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The Freakonomics result only applies to that sample of real estate agents. Even then, the sample is only taken from a population of real estate agents. In othe

• URSpider94 16y ago
  Nonsense. For your argument to be true, you'd have to assume that there was something special about the sample population chosen by the authors. That flies against the laws of statistics. Further, there is a clear explanation of the behavior that aligns with the economic incentives of the parties. In buying and selling homes multiple times, I have always casually mentioned the study to my agents, and they have vehemently denied that it is true. However, in every transaction save one, the agents have eventually acted in ways that would close the deal quickly for a loss to me, yet get them their (slightly reduced) commission sooner.
  • achompas 16y ago
    Of course there's something special about the sample Levitt chose: it's all real estate agents. If the statistical results are sound then we can infer some characteristics about the population. But in this case, the sample came from a population of real estate agents. There is a fixed effect found across the whole sample: they're in the housing business, not the headhunting business. No recruiters in that population, so we can't infer anything about recruiters in general. Sorry to argue semantics, but this is a basic sampling concept that people forget about.