We blogged earlier about how online buzz for Snakes on a Plane failed to translate into box-office success — in part because the buzz was perhaps manufactured. That film was released by New Line. Now comes word that Fox, the studio that released Borat, was scared off by what happened to Snakes. And so, while Borat also had gigantic pre-release . . .
I love Aaron Sorkin’s new show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. But it’s not doing so great ratings-wise. That’s what led to reports like this one, calling its cancellation “imminent.” Happily for me and about 7.7 million other people, however, NBC has ordered up nine more episodes, which means that the show (which is very expensive to produce) will . . .
Here’s an interesting article from Reuters about how Israel is trying to overcome a perceived religious objection to organ donation. (We’ve blogged previously about organ transplants in Israel here, and written on the subject in general here and here and here). One quibble with the Reuters article, an example of journalistic innumeracy (or, worse, journalistic obfuscation), which reads like this: . . .
Is it just me, or does it seem that the failure of the abortion-ban referendum in South Dakota hasn’t gotten much attention? It’s certainly understandable why, what with the Democratic blowout, the Rumsfeld throwout, and a million other pieces of election interest. But still, take a look at this N.Y. Times election post-mortem: you have to get to the fifth . . .
I’m happy to announce that my first book, a family memoir called Turbulent Souls, has just been republished by HarperCollins. It’s got a new cover, a new essay in the back, and even a new title, Choosing My Religion. The success of Freakonomics has made me grateful on many levels. But one of the best results is that my earlier . . .
Have you ever been to a funeral or memorial service where someone stands up and trashes the deceased? It’s often a subtle or left-handed insult, but it sticks out like a black rose in a field of white ones. My reaction to such comments is probably typical: part of me applauds their honesty; and another part of me is saddened . . .
A lot of people today are voting, and a lot of people are not voting, and a lot of other people are wondering if their vote matters in the least. Here is what we wrote on the subject last year. If it is indeed irrational to vote, as many economists believe, then instead of mourning low voter turnout, perhaps we . . .
Maira Kalman is one of my favorite living artists, and also a friend (though she was a favorite artist before we became friends). Her children’s books are extraordinary (Next Stop, Grand Central is a great piece of kids’ non-fiction), as is her product design (her multi-lingual building blocks, not pictured, are great), though she is probably most famous for her . . .
I try to keep up with the current economics literature, which means reading quite a few papers and a whole lot of abstracts. Most of the literature isn’t very interesting or meaningful to me (this is simply a matter of preference); and some of it might be interesting or meaningful but I am unable to tell. Why? Because the language . . .
There was an article in the N.Y. Times a few weeks back (“A Pro-Business City Policy Backfires on a Few,” Terry Pristin, Oct. 11, 2006) about a big real-estate deal in an industrial section of Brooklyn that will seriously raise the rents on a couple dozen businesses there. As a real-estate article, it was pretty standard fare. But one detail . . .
Our latest column in the N.Y. Times Magazine is about the weather. Exciting, huh? Specifically, it’s about how some economists are studying the weather itself (particularly the potential impact of global warming) and how others use weather as an instrumental variable to measure various human behaviors, including crime, war, rioting, etc. This column is more of a review of the . . .
An interesting article by Steven Lee Meyers in the N.Y. Times says that there are more than 60 casinos in Moscow. According to the World Casino Directory, this is more than any other city in the world except for Las Vegas and Miami (where most of the casinos are on cruise ships). But Vladimir Putin, who is “the only political . . .
An economics student in Portugal, who grew up in Angola, recently wrote to say he was disappointed that we’ve never written anything about Africa. He is right. But, I told him, in our upcoming N.Y. Times Magazine column (due out Nov. 5), there is a short but intriguing bit about the causes of civil war in African countries. He wrote . . .
This new United Nations report makes it clear that in many countries around the world, being a woman is dangerous to your health, to say nothing of your future prospects or pursuit of happiness. From the executive summary: “The roots of violence against women lie in historically unequal power relations between men and women and pervasive discrimination against women in . . .
In response to yesterday’s post about declining newspaper circulation, there was a reader comment that surprised me: I think The N.Y. Times and Washington Post websites are great (although I don’t pay for “Times Select” but I do think that their site has the best presentation, appearance-wise). I always try and remember to click on the ad banners once in . . .
For the past several years, newspapers have been reporting on their own circulation declines with a strange degree of intensity. They write prominent, mournful, self-flagellating stories of their own decline that remind me of a friend who used to sniff his own underarm when he knew it was particularly randy. Every six months, when the circulation figures are reported, a . . .
Tara Parker-Pope wrote about a really interesting-sounding health website in today’s Wall Street Journal, called YourDiseaseRisk.com. I say “interesting-sounding” because the site has been so deluged with traffic since this morning’s article that it is inaccessible at the moment. But I, along with a lot of other people, am eager to check it out. It is run by the Harvard . . .
I blogged just a few minutes ago about a purported causal link between sports and crime. Now comes word that according to the latest F.B.I. statistics, the most dangerous city in America is St. Louis, and No. 2 is Detroit. Those cities are, of course, home to the recent World Series-winning Cardinals and the runner-up Tigers. So is a high . . .
That is the argument of Sebastien Roche, a French political scientist. In writing about the French riots last year, Roche has challenged the conventional wisdom that sports provide a good outlet for young men and perhaps keeps them out of trouble. To the contrary, Roche contends, “the practice of sport never reduces the number of crimes” and, furthermore, sports can . . .
At least in Canada, that is. According to this CBC News report, clerks who sell lottery tickets are either really, really, really lucky or they steal winning tickets from their elderly customers. Who had the very clever thought of measuring the winning rate of lottery clerks? That would be Jeffrey Rosenthal, a statistician at the University of Toronto. I’ve read . . .
I love a good quotation as much if not more than the next guy. But whenever I dig deeply into who really said what, a lot of the quotations are either made up entirely or misattributed. (Was it really Stella Adler, for instance, who upon entering a theater had a younger, prettier woman open the door for her and say . . .
Jane Pauley was interviewed by a person who, according to this lawsuit, claimed to be a N.Y. Times reporter. The interview concerned Pauley’s history with mental illness, and as she understood it, was meant for an article that would appear in the N.Y. Times Magazine. But in fact the article appeared in an advertising supplement of the Times Magazine. To . . .
Who doesn’t love a good prediction market? The Economist does and so does Wired — and we certainly do too, as evidenced here and here. Here is a new blog about prediction markets and here is the famous Iowa Electronic Market, which will be a very busy place as the upcoming elections unfold. And who doesn’t love a good poker . . .
I’ve always wished that the show would use a comma, as I did above, but I guess commas don’t play on TV. Anyway … I am scheduled to go on GMA tomorrow (Thursday) to talk about a couple of Freakonomics matters. I must say, I really enjoy doing these GMA segments, mostly because it means sitting down for a few . . .
The William Wrigley Jr. Co., which sells mostly chewing gum, named a new CEO yesterday, and in at least one significant way he is different from every CEO that Wrigley has ever had: he is not a Wrigley. The new CEO is William D. Perez, who has also run S.C. Johnson & Co. (another family company) and, for a short . . .
A few months back, I wrote a blog post called Is America Ready for an Organ Donor Market?, and my answer was “probably not.” (The post was inspired by a pair of OpEds, one by Sally Satel in the N.Y. Times and one by Richard Epstein in the Wall Street Journal.) We subsequently wrote a N.Y. Times column of our . . .
I once bought a house from a man named Michael Levine, a musician who scores movies, TV shows, etc. Afterward, we became e-mail pals. Last year, when Freakonomics was first published, he wrote to say that Levitt’s research reminded him a good bit of his father’s research. His father, Solomon B. Levine, was also an economist: My dad (now 84) . . .
Freakonomics was originally published in April, 2005, with high hopes but low expectations. Now, roughly 2 million U.S. copies and many foreign editions later, we have just published a Revised and Expanded version (here it is on Amazon). I blogged earlier about the differences between the original version and the new one, which includes about 90 pages of new material, . . .
At least not on airplanes. That’s what Boeing has decided. As someone who has bought wireless internet aboard a Boeing flight (I believe it was on Lufthansa, going to Germany), I recently received this e-mail: Dear Customer, On August 17, 2006, the Boeing Company announced that after a detailed analysis of the Connexion by Boeing business, the company has decided . . .
There have been many discussions on this blog, probably too many, about Realtors. (Click here or here or here, or, if you’re really twisted, just type “Realtor” in this page’s search box.) The gist? The National Association of Realtors has done a great job protecting its members but at the expense of allowing homesellers and buyers to enjoy a truly . . .
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