A reader named William Kearney describes the following mystery, which puzzles him every day.
A new paper by William Jack and Tavneet Suri looks at M-PESA, a mobile-money transfer service in Kenya. Mobile banking has become particularly popular in the developing world, where safe, reliable banking has historically been limited, and often available only to the wealthy. The authors conclude that M-PESA has been wildly successful in Kenya: “We estimate that M-PESA had reached nearly 40 percent of the adult population after a little more than 2 years of operation, and that now, approaching only the fourth anniversary of its launch, is used by more than two-thirds of households.”
Last week, Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim wrote a guest post about black coaches in the NFL and the introduction of the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority applicant when filling head-coaching spots. Moskowitz and Wertheim concluded that the policy change was successful: “The league achieved its aim. By 2005, there were six African-American coaches in the NFL…”
What happens to men when women cry? A new study finds that, as in mice, human tears may serve a “chemosignaling function.” Specifically, female tears seem to reduce male sexual arousal.
When we run a contest or quiz on this blog, we generally offer the winner/s some kind of prize. We’ve recently updated the old offerings. So here’s the current assortment. And remember: you can always get a free signed bookplate for either book any time you want. If you’re really feeling the spirit, you can even get some SuperFreakonomics pants, but you have to buy them yourself. (Sadly, they do nothing to stop you from walking home drunk.)
Both men and women lie to their partners about their spending, but the money similarities between the genders seem to end there. Viviana A. Zelizer explores the differences in a Wall Street Journal article, writing that women in many different cultures are more likely than men to direct money toward their children’s well-being.
Joanne Barkan, writing in Dissent, argues that three big nonprofit foundations (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation), working together, exert a “decisive influence” on public-school education.
Over at Economic Principals, David Warsh reveals little-known facts about Paul Samuelson’s acuity as an investor and his involvement in an early hedge fund called Commodities Corp.: “Long famous for the fortune that his pioneering textbook earned him after 1948, it turns out that Samuelson may have made more money as an investor than as an author. He was both smarter and richer than is generally understood: as an investor, a bigger winner, perhaps, than the more volatile John Maynard Keynes.”
The Economist complements this week’s print issue on rising income inequality with an online forum on the subject. Daron Acemoglu explains why we care about income inequality: “First, people’s well-being may directly depend on inequality, for example, because they view a highly unequal society as unfair or because the utility loss due to low status of the have-nots may be greater than the utility gain due to the higher status of the haves. Second and more importantly, equality of opportunity may be harder to achieve in an unequal society … Third and most importantly, inequality impacts politics. Economic power tends to beget political power even in democratic and pluralistic societies.”
Robert Shiller points to an interesting conflict in economics today: “We are in the midst of a boom in popular economics: books, articles, blogs, public lectures, all followed closely by the general public. Yet this boom in popular economics comes at a time when the general public seems to have lost faith in professional economists – because almost all of us failed to predict, or even warn of, the current economic crisis, the biggest since the Great Depression.”
Here’s an interesting method of combating the hand-hygiene problem discussed at length in SuperFreakonomics: “A doctor enters a hospital room to examine a patient, but neglects to wash her hands. A special badge on her lab coat turns a deep shade of red as wireless computer components in the door, the soap dispenser and near the bed immediately relay information about the unwashed hands. The doctor is busted.”
A new Foreign Policy photoessay takes a look at the secretive, Bangkok-based Dhammakaya movement.
A new research paper shows that North American economists have lost a lot of market share in research publication to the rest of the world — but mainly to European economists.
A collaboration between Kraft and Intel has produced a machine that scans your face to predict what you might want to eat (or, more precisely, what it can sell you to eat).
New research from OkCupid, the research-focused dating site, finds that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. OkTrends assessed male perceptions of female attractiveness and found that “when some men think you’re ugly, other men are more likely to message you. And when some men think you’re cute, other men become less interested.”
Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University, offers some reading suggestions for fans of statistics (no, they are not as numerous as fans of, say, Harry Potter, but still …).
In stressful meetings, does coffee help or harm the situation? Lindsay St. Claire, Robert C. Hayward and Peter J. Rogers attempted to answer that question in a new study, which is summarized here by the BPS Research Digest: “For two men collaborating or negotiating under stressful circumstances, caffeine consumption was bad news, undermining their performance and confidence. By contrast, for pairs of women, drinking caffeine often had a beneficial effect on these same factors. The researchers can’t be sure, but they think the differential effect of caffeine on men and women may have to do with the fact that women tend to respond to stress in a collaborative, mutually protective style (known as ‘tend and befriend’) whereas men usually exhibit a fight or flight response.”
A new study out of England finds that, for heart-failure patients, being admitted to the general ward instead of the cardiology ward can mean death: “Half the patients were admitted to cardiology wards. Compared with those managed on general wards, they tended to be younger and were more likely to be men. Those admitted to general medical wards were twice as likely to die as those admitted to cardiology wards, even after taking account of other risk factors.”
Technology is supposed to improve outcomes and efficiency especially when it comes to “health-information technology” (HIT). But it’s not always that simple.
Might want to carry your Purell to the ATM from now on. A new study finds that the numeric keypads on London ATMs are as bacteria-contaminated as the seats of public restrooms.
In the latest issue of The Wilson Quarterly, there’s a “Crime and Punishment” section featuring Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig’s “Economist’s Guide to Crime-Busting” (gated), which considers the most “cost-effective way to control crime.” And Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution writes on one of his favorite topics: bounty hunting.
The Economist is running a forum on an interesting topic: Do economists need a code of conduct? The economists surveyed disagree on the merits of a code of conduct.
The economist Stephen T. Ziliak is also a haikuist. As he writes in Poetry magazine, using haiku helps add “feelings to economics.”
As you may have read on this blog, the economist Roland Fryer has done quite a bit of research on bribing kids — i.e., offering financial rewards for good grades. A new working paper from Josh Angrist, Philip Oreopoulos and Tyler Williams examines the effect of financial rewards on performance among an older cohort: college students.
The latest issue of The Economists’ Voice is a special issue on health care reform. David Cutler explains the economics of health reform, while Mark Duggan and Robert Kocher weigh in on health-insurance exchanges.
Freakonomics reader Jerrod Savage sends in a couple images that seem to show a rather unwholesome advertising strategy. (Don Draper certainly wouldn’t ever pull something like this.) What happens when you reduce the size of a container of Nesquik chocolate syrup by 33 percent? You also reduce the sugar content by 33 percent, magically creating a healthy, low-sugar alternative!
Ever wondered why so many prescription drug names are loaded with x’s and z’s? Scrabble gives a hint.
Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, authors of the new book Spousonomics, are seeking marital advice from economists on their blog.
It pays to be the dictator, but not as much when you have to explain yourself.
The Royal Society’s science journal Biology Letters has published a most unusual paper: it was researched and written by a group of children aged 8-10. Simply titled Blackawton Bees, it is the product of 25 U.K. students who worked with neuroscientists to collect data on whether bumblebees could be trained to learn which flowers to forage from by using color and pattern cues.
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