The FCC seems to have taken note of the Department of Education’s controversial Race to the Top program.
What happens to eating habits in the face of unemployment? Nothing good, according to a new working paper by Dhaval M. Dave and Inas Rashad Kelly.
From the SuperFreakonomics chapter on altruism: “Americans in particular are famously generous, donating about $300 billion a year to charity, more than 2 percent of the nation’s GDP.” That said, the conventional wisdom seems to hold that Americans are outclassed by our neighbors to the north.
Like great and inventive dishes, creative cocktails are often copied by others — sometimes as overt homage, but often simply because they are great. Can cocktails be protected from copying? Some bartenders are trying to use aspects of IP law to protect their liquid creations.
If you’re looking for ways to expose your kids to economics at an early age, Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, director of the Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children, has some suggestions. They are mostly picture books, geared toward children ages five to ten.
A new RAND study of captured documents from al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) reveals some interesting facts about the organization. It found that “AQI was a hierarchical organization with decentralized decisionmaking; AQI in Anbar was profitable enough to send substantial revenues out of the province in 2006; AQI relied on extortion, theft, and black market sales to fund its operations in Anbar; AQI needed large, regular revenue sources to fund its operations, but its administrative leaders did not hold much cash on hand.”
Death by fire has declined significantly over the past 100 years, but there’s one surprising policy that may actually increase the prevalence of fires: smoking restrictions and bans.
It seems that Freakonomics readers aren’t the only people with lotteries on the brain. In the Harvard Business Review, Steve Martin and Paul Dolan have suggested a different kind of lottery for taxpayers.
Joe Clark, who has previously written about women’s hockey, took a look at the myths surrounding gay and lesbian income statistics. Interestingly, Clark found that “[g]ay males earn less than straight males, often much less. Meanwhile, lesbians earn more than straight females.”
The Miami Heat has been on fire lately, with a 10-game winning streak. This was how things were supposed to go when the team put together its holy WadeBoshJames trinity, but the season didn’t start out so well.
While corruption is traditionally difficult to measure, the BBC reports that corruption worldwide may be rising. The article examines results from Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer, which surveyed 90,000 people in 86 countries, and a BBC poll of 13,000 people in 26 countries.
Annie Duke, the professional poker player and Rock Paper Scissors tournament winner, has a new internet show. A recent episode included appearances by Rafe Furst and Jason Calcanis, discussing privacy and responsible journalism in the face of the recent WikiLeaks scandals.
Tamara Audi and Arlene Chang of the Wall Street Journal dissect the global baby industry, which is growing thanks to increasingly restrictive international adoption laws.
Google’s recent reported $6 billion bid for Groupon — rebuffed, for now — took observers by surprise and worried the company’s investors. James Surowiecki analyzes the deal and Groupon’s business model.
A number of Freakonomics readers have alerted us to yet another novel lottery idea. As Wired reports, Kevin Richardson won Volkswagen’s Fun Theory contest for his idea.
What’s a more effective development intervention when it comes to raising income: Microfinance? Deworming? Conditional cash transfer programs? None of them work as well as New Zealand’s new seasonal worker program, which John Gibson and David McKenzie evaluate in a new paper.
We applaud their choice.
Cathal Morrow, who’s in the midst of a year without unhappiness following his year without lying, has a new project: “Me Me Me Plc, a company he plans to float on the London Stock Exchange by selling shares in himself. It’s ?10 a share, which gets you a photograph of Cathal in lieu of a share certificate.”
A few years ago, Wharton economist and Freakonomics contributor Justin Wolfers, along with co-author Joseph Price, published a paper alleging implicit bias among NBA referees. The paper kicked up a strong controversy, prompting fierce denials from the NBA. With this month’s publication of the paper in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Henry Abbott revisits both the paper’s conclusions and the NBA’s response.
Two economists from the University of Toronto have taken a closer look at who uses Twitter in the U.S. Congress. While generating followers is an obvious motivation for politicians to tweet, Feng Chi and Nathan Yang found that geography and party lines play a part too.
Maxim Pinkovskiy and Xavier Sala-i-Martin comment on African poverty, disputing the popular view that African growth is driven only by oil and natural resources.
Truth on the Market is hosting an online forum on behavioral law and economics, the “Free to Choose?” symposium. So far, people like David Levine, Ronald Mann and Christopher Sprigman have taken their turns.
What’s a big-enough incentive for an Ivy League student to allegedly start selling narcotics? The best people to answer that question would seem to be Chris Coles, Harrison David, Adam Klein, Jose Stephan Perez, and Michael Wymbs, five Columbia University students who were busted yesterday for being part of a campus drug ring.
James Alcock of The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry responds to Cornell professor Darryl Bern’s controversial recent research on psi effects.
An E.R. doctor in the Pacific Northwest who writes a blog called “Movin’ Meat” might seem an unlikely candidate to know the economics of street drugs. But since he treats overdoses, he’s learned a bit.
What happens if and when Siberia’s permafrost melts away? Behold the release of methane.
The phrase “OK” is everywhere, but where did it get its start? A new book tackles its history.
Cornell psychology professor Daryl Bem has demonstrated “numerous ‘retroactive’ psi effects – that is, phenomena that are inexplicable according to current scientific knowledge” among hundreds of Cornell students.
It’s that time of year again – ChristmaHanuKwanzaa, that is – and if you’re reading this blog, there’s an obvious gift to be thinking about: the new illustrated edition of SuperFreakonomics. It will not fit in a stocking (it is quite large – a “coffee-table book,” some people call it), but otherwise it is giftable to the max.
The engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton has thrilled tabloid newspapers around the world, but the effects may be more far-reaching than you realize.
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