Why does it cost more money to transfer funds electronically than to send a check? Why don't school buses have seat belts? Why would a company give employees "free cars" instead of a cash bonus?

If you've ever wondered about questions like these -- or haven't but are now finding yourself curious about the answers -- Robert H. Frank's The Economic Naturalist is the book for you. It's a lot like Freakonomics -- and indeed was probably inspired by that book's success -- but has one key advantage: the explanations are shorter, which makes the book a quicker read, and allows space for answers to dozens of enigmas.

Here's my favorite: Why do women's clothes always button from the left while mens clothes always button from the right? According to Frank, it's because when buttons first appeared in the 1600s, only wealthy people could afford them. Back then, wealthy women were dressed by servants so it was easy for right-handed maid to button the lady's jacket from the left. Men dressed themselves and thus, for the average right-handed man, it was easier for garments to button from the right.

What does this have to do with economics? At its core, Frank argues, economics isn't about charts, graphs, monetary policy, or even business necessarily. It's about looking at the world in the context of cost-benefit analysis to try to understand why people do what they do.

If you hated high school or college economics -- and you have good reason, as these classes are generally incomprehensible and/or boring -- this book may just be the thing to turn you back on to a fascinating topic.

A few days ago, I wrote on BloggingStocks about a new study suggesting that most high school students don't know much about economics. Here's what I wrote:

What's a shame is that I really believe that economics could be made into the most interesting high school class if it was approached with creatitivity. In recent years, there have been a slew of amazing books on economics: Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, etc.

I bet that if schools ditched traditional textbooks and adopted a more user-friendly format, we would see these numbers skyrocket. People learn better when they're not bored.

Now The New York Times's Robert Frank seems to agree, in a great column called "The Dismal Science, Dismally Taught." He refers to studies suggesting that students fare no better on a basic economic literacy after taking a course than those who don't, and discusses an interesting method for teaching economics that he refers to as "economic naturalism," which seems very freakonomical.

Take a look at the column, and give a copy to every economics teacher you know.

According to this weekend's Wall Street Journal, the rich are "bailing out" of hedge funds. Says Robert Frank, "In 2005, the world's financial millionaires (those with investable assets of $1 million or more, not including primary residence) had 20% of their investments in alternatives. In 2006, they cut that exposure in half, to 10%."

Of course, everyone is speculating about what it all means. Are the days of big returns from hedge funds over? Are we approaching a credit crisis, or another Long-Term Capital Management-style blow-up that will threaten the liquidity of the capital markets?

Here's another possibility that may be part of the explanation: Maybe astute, wealthy investors are realizing that hedge funds can't, on average, generate returns strong enough to justify the "2 and 20" compensation plans that make even mediocre managers exceedingly wealthy.

If scholars like Burton Malkiel are even close to being right about the efficiency of markets, hedge funds are a bad deal.