I think of so many academics who've told me about their great idea, and i'm thinking, you can't even explain it to me. That's one of the reasons i think milton freedman was such an incredible policy ougte pener. The volunteer army would be an example. A voucher for schools that that now they were flawed, they were imperfect. We might prefer something else to them. But the reason they got any traction at all was that he could explain it, and then you could explain it to your neighbors. Ay, what do you think? And i think so many of our colleagues who want to change the world, ah, neglect that little, tiny piece
Author and economist Steven Levitt is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and host of the podcast "People I (Mostly) Admire." He is best known as the co-author, with Stephen Dubner, of Freakonomics. The book, published in 2005, became a phenomenon, selling more than 5 million copies in 40 languages. Levitt talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the book's surprising success, the controversy it generated, and how it shaped his career. Levitt says, for him, "economics is about going into the world and finding puzzles and thinking about how understanding incentives or markets might help us get a better grasp of what's really going on."