over-economizing: incentives and parenting

That's the gist of a tough review by Daniel Akst in the WSJ...

The plague of economists continues -- and I am not referring to the great minds now quarreling over how to rescue the nation's financial system. Ever since the wildfire success of "Freakonomics," we have been overrun by dismal scientists applying their dubious world-view to the problems of everyday life.

The latest entry in this increasingly threadbare genre is "Parentonomics," in which the Australian economist Joshua Gans sees parenthood as an effort to persuade children "to do various things, from sleeping, eating, toileting, and behaving to refraining from lying, cheating, stealing and the use of violence." The question, Mr. Gans says, is "whether economics -- which worries a lot about incentives -- could be of any use to parents."

It will not come as a surprise to any parent who has ever dangled the prospect of a nice cupcake as a reward for homework completed that the answer is: sometimes. Incentives may work, but they sometimes lead to unexpected consequences,...

Unfortunately, the bulk of "Parentonomics" concentrates less on bringing an economist's shrewd analysis to the relationship between parents and children than on recounting an economist's at-home experiences with his own kids. It's an age-old problem: The only children in the world that fascinate are one's own; everybody else's -- sorry, Mr. Gans -- are a bore....

Mr. Gans insists that "Parentonomics" is not a manual, yet much of it, when the gloss of economics-speak is scraped away, amounts to little more than parenting advice. On that ground alone it merits skepticism....