China’s growing middle class is already being blamed for driving up wine prices. Now there may a bubble brewing in another Chinese market: stamps.
How important is school accountability to school performance? According to a new study, the answer is: very.
Ian Ayres has long advocated the use of commitment contracts in achieving dieting and weight loss goals. Alan M Garber and Jeremy D Goldhaber-Fieber write about their research on commitment contracts and exercise.
In celebration of its 100-year anniversary, the American Economic Review asked six “eminent economists” (Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow) to select the journal’s top 20 papers ever published.
While arcades in the U.S. (and most of the rest of the world) are fading, they’re still strong in Japan. Why? According to Mark Cerny, an arcade gaming expert, it has to do with currency.
A new study finds that drug use in Britain is declining amount young adults: “According to figures released by the NHS in January, based on data from the British Crime Survey, the number of adults in England and Wales who used illicit substances in 2009-10 – 8.6% – was the lowest recorded since the study began in 1996. Among 16-24-year-olds, the picture was the same, with just 20% saying they had taken drugs in the previous year – another record low, and a third lower than the proportion 15 years ago.”
Cholera, long considered “a disease of filth carried in sewage,” is a little more complicated than that, writes the science journalist Sonia Shah. “[R]esearch on cholera’s natural habitat and links to the climate have revealed a revolutionary new understanding of the disease as one shaped just as much by environment, hydrology, and weather patterns as by poor sanitation,” writes Shah. “And as temperatures continue to rise this century, cholera outbreaks may become increasingly common, with the bacteria growing more rapidly in warmer waters.”
A new study finds that parents in newer, “frontier” states choose less-common baby names than parents in older states (like the original 13). “In New England states, more babies were given the most popular boys’ and girls’ names than they were in frontier states – those in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest. Statistical analyses showed the longer ago a state had achieved statehood, the more likely it was to have a higher percentage of people with one of the top 10 most popular baby names. The results held even after the researchers accounted for other factors that might impact baby-name choices, including population density, ethnicity of a state and median income.”
Last week, Michigan’s Save-to-Win program, the sort of “no-lose lottery” we discussed in a two-part podcast, announced its second winner. Charmain Hanners of Alpena Alcona Area Credit Union is this year’s lucky winner of $100,000.
Dean Karlan is a professor of economics at Yale; president and founder of Innovations for Poverty Action; a research fellow at the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab; and co-author, with Jacob Appel, of More Than Good Intentions. He’s guest-blogging for us about charitable giving. This week, he writes about Swipegood.
In this week’s New Yorker, John Cassidy asks whether Islam may be to blame for slow economic growth in the Arab world.
We’ve addressed the rent-splitting problem before. Now, Harvard astrophysics grad student Jonathan Bittner is seeking to solve the problem with a rent calculator to help roommates approximate fair prices in this “market.”
Watson may have triumphed at Jeopardy!, but Brian Christian examines computer intelligence more closely in the Atlantic. Christian recently participated in the Turing Test: “I will sit down at a computer and have a series of five-minute instant-message chats with several strangers. At the other end of these chats will be a psychologist, a linguist, a computer scientist, and the host of a popular British technology show. Together they form a judging panel, evaluating my ability to do one of the strangest things I’ve ever been asked to do. I must convince them that I’m human.”
Obesity is far from just an American problem. These nifty maps from the Economist display average BMI for males around the world in 1980 and 2008, and the percentage change.
The IBM supercomputer named Watson has beaten two Jeopardy! champions in a three-night marathon. The computer was awarded a $1 million prize, but the BBC reports that “the victory for Watson and IBM was about more than money. It was about ushering in a new era in computing where machines will increasingly be able to learn and understand what humans are really asking them for. Jeopardy is seen as a significant challenge for Watson because of the show’s rapid-fire format and clues that rely on subtle meanings, puns, and riddles; something humans excel at and computers do not.”
Kal Raustiala, a professor at UCLA Law School and the UCLA International Institute, and Chris Sprigman, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, are experts in counterfeiting and intellectual property. They have been guest-blogging for us about copyright issues. This week, they write about a recent Jeff Koons controversy.
Ordering your significant other to ignore the attractive person at the next table might backfire, according to a new study.
How much would you pay to avoid regrets? A new study (gated) by psychologists Niels van de Ven and Marcel Zeelenberg finds that people are willing to forgo direct benefits in order to avoid regrets.
Martin Ravallion of the World Bank traces poverty awareness over the last three centuries and finds we may be at a historical peak.
How do great entrepreneurs think? That’s the question that Saras Sarasvathy set out to answer in a recent study.
The Roman Catholic Church, which hasn’t always seen face-to-face with modernity, has embraced at least one product of the digital age. The BBC reports that senior officials in the Church in the U.S. and the U.K. have approved a Confession iPhone app.
“Emotions have historically received a bum rap from decision researchers” write economists John Ifcher and Homa Zarghamee. In a forthcoming paper called Happiness and Time Preference: The Effect of Positive Affect in a Random-Assignment Experiment, they address the tricky and oft-ignored role of emotion in decision-making.
A lot of people who join gyms or health clubs find it very easy to stop going. Gym-Pact, a new program in Boston, aims to change that. “Gym-Pact offers what [co-founder Yifan] Zhang calls motivational fees: customers agree to pay more if they miss their scheduled workouts, literally buying into a financial penalty if they don’t stick to their fitness plans,” explains Susan Johnston of The Boston Globe.
What’s behind Germany’s economic success? It’s not a wirtschaftswunder; The Economist explains.
In Wired, Jonah Lehrer profiles Mohan Srivastava, a Toronto statistician who seemingly cracked the scratch-lottery ticket code. “The tic-tac-toe lottery was seriously flawed,” writes Lehrer. “It took a few hours of studying his tickets and some statistical sleuthing, but he discovered a defect in the game: The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating. Nothing needed to be scratched off-the ticket could be cracked if you knew the secret code.”
How far will a degree from an elite college get you? Only in the door, says a new study of Israeli grads.
Busy fathers, pay attention: a new study finds that if your kids think you’re not spending enough time with them, they’re more likely to exhibit bullying behavior at school.
The Brooking Institution’s Hamilton Project has announced a competition to “identify new and innovative thinking about policies to create jobs in the United States and enhance productivity.” The contest winner will receive a $15,000 prize, while the runners-up will share $10,000.
Does bribing kids work? The debate rages on, although Levitt has done it effectively on at least one occasion. A new study (summarized by the BPS Research Digest) suggests that bribery can work wonders, at least when it comes to vegetables.
A new study called “Apocalypse Soon?” by the psychologists Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer (summarized by the BPS Research Digest) finds that, for people who implicitly believe the world is fair, dire warnings about climate change may make them more skeptical about the concept.
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