The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the "freakquel" is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department store Santa? Who adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Did TV cause a rise in crime? Can eating kangaroo meat save the planet?

Whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically, Levitt and Dubner show the world for what it really is—good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, superfreaky.

Book Description

The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling over four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.

Four years in the making, SuperFreakonomics asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary?

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:

• How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
• Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
• How much good do car seats do?
• What's the best way to catch a terrorist?
• Did TV cause a rise in crime?
• What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
• Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
• Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
• Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?

Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.

Freakonomics has been imitated many times over – but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.

Four years ago, you were cool. You read Freakonomics when it first came out. You impressed family and friends and dazzled dates with the insights you gleaned. Now Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with Superfreakonomics, a freakquel even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.

Essentials of Corporate Finance, 7th edition by Ross, Westerfield, and Jordan is written to convey the most important concepts and principles of corporate finance at a level that is approachable for a wide audience. The authors retain their modern approach to finance, but have distilled the subject down to the essential topics in 18 chapters. They believe that understanding the “why” is just as important, if not more so, than understanding the “how,” especially in an introductory course. Three basic themes emerge as their central focus:

1. An emphasis on intuition—separate and explain the principles at work on a common sense, intuitive level before launching into specifics. Underlying ideas are discussed first in general terms, then followed by specific examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation.

2. A unified valuation approach—Net Present Value is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject the authors cover is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how decisions have valuation effects.

3. A managerial focus—Students learn that financial management concerns management. The role of financial manager as decision maker is emphasized and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

Bodie, Kane, and Marcus’ Investments sets the standard for graduate/MBA investments textbooks. It blends practical and theoretical coverage, while maintaining an appropriate rigor and a clear writing style. Its unifying theme is that security markets are nearly efficient, meaning that most securities are priced appropriately given their risk and return attributes. The text places greater emphasis on asset allocation and offers a much broader and deeper treatment of futures, options, and other derivative security markets than most investment texts. It is also the only graduate Investments text to offer an online homework management system, McGraw-Hill’s Connect Finance.

The market leading undergraduate investments textbook, Essentials of Investments, 8e by Bodie, Kane and Marcus, emphasizes asset allocation while presenting the practical applications of investment theory. The authors have eliminated unnecessary mathematical detail and concentrate on the intuition and insights that will be useful to practitioners throughout their careers as new ideas and challenges emerge from the financial marketplace. The eighth edition has been fully updated to reflect the recent financial crisis and includes a new chapter on Hedge Funds.

Focus on Personal Finance is a brief, 14-chapter book, covering the critical topics in Personal Finance courses. This 4-color, paperback text is designed and written to appeal to a range of ages, life situations, and levels of financial literacy.

A unique aspect of this text is its active approach. This text will not only get your students thinking about their current situation and financial goals, but also to put these in writing to use as a guide and revise over the course of their lives. The more a student involves themselves in the assessments, exercises and worksheets provided, the more they will discover about their current habits and how to improve them for greater financial freedom.

Students have many different financial goals, but none are more important than having a basic understanding of financial issues and peace of mind with regard to their decisions. The ultimate goal of Focus on Personal Finance is to get students to this point as a first step to achieving the many financial goals they have set for themselves.

Corporate Finance, by Ross, Westerfield, and Jaffe emphasizes the modern fundamentals of the theory of finance, while providing contemporary examples to make the theory come to life. The authors aim to present corporate finance as the working of a small number of integrated and powerful intuitions, rather than a collection of unrelated topics. They develop the central concepts of modern finance: arbitrage, net present value, efficient markets, agency theory, options, and the trade-off between risk and return, and use them to explain corporate finance with a balance of theory and application. The well-respected author team is known for their clear, accessible presentation of material that makes this text an excellent teaching tool. The ninth edition has been fully updated to reflect the recent financial crisis and is now accompanied by Connect, an exciting new homework management system.

The market leading undergraduate investments textbook, Essentials of Investments, 8e by Bodie, Kane and Marcus, emphasizes asset allocation while presenting the practical applications of investment theory. The authors have eliminated unnecessary mathematical detail and concentrate on the intuition and insights that will be useful to practitioners throughout their careers as new ideas and challenges emerge from the financial marketplace. The eighth edition has been fully updated to reflect the recent financial crisis and includes a new chapter on Hedge Funds.

Understanding Health Insurance, Tenth Edition is fully updated to the latest code sets, guidelines, and claim forms to provide you with the most essential and up-to-date knowledge on billing and reimbursement. With Understanding Health Insurance, Tenth Edition, you will learn about managed health care, legal and regulatory issues, coding systems, reimbursement methods, coding for medical necessity, and common health insurance plans. Exercises in each chapter provide plenty of practice for learning how to bill and reimburse, and the accompanying workbook provides more application-based assignments for each chapter as well as additional case studies to reinforce your knowledge. The text includes free software that allows you to test your knowledge.

Real Estate Principles: A Value Approach demonstrates how value is central to virtually all real estate decision-making. Students using Ling and Archer should finish the course with a value-oriented framework, and a set of valuation and decision making tools that can be applied in a variety of real-world situations. The key to making sound investment decision is to understand how property values are created, maintained, increased or destroyed.

Since the launch of Real Estate Principals: A Value Approach, 2e significant and lasting changes have come upon the world of real estate. This is very true in real estate finance and capital sources where most of the traditional lenders have been transformed or displace, giving way to a radically different set of player in mortgage finance. There has been change as well with profound and far-reaching implications in a world where it is understandable that property values can go down as well as up. This realization will color every aspect of real estate investment, finance and transactions for the foreseeable future.