41 Quotes by Steven Levitt

People who buy annuities, it turns out, live longer than people who don't, and not because the people who buy annuities are healthier to start with. The evidence suggests that an annuity's steady payout provides a little extra incentive to keep chugging along.

No matter how expert you may be, well-designed checklists can improve outcomes.

The data don't lie: a Chicago street prostitute is more likely to have sex with a cop than to be arrested by one.

If you own a gun and have a swimming pool in the yard, the swimming pool is almost 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.

In the United States especially, politics and economics don’t mix well. Politicians have all sorts of reasons to pass all sorts of laws that, as well-meaning as they may be, fail to account for the way real people respond to real-world incentives.

Purity is a good mask for corruption because it discourages inquiry.

Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.

When people don’t pay the true cost of something, they tend to consume it inefficiently.

Don't trust, just verify.