The answer is, that just like real estate agents and their clients, our incentives as authors are not perfectly aligned with the incentives of our publisher, William Morrow. As a consequence, we take actions that benefit ourselves and screw the publisher, just like real estate agents screw their clients. Every extra copy of Freakonomics that is sold earns the publishers . . .
On the surface, not much. The Kansas City Royals have lost 19 straight games and are threatening to break the all-time record for futility in major league baseball. My iPod, on the other hand, has quickly become one of my most beloved material possessions. So what do they have in common? They both can teach us a lesson about randomness. . . .
It’s true that we’ve discussed in this very space the futility of a single vote. But when that single vote is going toward you (or, more precisely, a book you’ve written) — well hell, there’s no such thing as a futile vote. As it turns out, Freakonomics has been nominated for the inaugural Quill Awards. Described as a “new book . . .
Here’s what I wrote a few weeks ago, just as we embarked on a short California book tour: Earlier in this space we asked if book ads work; now we are led to the next obvious question: how about the author’s tour? Can it possibly be worth all the money and time it takes to fly two people across the . . .
The last stop on our recent California tour was at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Ca. This appearance had come about kind of casually, so we hadn’t thought about it much beforehand. The Google folks asked us to blog about our impressions, to be posted on the Google blog, and we did. Here’s what we had to say. To: All . . .
If you believe a recent study, a good guess is 25%. At least that is the estimate for American adults overall. And over a lifetime, an estimated 46% of Americans will suffer from mental illness. There is an interesting post on the “Done as a Society” blog that applies Freakonomics-type thinking to this result. Some thoughts: 1) When I entered . . .
It’s been a busy few weeks, a combination of deadlines and vacation and various Freakonomics duties. So there are a variety of things that should be said on this here blog that haven’t yet been said. With any luck I’ll soon get caught up. Topics in the very near future will include: — Freakonomics is a finalist in the first . . .
The American Beverage Association has just announced its recommendation that elementary schools no longer sell soda pop in vending machines. “Childhood obesity is a real problem,” ABA president and CEO Susan Neely told the Associated Press. (Here is the A.P. article in USA Today.) “The individual companies [represented by the ABA] have been doing several things to be part of . . .
Our last Freakonomics column was about the indirect approach that Roland Fryer, Paul Heaton, Kevin Murphy, and I used to try to measure crack cocaine use across places and over time in U.S. cities and states. Read all about it here. Some researchers in Italy took a very different, very bizarre approach, as discussed in a British newspaper article reprinted . . .
I wasn’t trying to be pejorative in my last post when I said that in China/Hong Kong there are five people doing the job one American would typically do. I didn’t mean that the five Chinese workers necessarily did no better than the one American worker, it was more a statement about how workers are allocated. At our hotel in . . .
At the Hong Kong airport, you are required to pass through an area that uses some sort of technology to detect body temperature. If you have a very high fever, they pounce on you and presumably quarantine you because of fear of SARS. I adopted my daughter Sophie from China. She had two defining traits when we first adopted her. . . .
I’ve long felt like a flu epidemic is one of the biggest external threats to the U.S. right now when measured in expected lives lost over the next ten years. Reading John Barry’s book “The Great Influenza” is very sobering, but worthwhile. It sounds crazy, but on the long list of things I’d like to do that I never get . . .
In the August 7, 2005, Freakonomics column in the New York Times Magazine, Dubner and Levitt ask a simple question: Whatever happened to crack cocaine? Crack was the scourge of the 1980’s, leading to endless misery and violence. Today, it is rarely mentioned in the news media. Does that mean that crack has vanished? This blog post supplies additional research material.
That’s the headline of our newest New York Times Magazine column, to be published on Sunday, Aug. 7. Click here for a preview.
I know, I know, I know: Wikipedia is one of the wonders of the online world. I hear this regularly, especially from young journalist friends and also in e-mails concerning Freakonomics. A casual mention in our book concerning the derivation of the Chicago Black Sox’ nickname began a debate chronicled here, a debate in which participants regularly cited the Wikipedia . . .
If you were not fortunate enough to win a Freako t-shirt in the giveaway, they are now available for sale through our friends at yarnzilla.com. Click here for the link. On the way, we are told, are Freakonomics baseballs hats, mugs, and pocket protectors. (Just for the sake of full disclosure, Yarnzilla.com is run by Linda Jines. If you memorized . . .
We received this e-mail message today, from Klan buster Stetson Kennedy’s assistant: Thought you’d be proud to know that Stetson is reading your book every night as he soaks in the tub. Not all books he reads have the honor of being a “tub read.” Stetson turns 89 in early October. His website, well worth a visit, can be found . . .
Last week, we went to California. Our publisher, William Morrow/HarperCollins, had determined that Freakonomics wasn’t selling as well there as elsewhere. It may have been a simple case of late adoption — Levitt and I are based in Chicago and New York, respectively, two cities where the book started strong — but Harper was taking no chances. (For the record, . . .
In light of earlier discussions here about Amazon reviewers, here’s a lovely little story out of Hollywood about fake movie reviews.
A question for the baseball experts: has any team in history ever been as bad as the A’s were early in the season and done as well as they are doing now? It has been an amazing run. Interestingly, the market at tradesports is still giving the A’s no respect. The bid-ask spread on total wins this season for the . . .
First, let me start by saying that we know we have been remiss about posting on the blog. Tomorrow, there will be a blow-by-blow account of our California trip. Until then, let me just throw out a little something. I was shocked to hear that Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. declared bankruptcy. Not because I’m surprised that the number of people on . . .
I’ve flown first class exactly twice in the last five years. The first time was right after 9/11. At the time I was struck by how ludicrous it is that they provided metal forks and spoons, but plastic knives. The idea was that terrorists would take over the plane using metal table knives (perhaps in combination with the nail clippers . . .
Levitt and I both arrived in Los Angeles late last night after nearly identical flight plans: 90 min. on the ground at our originating airports (JFK for me, O’Hare for Levitt). But no security trouble this time. I had the good fortune to be reading an early copy of The Search, by John Battelle, which primarily tells the history of . . .
Thomas Bzik sent us this interesting letter, which he also submitted to NY Times magazine, but they did not publish. We have no idea about the accuracy of the factual claims made in his letter, but I see no reason why he would make them up: ——– Subject: Child Safety Seats FYI, My first professional job as a statistician was . . .
In the “Letters” section of today’s New York Times Sunday magazine, a letter by two doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia criticizes our piece on car seats vs seat belts: As pediatricians, scientists and leaders of the world’s largest study on children in crashes, we think that overinterpretation of findings from a single source of data led Stephen J. . . .
In response to our last post, a reader named “A” pointed us towards an interesting article about Newt Gingrich’s second career as an amazon reviewer. Gingrich cracked the coveted “top 500 reviewer” rank in 2004, but has now slipped to #599. Gingrich abruptly stopped reviewing in December 2004. I guess we will never get to know his opinion on Freakonomics. . . .
I can understand why little-known authors and their friends post reviews of their own books at amazon. Judy Chevalier has a paper that finds that good online reviews sell a surprising number of books. (A bad review suppresses sales even more than a good review boosts sales, which also makes sense.) More puzzling to me is why everyday people post . . .
Dubner went solo on the Today Show this morning. Levitt, who still can’t quite get his head around flying halfway across the country to do a four minute interview, was off at a water park in Wisconsin with his wife and kids, which luckily was a good enough excuse to miss the interview. If you weren’t on the East Coast, . . .
A number of readers, in light of our recent column on car seats vs. seat belts for kids, have asked my views on seat belts and air bags for adults. So let me ask you a question: if you could only have one or the other, would you go for the seat belt or the air bag. It turns out . . .
To all the Billy Beane fans I offended earlier this season: I have noticed that the A’s are now three games above .500. I’m too busy with other stuff to even try to say something intelligent about baseball right now. Plus my fragile psyche can’t take anymore of the kind of abuse that baseball fans hand out.