Yesterday, I posted about the conclusions that Eric Bradlow, Shane Jensen, Adi Wyner, and I drew from analyzing Roger Clemens‘s career statistics. I thought that it might be useful to show how we got from the findings in the Clemens Report (exonerating him), to our somewhat opposite conclusions. So for budding forensic economists, here is a step-by-step guide, with pictures. . . .
Sports fans will probably be aware that Roger Clemens is currently before Congress, arguing that the Mitchell Report wrongly tagged him as having used performance-enhancing drugs. And last week, his agents released the “Clemens Report,” arguing that his career statistics somehow exonerate him. The full marketing spin is available here. I was interested in understanding how they could “prove” his . . .
I have heard from plenty of nervous friends around the country, anticipating the results from Super Tuesday. Truth is, I haven’t a clue who will win. But I thought it worth offering up my own forecast: My key forecast for tonight is that the televised pundits will reveal all sorts of confusion. Tracking results across more than twenty states, and . . .
A fun game to watch yesterday, with the Giants winning 17-14 over the Pats. More to the point, a clear victory for Steve Levitt, whose advice to punters was to take the “under.” A total of 31 points were scored, well below the 54.5 point “line” in Vegas. Congrats to all who followed Steve’s Freako-tip. Ian Ayres‘ successful tip was . . .
The Patriots are playing the Giants in Sunday’s Super Bowl. I thought it would be fun to put together a short Super Bowl preview. I’ll go first (Justin Wolfers): Cheering for: The Patriots. My first four years in the U.S. were spent in Boston, and that’s where I learned to love the sport that you guys call football. If it . . .
One of the really fun innovations in this election cycle is the extent to which the speech of the candidates has now become grist for statistical analysis. For instance, the Times’ “Caucus” blog reports that Reagan’s name was invoked 53 times last night, and by this measure Romney beat McCain 19 to 12. The Times has now set up a . . .
There’s been plenty of talk in recent weeks that a recession is coming (or that we are already in recession). Indeed, the latest reading from InTrade.com suggests that there is about a 70 percent chance of a recession – defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth – in 2008. It is an interesting story, but today’s pessimism does . . .
When I tell my non-economist friends that I do research on the “economics of the family,” they often look puzzled. (The funniest response comes from those who think that this is the same as “home economics“; as Betsey Stevenson will tell you, I surely would have failed home ec.) But Tim Harford is a lifesaver, and his new book provides . . .
A few days ago, Levitt blogged about an interesting study finding that violent movies reduce crime (at least in the short run). The reason, according to the study’s authors, Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna, is simply that more violent movies means fewer drunken louts on the streets. It is simply an incapacitation effect. One way of testing this hypothesis would . . .
In my last post, I promised to say a bit more about prediction markets at Google. Google has been running internal prediction markets for a couple of years, and Eric Zitzewitz and I were fortunate enough to team up with Google whiz Bo Cowgill to analyze these markets. Ask any economist about the “theory of the firm” (what firms do . . .
A few observations about last night’s surprise result in the New Hampshire primary. Let me draw on the thoughts outlined in my column for the Wall Street Journal. First, red faces all around for the political prognosticators: Judging by the pre-vote polls and prediction markets, the Democratic primary in New Hampshire created one of the most surprising upsets in U.S. . . .
I have been looking forward to seeing the resurrection of serious political coverage, and finally The Colbert Report returned to the air last night. And it was a wonderful surprise to see Richard Freeman — who taught me labor economics at Harvard — as a guest on the show, explaining what unions do. A topical guest, in light of the . . .
Here’s the second installment from our newest guest poster, Justin Wolfers. His first post can be found here. This weekend is the annual gabfest of the American Economic Association, running in New Orleans from Thursday through Sunday. It’s an econ-stravaganza, with dozens of parallel sessions running on just about every topic (the full program is here). For the past few . . .
In recent days, we’ve introduced a pair of regular guest bloggers, Ian Ayres and Sudhir Venkatesh. We are happy and proud to now introduce a third, a terrific addition and no stranger to readers of this blog: Justin Wolfers, an economist at Wharton and a great explorer of everything from racial bias in N.B.A. refereeing to the decline in women’s . . .
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