Levitt, who won the John Bates Clark Medal, which is awarded every two years to the best American economist under forty, employs the tools and methods of economics to find answers to such unusual questions as: Which is more dangerous—a gun or a swimming pool? Or, what kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? Freakonomics has been celebrated by one reviewer as finding “logic in the messy mathematics of human behavior.”

Carlson’s companion guides offer much needed support to teachers in various disciplines—from criminal justice, mathematics, business, and even English—at institutions from Berkeley to Purdue to New York University who are already using Freakonomics as a textbook. The Instructor’s Guide includes a test bank with multiple-choice and essay questions and is available to teachers and professors through HarperAcademic.

Dr. J. Lon Carlson earned his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. His research has focused on environmental economics and economics education and has been published in Natural Resources Journal and the Journal of Economic Education. Carlson has held positions at Argonne National Laboratory and the U.S. General Account Office. He teaches courses in environmental economics, law and economics, and principles of economics.