Steven Levitt
co-author of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

When mild-mannered economist Steven D. Levitt published a paper linking a rise in abortion to a drop in crime, it set off a firestorm of controversy and had both the conservatives and liberals up in arms. But Levitt has no political agenda and is the last person to be called a moralist. What he is, is a brilliant but uncomplicated man who uses simple questions to reach startling conclusions.

A full professor in the University of Chicago's economics department (he received tenure after only two years) and recipient of the American Economic Association’s prestigious John Bates Clark Medal (given to the country's best economist under 40), what interests Levitt most is cheating, corruption and crime.

When Stephen Dubner (co-author of Freakonomics) profiled Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, he was beset by questions, queries, riddles and requests—from General Motors and the New York Yankees and U.S. senators but also from prisoners and parents and a man who sold bagels. A former Tour de France champion called him to ask his help in proving that the current Tour is rife with doping; the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to know how Levitt might use data to catch terrorists.

A 37-year old self-effacing midwestern father of four, Levitt has an enormous curiosity and is set on course by personal experiences and the incongruities he sees in everyday life. He is an intuitionist. He sifts through a pile of data to find an unknown story and devises ways to measure an effect that veteran economists have declared unmeasurable. He has shown other economists just how well their tools can make sense of the real world.

A populist in a field that is undergoing a bout of popularization, Levitt wants no less than to change the way we view the modern world. He says, "Tax evasion. Money-laundering. I'd like to put together a set of tools that lets us catch terrorists. 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."