In which we argue that failure should not only be tolerated but celebrated.
Dubner and Levitt are live onstage at the 92nd Street Y in New York to celebrate their new book “When to Rob a Bank” — and a decade of working together.
Zappos C.E.O. Tony Hsieh has a wild vision and the dollars to try to make it real. But it still might be the biggest gamble in town.
When it comes to generating ideas and asking questions it can be really fruitful to have the mentality of an 8 year old.
America’s favorite statistical guru answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions, and more.
It may seem like winning a valuable diamond is an unalloyed victory. It’s not. It’s not even clear that a diamond is so valuable.
The practice of medicine has been subsumed by the business of medicine. This is great news for healthcare shareholders — and bad news for pretty much everyone else.
A lot of the conventional wisdom in medicine is nothing more than hunch or wishful thinking. A new breed of data detectives is hoping to change that.
In a new working paper, Roland Benabou, Davide Ticchi, and Andrea Vindigni follow up their earlier paper which found “a robust negative association between religiosity and patents per capita.” Their new paper, “Religion and Innovation” (abstract; PDF), they look at religiosity on the individual level, “examining the relationship between religiosity and a broad set of pro- or anti-innovation attitudes.”
A reader writes in with a question that is hard to answer. I thought it’d be best to put the question to you, our readers; hopefully you can help him find his way to a good decision.
From a reader named John Keaney: I just finished your book Think Like a Freak, and I’m trying to use the lessons in the book while I’m in Kyrgyzstan. I’m an undergraduate at University of South Carolina, and I’ve decided to pursue my very first, independent research project while I’m living in Kyrgyzstan on the effects of Kyrgyz accession to . . .
We’ll be putting out a new Freakonomics Radio episode later this week on the use of RCTs (randomized controlled trials) in healthcare delivery. It features the work of the MIT economist Amy Finkelstein and her colleagues at J-PAL, and it includes their analysis of what happened when Oregon expanded its Medicaid coverage. If you want to get a head start . . .
If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there’s a good chance you’ll barely be punished. Why?
Thick markets, thin markets, and the triumph of attributes over compatibility.
Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn’t always work out. That’s where “temptation bundling” comes in.
Every year, Edge.org asks its salon of big thinkers to answer one big question. This year’s question borders on heresy: what scientific idea is ready for retirement?
Advertisers have always been adept at manipulating our emotions. Now they’re using behavioral economics to get even better.
Jim Yong Kim has an unorthodox background for a World Bank president — and his reign thus far is just as unorthodox.
The White House is hosting an anti-terror summit next week. Summits being what they are, we try to offer some useful advice.
It’s a centerpiece of U.S. climate policy and a sacred cow among environmentalists. Does it work?
Economists preach the gospel of “creative destruction,” whereby new industries — and jobs — replace the old ones. But has creative destruction become too destructive?
As Kevin Kelly tells it, the hippie revolution and the computer revolution are nearly one and the same.
Verbal tic or strategic rejoinder? Whatever the case: it’s rare to come across an interview these days where at least one question isn’t a “great” one.
Influenza kills, but you’d never know it by how few of us get the vaccine.
Most people blame lack of time for being out of shape. So maybe the solution is to exercise more efficiently.
From a podcast listener named Katie McGreer, some really interesting comment on our recent episode “Time to Take Back the Toilet“: I am an avid listener of the Freakonomics podcast and I just wanted to respond to the recent episode on noise in public washrooms (or the lack of buffers). I was having a discussion about the history of cottaging . . .
Annamaria Lusardi has been researching financial literacy for years. She has co-authored a new working paper (abstract; PDF) with Tabea Bucher-Koenen, Rob Alessie, and Maarten van Rooij called “How Financially Literate Are Women?” The answer: not very. This has obvious implications not only for something like retirement savings but also the gender pay gap (which is nowhere near as large . . .
Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative risks?
1. According to the New York Post: “The NYPD is pulling detectives from homicides and other investigations to help deal with the endless barrage of anti-cop protests in the city, law-enforcement sources told The Post Monday.” 2. The anti-police protests are, in one way at least, rewarding the very police officers whom the protestors wish to punish, with nearly $23 . . .
Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?
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