentlessly curious and relatively unbiased. Because they know so little, they don't carry around the preconceptions that often stop people from seeing things as they are. When it comes to solving problems, this is a big advantage. — Steven D. Levitt

As the Inuits say, "Gifts make slaves, as whips make dogs. — Steven D. Levitt

The key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it. — Steven D. Levitt

A person who is lying or cheating will often respond to an incentive differently than an honest person. — Steven D. Levitt

Have fun, think small, don't fear the obvious. — Steven D. Levitt

Just Like Canada, with Better Bacon — Steven D. Levitt

Government agents sardonically known as the Menstrual Police regularly rounded up women in their workplaces to administer pregnancy tests. If a woman repeatedly failed to conceive, she was forced to pay a steep "celibacy tax. — Steven D. Levitt

As we suggested near the beginning of this book, if morality represents an ideal world, then economics represents the actual world. — Steven D. Levitt

Just as a warm and moist environment is conducive to the spread of deadly bacteria, the worlds of politics and business especially - with their long time frames, complex outcomes, and murky cause and effect - are conducive to the spread of half-cocked guesses posing as fact. — Steven D. Levitt

An opponent who feels his argument is ignored isn't likely to engage with you at all. — Steven D. Levitt

The takeaway here is simple but powerful: just because you're great at something doesn't mean you're good at everything. Unfortunately, this fact is routinely ignored by those who engage in - take a deep breath - ultracrepidarianism, or the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge or competence. — Steven D. Levitt

Levitt admits to having the reading interests of a tweener girl, the Twilight series and Harry Potter in particular. — Steven D. Levitt

Could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? Glaucon — Steven D. Levitt

It's much better to ask small questions than big ones. — Steven D. Levitt

Goldstein found that on average, the people in his experiment "enjoy more expensive wines slightly less. — Steven D. Levitt

So when it comes to solving problems, channeling your inner child can really pay off. It all starts with thinking small. — Steven D. Levitt

Kangaroo farts, as fate would have it, don't contain methane. — Steven D. Levitt

Most people are too busy to rethink the way they think - or to even spend much time thinking at all. — Steven D. Levitt

Overall, a portfolio of the "good to great" companies looks like it would have underperformed the S&P 500. — Steven D. Levitt

It was announced that any parent arriving more than ten minutes late would pay $3 per child for each incident. The fee would be added to the parents' monthly bill, which was roughly $380. After the fine was enacted, the number of late pickups promptly went ... up. — Steven D. Levitt

The impulse to investigate can only be set free if you stop pretending to know answers that you don't. Because the incentives to pretend are so strong, this may require some bravery on your part. — Steven D. Levitt

The leader of another crack gang once told Venkatesh that he could easily afford to pay his foot soldiers more, but it wouldn't be prudent. "You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig?" he said. "So, you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain't no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit. — Steven D. Levitt

It is understandable, therefore, that the movement to stop global warming has taken on the feel of a religion. The core belief is that humankind inherited a pristine Eden, has sinned greatly by polluting it, and must now suffer lest we all perish in a fiery apocalypse. — Steven D. Levitt

The fear created by commercial experts may not quite rival the fear created by terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan, but the principle is the same. — Steven D. Levitt

When Al Gore urges the citizenry to sacrifice their plastic shopping bags, their air-conditioning, their extraneous travel, the agnostics grumble that human activity accounts for just 2 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions, with the remainder generated by natural processes like plant decay. — Steven D. Levitt

Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists. — Steven D. Levitt

Young women in Cameroon have their breasts "ironed" - beaten or massaged by a wooden pestle or a heated coconut shell - to make them less sexually tempting. — Steven D. Levitt

In Freakonomics, we examined the causes of the rise and fall of violent crime in the United States. In 1960, crime began a sudden climb. By 1980, the homicide rate had doubled, reaching a historic peak. For several years crime stayed perilously high, but in the early 1990s it began to fall and kept falling. So what happened?
In Freakonomics, we identified one missing factor - the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s. The theory was jarring but simple. A rise in abortion meant that fewer unwanted children were being born, which meant fewer children growing up in the sort of difficult circumstances that increase the likelihood of criminality. — Steven D. Levitt

Letting go of the conventional wisdoms that torment us. Letting go of the artificial limits that hold us back - and of the fear of admitting what we don't know. Letting go of the habits of mind that tell us to kick into the corner of the goal even though we stand a better chance by going up the middle. — Steven D. Levitt

Solving a problem is hard enough; it gets that much harder if you've decided beforehand it can't be done. — Steven D. Levitt

To Borody and a small band of like-minded brethren who believe in the power of poop, we are standing at the threshold of a new era in medicine. Borody sees the benefits of fecal therapy as "equivalent to the discovery of antibiotics." But first, there is much skepticism to overcome. — Steven D. Levitt

An expert whose argument reeks of restraint or nuance often doesn't get much attention. — Steven D. Levitt

So it may be that going to the hospital slightly increases your odds of surviving if you've got a serious problem but increases your odds of dying if you don't. Such are the vagaries of life. — Steven D. Levitt

The more social science we learn, the more we realize that people, while treasuring their independence, are in fact drawn to herd behavior in almost every aspect of daily life. — Steven D. Levitt

If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work. — Steven D. Levitt

What sort of signal does a college diploma send to a potential employer? That its holder is willing and able to complete all sorts of drawn-out, convoluted tasks - and, — Steven D. Levitt

Resources are not infinite: you cannot solve tomorrow's problem if you aren't willing to abandon today's dud. — Steven D. Levitt

Every big problem has been thought about endlessly by people much smarter than we are. The fact that it remains a problem means it is too damned hard to be cracked in full. — Steven D. Levitt

Experts depend on the fact that you don't have the information they do. Or that you are so befuddled by the complexity of their operation that you wouldn't know what to do with the information if you had it. Or that you are so in awe of their expertise that you wouldn't dare challenge them. If — Steven D. Levitt

The swimming pool is almost 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is. — Steven D. Levitt

Name-calling will make you an enemy, not an ally, and if that is your objective, then persuasion is probably not what you were after in the first place. — Steven D. Levitt

If you are willing to confront the obvious, you will end up asking a lot of questions that others don't. — Steven D. Levitt

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. — Steven D. Levitt

He found himself one night in a bar standing beside a gorgeous woman. "Would you be willing to sleep with me for $1 million?" he asked her. She looked him over. There wasn't much to see - but still, $1 million! She agreed to go back to his room. "All right then, " he said. "Would you be willing to sleep with me for $100?" "A hundred dollars!" she shot back. "What do you think I am, a prostitute?" "We've already established that. Now we're just negotiating the price. — Steven D. Levitt

Would a diet high in omega-3 lead to world peace? — Steven D. Levitt

Tetlock's words, even when their predictions prove — Steven D. Levitt

Social scientists sometimes talk about the concept of "identity". It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision. — Steven D. Levitt

An expert must be BOLD if he hopes to alchemize his homespun theory into
conventional wisdom. — Steven D. Levitt

Vegans are still considered as sort of "out there," a fringe group of animal rights activists with pasty skin and protein issues. However, — Steven D. Levitt

If you really want to persuade someone who doesn't wish to be persuaded, you should tell him a story. — Steven D. Levitt

it is even harder to persuade people who do not wish to be persuaded. — Steven D. Levitt

But a mountain of recent evidence suggests that teacher skill has less influence on a student's performance than a completely different set of factors: namely, how much kids have learned from their parents, how hard they work at home, and whether the parents have instilled an appetite for education. — Steven D. Levitt

Most of us have a lot more experience being consumers than producers, so we tend to view things through the lens of demand rather than supply. — Steven D. Levitt

A story, meanwhile, fills out the picture. It uses data, statistical or otherwise, to portray a sense of magnitude; without data, we have no idea how a story fits into the larger scheme of things. A good story also includes the passage of time, to show the degree of constancy or change; without a time frame, we can't judge whether we're looking at something truly noteworthy or just an anomalous blip. And a story lays out a daisy chain of events, to show the causes that lead up to a particular situation and the consequences that result from it. — Steven D. Levitt

The fact is that solving problem is hard. If a given problem still exists, you can bet that a lot of people have already come along and failed to solve it. Easy problems evaporate; it is the hard ones that linger. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to track down, organize, and analyze the data to answer one small question well. — Steven D. Levitt

Here is the broader point: whatever problem you're trying to solve, make sure you're not just attacking the noisy part of the problem that happens to capture your attention. Before spending all your time and resources, it's incredibly important to properly define the problem - or, better yet, redefine the problem. — Steven D. Levitt

People who buy annuities, it turns out, live longer than people who don't, and not because the people who buy annuities are healthier to start with. The evidence suggests that an annuity's steady payout provides a little extra incentive to keep chugging along. — Steven D. Levitt

What most of these doomsday scenarios have gotten wrong is the fundamental idea of economics: people respond to incentives. If the price of a good goes up, people demand less of it, the companies that make it figure out how to make more of it, and everyone tries to figure out how to produce substitutes for it. Add to that the march of technological innovation (like the green revolution, birth control, etc.). The end result: markets figure out how to deal with problems of supply and demand. — Steven D. Levitt

Borody claims to have used fecal transplants to effectively cure people who were suffering from ulcerative colitis - which, he says, was — Steven D. Levitt

Information is the currency of the Internet. As a medium, the Internet is brilliantly efficient at shifting information from the hands of those who have it into the hands of those who do not. Often, as in the case of term life insurance prices, the information existed but in a woefully scattered way. (In such instances, the Internet acts like a gigantic horseshoe magnet waved over an endless sea of haystacks, plucking the needle out of each one.) The Internet has accomplished what even the most fervent consumer advocates usually cannot: it has vastly shrunk the gap between the experts and the public. — Steven D. Levitt

We'd like to bury the idea that there's a right way and a wrong way, a smart way and a foolish way, a red way and a blue way. The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think like - ahem - a Freak. — Steven D. Levitt

Were writing Freakonomics, we had grave doubts that anyone would actually read it - and we certainly never envisioned the need for this revised and expanded edition. — Steven D. Levitt

But wouldn't it be nice if we all smuggled a few childlike instincts across the border into adulthood? We'd spend more time saying what we mean and asking questions we care about; — Steven D. Levitt

When it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass. Why? When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue - whether it's fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food - it's easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they're not); that there is a bright line between right and wrong (when often there isn't); and, worst, that you are certain you already know everything you need to know about a subject so you stop trying to learn more. — Steven D. Levitt

The ECLS data do show, for instance, that a child with a lot of books in his home tends to test higher than a child with no books. — Steven D. Levitt

Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, wheareas economics represents how it actually does work. — Steven D. Levitt

Is distinctive black culture the cause of economic disparity between whites and blacks or merely the reflection of it? — Steven D. Levitt