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Parentonomics Hardcover – 20 Mar 2009

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Joshua Gans (Author)
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Joshua Gans (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars 4 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: MIT Press (20 Mar. 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0262012782
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262012782
  • Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 1.6 x 20.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,310,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"

"Dr. Spock meets

"I'm sure parents will recognize many of the parenting dilemmas Joshua Gans has come across. Each of these vignettes is amusing, often touching, and always told in a very tender way. Yet the economist in Joshua can re-frame these stories to find the underlying economics, and perhaps some useful parenting insights as well."-- Freaknomics Blog, nytimes.com, "Justin Wolfers"

""Parentonomics" brings a thought-provoking and sometimes laugh-out-loud perspective to the challenges faced by every mother and father."-- Sydney Morning Herald, "Sherrill Nixon"

"Dr. Spock meets "Freakonomics." Parenting will never be the same. Forget about inflation and unemployment. Here Gans uses economics and game theory to tackle really important topics, such as toilet training and fussy eaters. "Parentonomics" lays bare what most sleep-deprived parents only dream about. Gans may not help you become a better parent, but he will help you to stay one step ahead of your kids."--Barry Nalebuff, Milton Steinbach Professor at Yale School of Management, coauthor of "Co-Opetition"

"A delightful read that shows how being a parent changed one economist, and how being an economist provided insight on being a parent. Now if only I could get my two-year-old to eat her peas."--Susan Athey, Harvard University, winner of 2007 John Bates Clark Medal

I'm sure parents will recognize many of the parenting dilemmas Joshua Gans has come across. Each of these vignettes is amusing, often touching, and always told in a very tender way. Yet the economist in Joshua can re-frame these stories to find the underlying economics, and perhaps some useful parenting insights as well.--Justin Wolfers, Freaknomics Blog "The New York Times "

"Parentonomics" brings a thought-provoking and sometimes laugh-out-loud perspective to the challenges faced by every mother and father.--Sherrill Nixon "Sydney Morning Herald "

"Parentonomics" challenges conventional parenting by applying economic theories to the messy reality of raising kids.--Susie O'Brien "Victoria Herald Sun "

I'm sure parents will recognize many of the parenting dilemmas Joshua Gans has come across. Each of these vignettes is amusing, often touching, and always told in a very tender way. Yet the economist in Joshua can re-frame these stories to find the underlying economics, and perhaps some useful parenting insights as well.

--Justin Wolfers, Freaknomics Blog "The New York Times "

Parentonomics brings a thought-provoking and sometimes laugh-out-loud perspective to the challenges faced by every mother and father.

--Sherrill Nixon "Sydney Morning Herald "

Parentonomics challenges conventional parenting by applying economic theories to the messy reality of raising kids.

--Susie O'Brien "Victoria Herald Sun "

About the Author

Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Artistic Director of Mahak International Artists, Inc.,has written, produced, directed, designed, and/or acted in over 40 stage and screen productionsin the U.S., Europe, and his native Iran. His literary credits include fiveplays, two books of poetry, several translations from and into Persian, and numerousarticles and interviews both in English and Persian. Dr. Hakak has taught at such universitiesas Towson, CUNY, SMU here in the U.S., as well as universities in Belgiumand Iran. At present he serves as Associate Professor and Producer of the Theatre Seriesat Siena College, New York.

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3.0 out of 5 starsLight, Humorous Parenting Memoir
By A. Ross TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 18 April 2009
Format: Hardcover
As a relatively new parent who's been mostly enjoying the recent spate of pop-econ books (the most famous of which is obviously Freakonomics) I suppose I'm the target demographic for this blog-derived book by an Australian economist. I'm not entirely sure what I expected to get out of it, but some more substance and depth certainly would have been nice. It's not really a parenting book, nor does it offer much in the realm of behavioral economics -- if anything, it's more of a lightly humorous parenting memoir by someone who happens to bring an economist's perspective to the task of raising kids. And to be fair, it doesn't really claim to be more than that.

Each chapter tackles a different parenting topic (food, sleep, potty, etc.) but in a fairly disjointed, discursive manner. The author writes in a nice, breezy tone that rarely betrays a hint of personality, but the connections to economics aren't always well managed. For the most part, the econ tie-ins invoke the role of incentives, and stress the concept that incentives are rarely as straightforward as they might seem. But once you grasp the difficulty of properly targeting incentives (if it's not already pretty obvious to you), then there's not a whole lot else to take away. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book, and the author's many anecdotes are often mildly amusing. I guess I expected a little more nourishing meal from this cross-disciplinary stew.
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2.0 out of 5 starsSome bloke rattles on about his family life under the premise of economics
By The Alpha Parent on 10 Dec. 2012
Format: Paperback
This book presents itself as something new, a unique approach to parenting through the lens of economics. However at its core, it's just another guide on how to parent with minimum effort. Whilst the book is well-written and certainly readable, the author has a tendency to rattle on aimlessly talking about his own children, which he detachedly refers to as "Child No. 1", "Child No. 2", and "Child No.3".

Unfortunately, letting your baby Cry It Out features highly on the prescribed menu. Even more worryingly, the book seems to have contempt for children. Almost every chapter is framed as a Parent Vs Child battle of the wills. For instance, the book attributes babies with a level of cognitive manipulation far exceeding their actual competence. Here's a direct quote:

"Babies can play with emotions, especially guilt, and will have you under their spell. Now all this seems rather sinister, but there is a sense in which it helps to see babies in that way. They're human, you know, so they can be as manipulative and self-interested as the rest of us" (page 29).

Needless to say, if you believe babies and children should be treated with compassion, patience and understanding, this is not the book for you.
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3.0 out of 5 starsI heard about the book on Freakonomics and was quite ...
By Mrs on 11 July 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I heard about the book on Freakonomics and was quite looking forward to read about it, especially on the research 'nature versus nurture'. I expected for more it was not as interesting as it could be.
The research leaves you without enough info to make practicable choices – as I have desired.
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4.0 out of 5 starsFun
By M. J. on 7 Oct. 2011
Format: Paperback
An enjoyable romp through the parental strategies of dealing with young kids through the eyes of a rationale economist and a loving father.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com: 3.3 out of 5 stars 49 reviews
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Not what the title implies - but entertaining non-the-less 23 April 2009
By John Doe - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
I am a big fan of Freakonomics; and as a Six Sigma professional, I loved what it did for the concepts of using data instead of taboo to make decisions. Needless to say, I was enthusiastic to get my hands on this book. I could not wait to see the results of data analysis when applied to the day-to-day decisions made by parents. As a parent of two young children, I desperately want to "do things right" - unfortunately, all I can find on that subject are opinions. As a big time believer in analyzing the data to find out what truly is "right" this book was marketed to me perfectly. Boy was I disappointed. This is, in-short, just a compilation of another guys opinions. No more or less valid than anybodies. Where is the data? Short of a quick foray into birth date analysis up front, the concept of "facts" disappears almost immediately. One might claim his opinions tend to be "better" than the average guy because as an economist he understands the nature of incentives and behavior; however, throughout the book I saw one glaring application that in *my opinion* wasn't really identifying the cause & effect relationship: he claims his oldest daughter LOVES to eat, so he uses food as a constant incentive to drive the behavior he wants from her (and his other children). This is where I think using data can help us understand the nature of causality ... perhaps his daughter LOVES to eat BECAUSE he uses it to incent everything ... and as a result when she grows up and has access to any and all foods she wants, she will weigh 400 lbs. That said, the book is very entertaining - I laughed out loud more than once. I still enjoyed his very logical approaches to parental problem solving - in fact, I gave a hard copy of the book to a friend as a shower gift. The low score is due to the poor marketing and lack of data ... had this been marketed as a comedy book, I probably would give it 4 stars.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must-read for financial parents expecting their first. 15 Aug. 2009
By M. Vanderbilt - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
My wife and I are both Financial Analysts, with one of us an Accounting and the other an Economist. I bought the Kindle version and read it every chance I had - I don't think any book has made me think so much and also simply crack up. My wife is reading it now and I just bought the hard-copy to make sure I'd always have it. This isn't a strict advice book, it's just one man's view of his world of children. If you're an analytical type, though, everything he says will make a tone of sense and really get you to think about parenting.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Has moments 17 July 2009
By poltroon - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
Parentonomics, an attempt to view parenting through the discipline of economics, with incentives, has some terrific moments. His discussion of how incentives affect birthdays, of how babies in the US are especially likely to be born the last week of December due to health care deductibles and the dependent tax deduction, while in other countries births tend to be pushed away from that week, is intriguing. His account of child payments in Australia, where there was a huge spike in births on July 1, 2004, the day the payment increased, is amazing and a bit terrifying. This is where Gans is at his best.

His attempts to use examples from parenting to explain economics are somewhat more successful than when he turns it the other way, trying to explain or understand child behavior in terms of economics. He talks about "negotiating" with a baby ... and while this can be useful to a point, sometimes I felt he missed that babies and young children are not rational actors, with neurology quite a bit different from adults. Or maybe he didn't miss it, but chooses to downplay that for the purpose of the essay. It's meant to be all in good fun for the discussion, but I have personally seen many adults (including me) fail to appreciate that there are real physical reasons why a child will not respond to incentives in the way an adult thinks of them, and get frustrated. A frustrated parent is an unhappy parent.

Gans' writing is amusing, and he is at his most interesting when he's talking about game theory and economics and about more general issues than when he's generalizing out from his own kids. It took me a while to finish the book, but on the whole it was enjoyable, and there are some passages that I expect to refer back to frequently.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Mostly entertaining memoir with occasional universal insight 20 Mar. 2009
By A. Reid - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
I love to read books that present subjects with which I'm familiar (i.e. parenting) from perspectives with which I'm not (i.e. economics, aside from Macroeconomics 101). Because of that, I was eagerly looking forward to receiving and reading this book. I found the experience overall satisfactory, but the insights were not quite as striking or universal as I would have liked. The book, I think would be much better served by fewer professional reviewers implying it's some kind of parenting manual. It's not. Gans himself does not pretend it is. It isn't an economist's take on parenting as much as it is an economist's take on his own parenting, with a few generally applicable ideas.

Take it as memoir rather than a manual, and it's a fun read. Gans has an easy, conversational tone that works well with his topic. You get a sense of him and his family as people--particularly his children, whom he presents insightfully. The book is often amusing, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, once in a while slightly preachy...for the most part, it was a pleasure, but of a modest sort. It's not a bad way to pass a few hours, but it's not a particularly compelling one (to my own experience), either.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars A fairly breezy read for something with "-onomics" in the title! 16 April 2009
By Mister Charlie - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
I tend to be a little baffled by economics. Tyler Cowan's "Inner Economist" provided an opinionated, sometimes fascinating, sometimes irritating look into one economist's mind. But Joshua Gans' "Parentonomics" just tends to be, well, breezy. Perhaps it's the Australian sense of humor reflecting off my American teflon humor sensors, but I rarely found myself actually laughing at the anecdotes and ideas in this book. Not to say that it's not an enjoyable read. I also noticed what one reviewer mentions about how economic theories and terms are mentioned but not explained, a decision perhaps designed to avoid bogging the reader down with weariness from reaching for the Thinking Cap too often... it does, however, contribute towards the book feeling incomplete.

As the father of a 3-year-old I do tend to be interested in what any intelligent dad with a sense of humor has to say about parenting, but some of Gans' stories left me feeling like someone at a cocktail party who can't get away from the "guy who thinks he's funny" droning on and on about driving his kids to and from various birthday parties. Yes, though, the story about potty training child #2 was pretty darn entertaining!

A humble, pleasant addition to the world of books about having kids, worth reading but perhaps not for $23. Not sure which economic concept applies here!
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