No matter how bad the global financial turmoil seems, don’t worry — there is no doomsday looming on the horizon, Freakonomics author Steven Levitt says.
Levitt, known for his startling and provocative observations about human behavior, has comforting words for those alarmed about Europe’s debt crisis and the sluggish US economy.
“It doesn’t feel like ‘The End,’” said Levitt, 44, a leading professor of economics at the University of Chicago, who was on a lightning 48-hour trip to India for a speaking engagement.
Photo: AFP/Hindustan Times/Perfect Relations
“The US economy is even growing a little,” Levitt said, referring to a 2 percent expansion in the past quarter.
In fact, “economies around the world have grown so much since World War II, — unless there’s something horrific on the horizon which I don’t see — people will look back on these days as nothing more than a blip,” he said.
“We’re certainly not looking at something like the Great Depression,” added Levitt, who co-authored the best-selling Freakonomics and its much-acclaimed sequel SuperFreakonomics.
Levitt, who revels in the tag of a “rogue economist” challenging conventional wisdom, said people were also far too worried about terrorism.
While governments across the world pump huge resources into tackling terrorism, it is only a “minor problem in the larger scheme of things,” he said.
“We can’t ignore the fact that many more people die in car crashes each year — in fact it really puts to shame [the casualty toll from] terrorist attacks. It is only our reaction to terrorism that is so extreme that it makes the problem look bigger than it actually is,” said Levitt, who in 2003 won the John Bates Clark Medal as the most influential economist in the US under the age of 40.
Despite his successful career, he says he has “never been proficient in math” and had to struggle with the subject all through school.
When he was admitted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to do his doctorate, he realized “a terrible mistake had been made” because he had such trouble doing the math.
“But they had had a problem with student suicides at MIT and didn’t like to flunk anyone,” he said. “Also, failing someone involved a lot of paperwork, which professors didn’t like, so they kept tossing me on to the next year.”
Levitt says he has an enormous appetite for probing the riddles of life and decides his subjects through personal experiences and the incongruities that he sees around him.
“I just follow my nose to look at events and circumstances and draw conclusions,” he said.
He is known for applying economic reasoning to unusual real-world topics and coming up with counter-intuitive conclusions, such as that many drug dealers live with their mothers because they just do not earn that much.
He also created a stir by suggesting that the elimination of unwanted pregnancies helps reduce the population of would-be criminals.
He compares his interest in “freakonomics” with the work of his father — a world-renowned medical expert in intestinal gas who is known in some quarters as the “King of Farts.”
His father was told he did not have much talent for medical research, but there was one area desperate for scientists — intestinal gas — and so he applied himself in that field and became a leading voice.
“When you’re not good enough to compete on an equal footing with other people, you’ve got to find that niche nobody else wants to take up. What I do [in economics] parallels my father’s career in gas,” Levitt said.
On this visit to India — his first — he said he had been particularly taken with the chaos.
“It’s amazing the country functions at all,” he said.
“But it must be doing something right — the economy is growing like crazy,” he said, referring to the 7.5 percent forecast growth rate for the year.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was