Authors of Freakonomics

EXCLUSIVE
  • International Bestselling Authors of Freakonomics Series
  • Co-stars, Freakonomics Documentary

Since the remarkable success of the International Bestsellers Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics (more than 5 million copies sold worldwide), its much heralded authors, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, have given more than 1,000 lectures, some to audiences as large as 10,000, and are still in high demand. The books have made economic analysis and "out of the box thinking" so accessible and interesting to the general population that the Freakonomics team has gained additional success, including: the Freakonomics blog, which receives 2 million page views per month; Freakonomics Radio, which is No. 1 on iTunes, with 5 million downloads per month, and broadcast on public-radio stations across the country; their Twitter feed has over 600,000 followers; their Freakonomics documentary, was a hit at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, and a hit on iTunes, Netflix and....Showtime; and both Levitt and Dubner continue to have national media exposure. Levitt and Dubner offer story after story, with research backing each theory, that address ways to create behavior change and show which incentives work and don't work.

The duos most recent book successes include Think Like A Freak (2014), which became an instant New York Times bestseller, and  When to Rob a Bank (2015), which is a collection of the best Freakonomics.com blog posts.

 



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Past Hosts Include:
  • Lesher Foundation
  • Patricia Meier, on behalf of the World Business Forum  
  • WBBM Newsradio 780
  • Drury Design Dynamics, Inc.
  • Premier Health Alliance
  • Elizabeth Rullo, Marketing Associate, Buck Consultants, An ACS Company
  • Ohio State University
  • Tony Bingham, President, ASTD International
Rave Reviews About Authors of Freakonomics as a Speaker
Levitt's and Dubner's presentation was a big hit with our audience. They were able to deepen our insight into why people do what they do with wonderful humor and engaging style. Both Mr. Dubner and Mr. Levitt were also a pleasure to work with, and we appreciated the time they spent talking to our participants and meeting with our media representatives.

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner together at 92Y - Get Sharable Link
Talks & Conversations with Authors of Freakonomics
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Think Like A Freak

The third installment of the highly successful series and another New York Times bestseller, Think Like A Freak is Levitt and Dubner’s latest—and most revolutionary—book. Taking their successfulFreakonomicsideas to the next level, Levitt and Dubner offer an engaging and innovative ...

The third installment of the highly successful series and another New York Times bestseller, Think Like A Freak is Levitt and Dubner’s latest—and most revolutionary—book.  Taking their successful Freakonomics ideas to the next level, Levitt and Dubner offer an engaging and innovative new program sure to inspire and enlighten audiences. Each idea presented by Levitt and Dubner will be illustrated by a story or example, in their ever-popular counterintuitive style, that will provide your audience with illuminating thoughts for profitable thinking. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.

Business & Management Lessons from Freakonomics & SuperFreakonomics

In this engaging presentation, Levitt & Dubner address the fact that the old rules of business just don’t apply and therefore the ideas they have presented in Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics make even more sense now than they did a few years ago. It’s a new world, and that demands ...

In this engaging presentation, Levitt & Dubner address the fact that the old rules of business just don’t apply and therefore the ideas they have presented in Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics make even more sense now than they did a few years ago. It’s a new world, and that demands a new way of thinking. They offer audiences a way of getting beneath the surface of modern business practices. Using humor and first-rate storytelling, they discuss the sort of topics that are on every business person’s mind these days: the ways to create behavior change, the incentives that work and don’t work, and the value of asking unpopular questions. The difference between the Freakonomics presentation and other "economic" presentations is that while most economics presentations present great tools for coming up with answers, they don’t come up with the interesting questions. This presentation offers both. Here is a sample of additional questions that Levitt & Dubner address:

- Why is behavior change so difficult? How can I change the behavior of my employees? Why are our incentive programs not working?

- How can I capture more customers from my competitors? How can I influence current customers to increase loyalty?

- Why am I not getting the project outcomes I expected? How do I keep the tyranny of emotion, opinion and anecdote out of my project plan?

- Why is consensus building often a waste of time and resources?

Freakonomics and the Power of Incentives

No matter what your program theme, consider bringing Levitt and Dubner to put a unique spin on any topic as incentives are key to all of them. Their presentations are as entertaining as they are illuminating as they offer data-based stories that show audiences how to inspire change in their own comp ...

No matter what your program theme, consider bringing Levitt and Dubner to put a unique spin on any topic as incentives are key to all of them. Their presentations are as entertaining as they are illuminating as they offer data-based stories that show audiences how to inspire change in their own company and community. But in order to change aspects of our world, we first have to understand it. Believe it or not, if we can understand the incentives that lead a schoolteacher to cheat, we can understand how the global economic crisis has come to pass.

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Biography

 Authors of Freakonomics

- Bestselling Authors, Freakonomics Series - Co-stars, Freakonomics Documentary

Steven Levitt

Steven Levitt is a full professor in the University of Chicago's economics department (he received tenure after only two years) and the winner of the highly esteemed John Bates Clark Medal, as the most influential economist in America under the age of 40 (which is frequently a precursor to the Nobel Prize). Mr. Levitt has an enormous curiosity and is set on course by personal experiences and the incongruities he sees in everyday life. The Wall Street Journal has said, “If Indiana Jones were an economist, he'd be Steven Levitt.” When Stephen Dubner (co-author of Freakonomics) profiled Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, he was beset by questions, queries, riddles and requests - from General Motors and the New York Yankees to U.S. senators but also from prisoners and parents and a man who sold bagels. Mr. Levitt is an intuitionist. He sifts through a pile of data to find a story that no one else has found and devises ways to measure an effect that veteran economists have declared unmeasurable. He has shown other economists just how well their tools can make sense of the real world.



Stephen Dubner

After Stephen Dubner profiled the economist Steven Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, thats when they decided to team up and write the book that became Freakonomics. An award-winning author, journalist, and TV personality, Dubner has been an editor and writer at The New York Times, taught English at Columbia University, appeared regularly on Good Morning America and World News Tonight, and, in college, he started a rock band that was signed to Arista Records. He is the author of two previous books, Choosing My Religion and Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, as well as a childrens book, The Boy With Two Belly Buttons.