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 . . .
A 62-year-old man in Columbus, Ohio, robs a bank and promptly turns in the cash — and himself. Why? According to this CNN article, because he’s jobless and broke, and wants to get sent to jail to get his three square meals. The judge obliged, giving him a three-year sentence. It’s too bad this news didn’t break until he’d already . . .
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the Internet was created for: Floyd Landis, the tainted Tour de France winner, has used his website to post a voluminous defense against doping charges. The material includes: + his attorney’s motion for dismissal + a “complete World Anti-Doping Agency document package, inclusive of the testing information from Landis’s ‘A’and ‘B’ samples” + a . . .
… in the book of Genesis, when the world is created. Can you imagine the loot He could have landed for the naming rights of every animal, mineral, and vegetable? If God was unlucky to toil in the days before corporate sponsorship, at least the Chicago White Sox, thank God, are not so unlucky. They have just announced that for . . .
There’s a really interesting profile of Tavis Smiley in today’s N.Y. Times. (FWIW, Levitt and I were on his talk show back in July.) Smiley is perhaps best known these days for putting together The Covenant With Black America, a collection of essays about education, health care, crime, finance, and so on. The implicit point is that black America still . . .
… you read this headline on the front page of Yahoo! News: “World’s 15th-Largest Rough Diamond Sold.” I guess the owners of the fourteen larger rough diamonds are too busy celebrating Columbus Day to make a deal.
I am one of those people who grew up living, breathing, and playing baseball but who has since become a casual observer at best. That said, since I live in New York it’s hard to not get caught up in the apocalyptic reaction to the Yankees’ elimination (and, though it has far less Shakespearian gravitas, the Mets’ currently lovely position). . . .
I have long heard the argument that one reason for the decline in teacher quality in U.S. schools (if in fact there has been such a decline) was the feminist movement. The argument goes like this: until the mid-1960’s or so, teaching was one of the few career paths wide open to women; as feminism opened up opportunities for women . . .
In the interest of not piling on, I was initially reluctant to mention this working paper, posted on the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies website, about the flaws in the commission structure used by Realtors. Especially since its author, an attorney for the federal government named Mark S. Nadel, cites our book as well as a more recent article . . .
There’s a pretty fascinating Editors’ Note in today’s New York Times concerning Hugo Chavez and Noam Chomsky. (An Editors’ Note is the most serious of three types of corrections the Times runs; the other two types are called For the Record and Corrections.) You all probably all remember Chavez’s performance at the United Nations a couple weeks ago, during which . . .
I’m not much for fashion magazines, but judging from my wife’s reading habits, Allure is a pretty good one. That’s why I was happy when a nice blogger named Elsa Kaminsky (whose blog combines her interests in economics and fashion) alerted us that a copy of Freakonomics can be seen poking out of a model’s Chanel bag in the current . . .
Ever wonder what are the most common searches among Yellow Pages users? Here’s a list of the top 300 categories, from the Yellow Pages Association research institute. The top 10 categories are: 1. Restaurants 2. Physicians and Surgeons 3. Automobile Parts 4. Automobile Repairing & Service 5. Pizza 6. Attorneys/Lawyers 7. Automobile Dealers 8. Dentists 9. Hospitals 10. Plumbing Contractors . . .
Eric Clapton famously stopped performing the J.J. Cale song “Cocaine” once he got sober. But now he’s resumed. Why? After all these years, Clapton decided that the song is in fact anti-drug; plus, he admits, he just really missed playing the guitar riff. In other cocaine news, there’s a new carbonated energy drink called Cocaine, with about three times the . . .
I posted earlier about how Soviet chess players used to collude in international tournaments. As documented in today’s New York Times, and far more thoroughly on chessbase.com, we learn that the world chess championship has come to a halt because Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria filed a protest against his opponent, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. Kramnik was leading 3-1 at the . . .
Think of all the service people who habitually get tips: hotel bellmen, taxi drivers, waiters and waitresses, the guys who handle curbside baggage at airports, sometimes even the baristas at Starbucks. But not flight attendants. Why not? Maybe it’s because they’re thought to earn a pretty good living and don’t need the tips. Maybe it’s because they’re simply thought to . . .
I am pleased to announce that the Freakonomics website is now a part of Federated Media Publishing, a consortium of blogs (including BoingBoing, BuzzMachine, Digg, and GigaOM) founded by John Battelle. This means, among other changes, that our site will now accept advertising. (You may have already spotted a banner for CNBC earlier this week.) We are also planning a . . .
You want to listen to Freakonomics Radio? That’s great! Most people use a podcast app on their smartphone. It’s free (with the purchase of a phone, of course). Looking for more guidance? We’ve got you covered.
Stay up-to-date on all our shows. We promise no spam.
