“FREAKONOMICS” author to speak at Oklahoma State on April 22

Friday, April 18, 2008

(April 18, 2008  Stillwater, OK) - Steven D. Levitt, best-selling author of “FREAKONOMICS,” will speak on the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater on Tuesday, April 22, at 7 p.m. in the Wes Watkins Center.
The program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the OSU Student Government Association Speakers Board.

“FREAKONOMICS, ” originally published in 2005, stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for more than two years, has sold more than three million copies worldwide and has been published in more than 30 languages.
            
According to The Wall Street Journal, if Indiana Jones were an economist, he’d be Steven Levitt.
 
"Tax evasion. Money-laundering. I'd like to put together a set of tools that lets us catch terrorists,” Levitt said. “I mean, that's the goal. I don't necessarily know yet how I'd go about it. But given the right data, I have little doubt that I could figure out the answer."
            
His book shows how economy is at the root of incentives for people getting what they want or need, and shows how to make sense of the real world.
            
Levitt, who said he has a huge curiosity, calls himself an intuitionist, and wants to change the way people view the modern world. The CIA has asked him how it might use data to catch terrorists, and he has received numerous queries from major corporations, the New York Yankees, senators, prisoners and a former Tour de France champion asking for his help in using data.

Levitt, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, has received the American Economic Association’s prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, which is given to the country’s best economist under the age of 40.
            
Fore more information on the program, contact the Office of Campus Life at (405) 744-5488.