Best-selling Author Steven Levitt to Speak

May 7, 2007
By Sam Friedman '09

Steven Levitt, economics professor and co-author of New York Times bestseller “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” will present a convocation address Friday, May 11 at 10:50 a.m. in Carleton College’s Skinner Memorial Chapel. Following the convocation, Levitt will sign copies of “Freakonomics.” Both the convocation and the booksigning event are free and open to the public.

Entitled “Beyond Freakonomics,” Levitt’s talk will uncover some rather unusual applications of economics. A professor at the University of Chicago, Levitt is not your typical economist. Regarded as one of the most creative thinkers in contemporary economics, Levitt is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.

In his best-selling book, “Freakonomics” (William Morris, 2005) Levitt uses economic principles to explain such things as how real estate agents use code words like “fantastic” and “charming” to send signals to potential buyers, what conditions lead to cheating in institutions as different as schools and sumo wrestling leagues, and, most controversially, why the national crime drop in the late 1990s might be related to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in all fifty states.

Originally from the Twin Cities, Levitt received his BA from Harvard University and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the Alvin H. Baum Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and the director of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. In 2004 he received the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economic Association every two years to the most influential economist in America under forty. In 2006 Time magazine selected Levitt for its list of “100 People Who Shape Our World.”

Co-authored with Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning journalist who first met Levitt when writing an article about him for the New York Times Magazine, “Freakonomics” was recently released in a revised and expanded edition. Copies are currently available are available for advance purchase at a 15% discount at the Carleton bookstore. Copies will also be sold at the event.

For more information and disability accommodations, call the Carleton bookstore at (507) 646-4153 or the College relations office at (507) 646-4308.