The book is a collection of 'economic' articles written by Levitt, an expert who has already gained a reputation for applying economic theory to diverse subjects not usually covered by "traditional" economists; he does, however, accept the standard neoclassical microeconomic model of rational utility-maximization. In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner argue that economics is, at root, the study of incentives. The book's topics include:
- Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers (See below)
- Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
- Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocaine dealers
- Chapter 4: The controversial role legalized abortion may have played in reducing crime. (Levitt explored this topic in an earlier paper entitled "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.")
- Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
- Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children
