CIA4U Chapter Summary

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Pages: 6

CIA4U: Book Review
By: Samiksha Oberoi
Part A:

Economics is defined as the study of incentives and how people peruse them. Some incentives are so tempting that people will do anything in their power to accomplish them. The authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, use cheating as an example to prove their theory. Levitt devised a plan to analyze data to detect the incidence of cheating and the patterns that may have compelled cheaters. Two cases that were focused on were, a Chicago public school where teachers changed the answers to student’s standardized tests. This was a result of the high emphasis on the “No Child Left Behind Act”, this shows us that school teachers has a grater incentive to cheat than students as it would reflect badly
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Just like incentives, economists can use this concept to understand how people use information to their advantage, studying this can help economists study people better and understand why they act the way they do. This can also help economists use incentives to retrieve information they need; this can be a great advantage to the life of an economist.

Conventional wisdom helps economists understand what is true and what is false. This can also help them understand people better, as this will show them the intentions of the people around them. This can also have a negative impact on the lives of economists because they may not know that someone isn't saying the whole truth and this could lead them to making wrong decisions.

Dramatic effects can help economists see current and uprising trends in the economy, which can eventually help them predict trends for the future. Knowing about upcoming trends in the economy can be a great asset as this will help economists prepare for any event. For instance, a rise or fall in interest rates, inflation or even the stock market can have a huge impact on a business or an individual. Keeping up with economic trends and learning to weed out the dramatic effects, and economist can be very