This is an interesting 6-page “review” of Levitt and Dubner’s “Freakonomics”, by Ariel Rubinstein (it is probably the most negative among the reviews of this book, that I’ve read so far). I find some of his points excellent (and welcome: somebody with high levels of competence/authority should have mentioned these at some point), but some others exaggerated and very likely misunderstanding Levitt’s purpose (probably having to do with a more general, well known attitude of Prof. Rubinstein – one of the current most brilliant economic theorists- who doesn’t really believe that research in Economics has pretty much any use in practice etc). In any case, I (and I suspect, many others…) am very much looking forward for Steven Levitt’s (mandatory, I’d say) reaction (maybe on the Freakonomics blog?). As far as I see him, he usually welcomes any sort of criticisms, which is always something to admire in an academic.
