A new program giving Federal workers an incentive to improve efficiency pays dividends.
Alright, I’ll admit it: when I first sat down with Steve Levitt in the econ department at the University of Chicago back in 2003, and asked him to explain how economists use regression analyses to measure the impact of individual variables within a complex scenario, I was thinking, “Man, this is the kind of material that would really light up the silver screen.”
During the 2008 presidential election, a lot of people — myself included — wondered if some sort of October Surprise might be launched. None were. In the U.K., however, Conservative leader David Cameron — the likely winner, per the prediction markets, in the yet-to-be called election — has just unleashed a doozy: his wife Samantha is expecting the couple’s fourth child.
We’ve blogged a few times about the effect of calorie-count postings in restaurants in New York City – the extra information is valuable, but its efficacy in changing eating habits may be minimal among the people most likely to need a change. That said, the New York movement is now going national as part of the new healthcare law, which requires restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets to post calorie information at all their restaurants.
In this episode, we speculate what would happen if economists got to run the world. Hear from a high-end call girl; an Estonian who ran his country according to the gospel of Milton Friedman; and a guy who wants to start building new nations in the middle of the ocean.
One point of our upcoming podcast is that economists — academic economists in particular — are generally free from the political and moral boundaries that restrict most people, and are therefore able to offer analysis or recommendations that politicians, e.g., wouldn’t go near with a ten-foot pole.
I have a brief visit to Hong Kong soon (my first!) and would like to bring back some material for our Freakonomics Radio podcast. Suggestions?
The inspiration for a recent Obama speech.
The origins of a classic phrase.
Unintended consequences of aid in Haiti.
Americans keep putting on pounds. So is it time for a cheeseburger tax? Or would a chill pill be the best medicine? In this episode, we explore the underbelly of fat through the eyes of a 280-pound woman, a top White House doctor, and a couple of overweight academics.
A preview of the second episode of Freakonomics radio.
A Freakonomics reader in Texas fakes her religion for the sake of her kids.
In the SuperFreakonomics Virtual Book Club, we invite readers to ask questions of some of the researchers and other characters in our book. Last week we opened up the questioning for Allie, a high-end escort whose entrepreneurial skills and understanding of economics made her a financial success.
You may have read about the standoff between Amazon.com and the Macmillan publishing company. Macmillan had objected to Amazon’s pricing, particularly its loss-leader $9.99 e-book price for new books. In turn, Amazon.com temporarily halted the sale of all Macmillan books.
In the first episode (subscribe at iTunes; or listen now in the player at right), we ask the question “What Do NASCAR Drivers, Glenn Beck, and the Hitmen of the N.F.L. Have in Common?”
We blogged last fall about the Book of Odds, an interesting site that generates “odds statements” of all sorts. Now, David Gassko and Ian Stanczyk of the Book of Odds have written a guest post which answers just the kind of question we like to ask around here: What are the odds that a given cow will make it to the Super Bowl?
The SuperFreakonomics chapter on geoengineering solutions to global warming has generated plenty of heat, but scientific and political interest in the concept is on the rise.
In the SuperFreakonomics Virtual Book Club, we invite readers to ask questions of some of the researchers and other characters in our new book. Last week we opened up the questioning for Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, labor economists and experts on the male-female wage gap.
A reader offers an alternate explanation for the male-female pay gap among MBA’s.
Remember the story about the cheating schoolteachers in Chicago? The theory was that high-stakes testing, by putting more pressure on students to pass, creates a stronger incentive for teachers to not leave those students behind – and that a fraction of those teachers, generally the worse ones, went so far as to cheat on behalf of their students.
Looks like it may have been happening in Springfield, Mass., too.
In the previous installment of our virtual book club, Sudhir Venkatesh answered your questions about his research on street prostitution.
Now, moving on to another section of Chapter One, here’s your chance to ask a pair of researchers about a central and pressing fact of U.S. economic life: the enduring wage gap between men and women.
The economic downturn has obviously hurt newspapers a great deal, but it’s hard to say which areas of coverage have been depleted the most. I have talked to people in many realms – international reporting, business, sports, entertainment – who claim their domain has been particularly hard hit. (Here’s a map from Paper Cuts that shows 2009 newspaper layoffs.)
Bill Gates has started blogging. The homepage is here, and in the “What I’m Learning” section, he proves to be a a fantastic book critic: “I really liked Freakonomics and I think SuperFreakonomics is even better. … I recommend this book to anyone who reads nonfiction. It is very well written and full of great insights.”
A reader who works for a start-up NGO in Mali solicits your ideas for creating new public health incentives there.
We have blogged a few times about financial and economic illiteracy in the U.S., particularly among young people.
So it’s nice to see a counterexample.
A blog reader named Christopher Galen has sent us his daughter Grace’s third-grade economics quiz. Yes, that’s right: a third-grade economics quiz. She goes to a public school in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Whatever the case, a downturn in bike ridership may strike some people as a grievous strike against the American character. On the other hand, it’s great news for the likes of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.
In a recent post, we linked to a blog’s photo essay on Biosphere2, the “failed” and “abandoned” enviro-architectural project in the Arizona desert. But that information wasn’t accurate.
“My attitude is this,” he said. “If you are getting attacked by Krugman, you must be doing something right.”
Is there any other academic field in which standard decorum is valued so low?
Quite a bit more than on Saturday, to be sure — which is when the Wall Street Journal published this article about the psychic value of the Vikings to its fans. The tally: $530.65 per year.
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