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Archive for May, 2011

The Least Radical Case for Happiness Economics

There’s a fascinating debate on happiness going on over at The Economist. Officially, the motion is that: “This house believes that new measures of economic and social progress are needed for the 21st-century economy.” My own contribution tries to discipline the grandiose rhetoric of both sides, concluding that:

[T]he benefits of new happiness data have surely been overstated. But we economists compare benefits with costs. Adding a couple of questions to existing surveys is so cheap that it almost certainly passes any cost-benefit analysis. And when the motion passes, we nerdy social scientists need to stop writing grandiose treatises and get back to the mundane grind of social science, mining these data for yet more incremental insight.

My full argument is available over the fold.


Comedian Turns Pledge-a-Picket Tactic on Westboro Baptist Church Protesters

Back in 2005, Levitt wrote about Planned Parenthood’s clever strategy in response to people picketing one of its clinics in Philadelphia. The tactic, known as Pledge-a-Picket, worked like this: for every protester that picketed the clinic, people pledged to donate a certain amount of money (minimum 10 cents). The event raised a reported $40,000, and is now a part of the clinic’s annual calendar.
At the time, Levitt predicted that abortion clinics around the country would soon adopt the approach. It turns out, so has comedian Lisa Lampenelli. The Daily What reports:


Volvo XC60: A New Green Machine? Not Exactly

I was recently traveling in Europe (including in Switzerland, where 87% of trains are less than 3 minutes late). While I was in Cambridge, England, my old friend and colleague David MacKay, who shares my antipathy to bad numbers, gave me a copy of a recent article in the UK journal Physics World (“Optoelectronics: a green explosion”, May 2011, p. 5 of the optics supplement). The article touted laser-based “green technologies,” including their use in reducing carbon-dioxide emissions:

Volvo’s Johnny Larson says it is possible to shave a few kilograms off the weight of a car’s metal frame by optimizing its design for a laser process. This has knocked up to 2 kg [4.4 lbs] off the XC60, and for every one of these models that clocks up 100,000 km [60,000 miles], 24 kg [53 lbs] of carbon-dioxide emissions will be saved.

So many numbers, so little meaning! Whenever I see so many numbers, I think of what Socrates might have said: “The uncompared number is not worth knowing.” Let’s start with the 2-kg weight reduction.


Will the NFL Lockout Lead to Increase in Crime?

In an interview with ESPN that aired over the weekend, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said that if the NFL lockout results in a lost season, crime rates will increase. “Watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game,” Lewis told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio.
Are Americans really so addicted to professional football that its absence will lead people to go on some kind of crime rampage? Or, is Lewis saying that it’s more of a distraction that keeps us occupied, and our violent tendencies sated? Better to watch Troy Polamalu knock a guy unconscious than doing it yourself. And if so, then why don’t crime rates increase once the season’s over?


Finally, I'm on Facebook

My publisher created a Facebook page for my soon-to-be-published book Beauty Pays. For the page to be effective, the Press told me that I had to add things; and in order to add things, I needed to sign up for Facebook. What to do?? My wife’s response, “Join the 21st century, Daniel.”
Being an obedient husband, I did so and just became the 500,000,000 and 1st Facebook enrollee. I’ve been on Linked-in for a while, but I doubt I’ll ever use it—so many more people are on Facebook. There are tremendous network externalities in social network sites—you want to be on the site with the most links to people with whom you want to be in touch. That is clearly Facebook. I’m not sure, though, that I like this aspect of the 21st century.


The Economic Part of Our Brains

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have conclusively identified a part of the brain that’s necessary for making everyday decisions about value. Previous magnetic imaging studies suggested that the ventromedial frontal cortex, or VMF, plays an evaluative role during decision-making. New research led by Joseph Kable, an assistant professor of psychology in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, shows that people with damaged VMF’s (victims of strokes, aneurysms, or brain tumors) are less able to choose things that are most valuable, and are also less consistent in their choices. The results were published in The Journal of Neuroscience.


Is the Idea of an Organ Market Losing Its Repugnance?

From a reader named Dmitry Mazin:

So I’m doing legalizing the organ market (selling your own organs only) for my speech class because I wanted to do something really repugnant and controversial.
Well, I passed out a survey to my class of about thirty people and two whole people were against this system. And this isn’t a progressive area — it’s in the Bible Belt of Southern California. Even Catholics were for it.
I think this corroborates that repugnance survey in the Freakonomics Radio episode “You Say Repugnant, I Say … Let’s Do It!”
So there you go.
Have a great day!

Hey, you have a great day too, Dmitry.
P.S.: I didn’t know there was a “Bible Belt of Southern California.” (Here’s a rare web cite about it; and here’s an earlier post called “We Pretend We Are Christians.”


Sexual Fidelity = Brand Loyalty?

Here’s an interesting piece from Yale Fox over at Darwinversusthemachine.com on how the fidelity we demonstrate in sexual relationships mimics the loyalty we have to brands.

Much research shows that if there are no consequences to cheating, or if we can get away with it, we are very likely to do so. However, brand conversion is more than having the user cheat on their product once. We want them to understand that they are trading up to the new brand. It’s always possible to convert someone to your brand permanently. This can be achieved if the right environmental pressures are in place to do so.


Our Daily Bleg: How to Get People More Interested in Disaster Preparedness (Without Freaking Them Out)?

In response to our call for blegs, a reader named Lisa Klink writes to ask your advice:

I just started a job at the Red Cross teaching preparedness education. The tough part is convincing people to take action: make an emergency kit, have an evacuation plan, etc. My question for your readers is: You already know that you should be prepared in case of disaster. What would prompt you to actually do it?

Great question. And not so easy. People like me spend a lot of time telling people like you that so many “disasters” they worry about are extremely unlikely. On the other hand:

    1. Disasters do happen
    2. They are often very costly on a number of dimensions
    3. That cost could presumably be curtailed by better preparedness, much of which is relatively cheap and easy

 
That said, you’re reading the words of a guy who lives in New York City, and who lived here during the 9/11 attack, and has two fairly young children, and still never thought it worthwhile to load up a “go bag” with Cipro and cash.


Did Princeton Prof's "Wedges" Theory Oversimplify Cutting Carbon Emissions?

In 2004, Princeton professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala introduced a strategy that made the large-scale reduction of carbon emissions actually seem feasible. Rather than looking for one big fix, their process, called stabilization wedges, broke the solution down into incremental pieces (increasing alternative energy, reducing energy use, improving efficiencies) that together could prevent billions of tons of new emissions over the next 50 years.
But in a new National Geographic article, Socolow is quoted saying that the wedges approach oversimplified the problem in the minds of many:


What to Make of the Unabomber Auction? And What Should I Do With My Own Unabomber Artifacts?

It seems so coincidental that I wonder if indeed it’s a coincidence: the FBI requests a DNA sample from Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. Unabomber, just as the government’s court-ordered auction of Kaczynski’s possessions gets underway (it closes on June 2). The FBI is still trying to solve the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, and Kaczynski is presumably a person of interest.
If nothing else, the news has brought a lot more attention to the auction. It can use it. As of this writing, most of the 58 items could be had for a few hundred dollars. Exceptions are Kaczynski’s Smith-Corona typewriter ($8,025) and his hand-written Manifesto ($16,025).


FREAK-est Links

Econ profs rank Levitt as their fourth favorite economist under the age of 60, The New York Public Library’s brilliant new iPad app, and more.


Why Can't Law Firms Go Public?

The personal injury law firm Jacoby & Meyers (known for its TV commercials) is suing to overturn state laws in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that prohibit non-attorneys from owning stakes in law firms. From The Wall Street Journal:

The firm, which has more than 60 lawyers and specializes in personal-injury cases, claims that the restrictions have hurt its ability to raise capital to cover technology and expansion costs, and have hampered it in providing affordable legal services to its working-class clients.
U.S. law firms typically are owned by their senior-most lawyers, called partners. The structure was designed to ensure that all the principals of the business were accountable for the firm’s work and that of their fellow partners.


Finally, the Gravy Train

I’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book “The Yale Book of Quotations” and my more recent researches.
Sam asked:

“gravy train”

Sam has been patiently asking about this over and over again, so here goes. Jonathon Green, in his magnificent, just-published Green’s Dictionary of Slang, has as its earliest citation for “gravy train” the following:


Baseball's Rainy Season

Major League Baseball is off to one of its wettest starts ever. The league came into this week having already postponed 26 games, which is 6 more than were washed out all of last season. According to Dailybaseballdata.com:

From 2006-2009, each season had from 33-38 rainouts. But 26 through mid-May puts us on a pace to wash out 100 games this year!

Today’s weather forecast and schedule looks to spell more rainouts.


What Will San Francisco Ban Next? How About Circumcisions

Last November, when San Francisco effectively banned McDonald’s Happy Meals, we wondered what it would try to ban next. The answer? Circumcisions. From the AP:

A group seeking to ban the circumcision of male children in San Francisco has succeeded in getting their controversial measure on the November ballot, meaning voters will be asked to weigh in on what until now has been a private family matter.
City elections officials confirmed Wednesday that the initiative had received enough signatures to appear on the ballot, getting more than 7,700 valid signatures from city residents. Initiatives must receive at least 7,168 signatures to qualify.
If the measure passes, circumcision would be prohibited among males under the age of 18. The practice would become a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail. There would be no religious exemptions.


SuperFreakonomics Paperback Drops Next Week

Next Tuesday, May 24, SuperFreakonomics will finally be published in paperback in the U.S. It has already sold more than half a million copies in hardcover in the U.S. (with more than 1 million sold worldwide), and the Illustrated Edition has gone bananas too. The paperback cover, as you can see here, is not much of a departure from the hardcover.
The book itself has some key additions: a 16-page color insert with illustrations, photos, etc. from the Illustrated Edition; an author Q&A (which you helped write); a transcript of the first Freakonomics Radio podcast (“The Dangers of Safety”); and a pair of essays by Levitt and Dubner about what their fathers taught them.
We should probably give away a bunch of copies of the new edition, yes?


Income Inequality: A Rising Tide Lifts All Yachts

Joe Stiglitz writes an excellent jeremiad on growing income inequality in the U.S in a recent issue ofVanity Fair. Most of what he said is factually correct, although claims about the average American being worse off (his claims, but more noisily those of various leftie groups) are simply wrong because of upward biases in inflation measures.
But so what? Comparisons matter, and it’s not just an issue of envy. Even though the average American is better off in real dollar terms than 20 years ago (despite our American national pastime of “bitching”), the concentration of economic power is growing most among a very few fragments of society. And, with the Supreme Court having handed the rich carte blanche to subsidize political candidates, the institutional framework for the economy can be changed in ways that disproportionately help the rich. Even though a rising tide may lift all boats, if giant yachts are lifted higher, the political backwash can make us paddlers of rowboats worse off!


Etsy for Economists

Economists may think there’s nothing for them on Etsy, the website that sells handmade and vintage arts and crafts items, usually made by grandmas or some overeducated Brooklyn mom. But they would be wrong. Dork out with these statistical distribution pillows: Log Distribution? Continuous Uniform? Even Chi-Square! It’s all here. And it also turns out, Normal Distribution makes a really good doorstop…
(HT: Flowing Data)


A Redhead Goes Smooth-Shaved; Life Improves

A reader named Mark Curry, who describes himself as a “cement truck driver trapped in the body of someone who does accounting-related work,” wrote to us about a brief passage in Freakonomics concerning our analysis of online-dating data:

The part about men with curly and/or red hair being a downer? “Downer” may be something of an understatement. As a young man I had red, curly, and sometimes, frizzy hair. My dad told me at age 13 or 14 that if I didn’t do something with it, I would never find out what sex is. I was devastated by his meanness. I consider myself very lucky to have found a woman who will tolerate my red hair. Now, married almost 18 years, a couple months ago I started shaving my head smooth, baby-ass, bald; does it feel good. Now, when I walk into an office, the bank, pick someplace, I don’t exactly have to ask people to stop undressing, but their receptiveness to me is noticeable. Although my wife and daughters are still getting used to my shaven head, at least a dozen ladies (that’s 10 women and two men) think my shaven head looks good on me.

I wonder if Telly Savalas was a redhead?


Why I'd Rather Shoot Myself in the Head than Ever Own a Home Again

I had only one friend on MySpace when I joined in 2005, Tom. In fact, everyone who joined MySpace was friends with Tom. He welcomed us all to our new cyber home and made us feel as comfortable as possible there. Tom is Tom Anderson, a co-founder of MySpace, and automatic friend to everyone who signed up.
So, through a strange set of circumstances and coincidences, Tom just emailed me. A great crime had been committed against me and Tom Anderson, my first friend on MySpace, wanted me to know about it.
Somebody had disagreed with me. Tom sent me a link to a site, realtytrac.com. He wrote me, “Btw, saw a rebuttal to your home-ownership article today that I thought you might be interested in:”


Do Musicians Have Better Brains?

A new study (abstract here; description here) proves what many of us already suspected: musicians have more highly-developed brains than the rest of us. The research relates to the concept of high mind development, which is basically the potential to become really good at something.

New research shows that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.


Disney's Stealthy "Seal Team Six" Trademark Move

On May 1st, Seal Team Six killed Osama bin Laden. On May 3rd, the Walt Disney Company—usually known for animated films about princesses and singing bears–applied for a trademark on the term “Seal Team Six.”
The standard economic rationale for trademark law is that trademarks reduce search costs for consumers. Think about a trip to buy new running sneakers. There may be dozens of pairs on the shelves of your local store. And many hundreds more online. How do you choose?


Why Can't You Buy a Big Bottle of Headache Pills in England?

Last time I was in London I had a headache, and went to the nearest Boots to buy something for it.
In U.S. drugstores, I’m accustomed to finding half an aisle devoted to headache pills, with bottles ranging from small to very large — at least 200 pills in them. So that’s what I went looking for in Boots, but no such bottle was to be found. The only options were cardboard packets containing maybe 20 pills, with each pill in its own blister packet. (The pills were also larger than U.S. pills.) Hmm, I thought. I guess Boots finds it can charge a lot for a small amount of headache medicine since most people, when they have a headache, aren’t very price-conscious.
But I recently learned the real reason for this phenomenon while interviewing David Lester, a psychologist at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey who is the dean of suicide (and death) research. (We are producing an hour-long Freakonomics Radio special on suicide.) We were discussing the efficacy of SSRI’s on treating depression (and fighting suicide) when he explained why it’s hard to find a big bottle of headache pills in England:


The Neuroscience Behind Sexual Desire: Authors of A Billion Wicked Thoughts Answer Your Questions

On May 5, we asked readers to submit questions for Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, authors of the recent book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire.
The response was, well… passionate. Many of the comments expressed anger over the authors’ research and resulting book. While some readers called into question the validity of their methodology, others complained that some of the terms they use in their book (“MILF,” e.g., and “Shemale”) were derogatory and insensitive. In the end, one thing was clear: when it comes to sex research, people tend to have strong opinions.
Now, Ogas and Gaddam respond, first with an opening summary of their methodology and results, and then with detailed responses to some of your questions.


A Book I Was Proud to Blurb: Unnatural Selection

The subtitle is Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. The book is forthcoming, and the author is Mara Hvistendahl, who was a very good research assistant of mine some years back. Mara transcribed many hours of interview tape with an economist named Steve Levitt for a profile I was writing. She has become an excellent reporter and writer; here’s my blurb:

“Yes, it’s a rigorous exploration of the world’s ‘missing women,’ but it’s more than that, too: an extraordinarily vivid look at the implications of the problem. Hvistendahl writes beautifully, with an eye for detail but also the big picture. She has a fierce intelligence but, more important, a fierce intellectual independence; she writes with a hard edge but no venom — rather, a cool and hard passion.”


Where Are the Big-Homicide Cities?

Perhaps not where you think. A new Centers for Disease Control report is out: “Violence-Related Firearm Deaths Among Residents of Metropolitan Areas and Cities — United States, 2006-2007.” Notable patterns by geographic region were observed. All-ages firearm homicide rates generally were higher for MSAs in the Midwest (seven of 10 above the median MSA rate of 5.4 [per 100,000 inhabitants]) . . .


Lessons in Adaptation: Winning the War in Iraq, A Guest Post by Tim Harford

Here is another guest post on failure from author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford, from his new book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure. In his first post, Harford wrote about why failure is often the mark of a healthy economy. Here, Harford writes about the process by which the U.S. military slowly learned from its early failures in the Iraq War. Hint: good ideas often come from the bottom and work their way up the chain of command.
Lessons in Adaptation: Winning the War in Iraq
By Tim Harford
In the spring of 1980, President Jimmy Carter gave the go-ahead for a daring special-operations mission called Eagle Claw. Fifty-two American hostages had been trapped for months in Tehran under a newly hostile revolutionary government, and negotiations appeared to have broken down. The operation called for helicopters and refueling aircraft to fly into the Iranian desert at night, under the radar screen, rendezvous in the middle of nowhere, refuel, and hide during the daylight hours.


The Morality of Economists

L’affaire Strauss-Kahn underscores my view that we economists are as immoral—but also as principled—as any other professionals. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that; but I now know of, or even know personally, economists who have engaged in sexual assault, embezzlement, murder and, of course, clearly immoral acts that are not criminal.
Yet it is also true that we are as generous as any other group. As Yezer, Goldfarb and Poppen showed in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1996, learning economics makes you no less charitable in your actions (although not in what you profess) than does studying any other discipline. And each of us can recount instances of personal charity and sacrifice by well-known economists, often on behalf of younger, less well-known colleagues.
As with so many other pairs of individual characteristics, the correlation between morality and, in this case, occupational choice is very low.