Two weeks ago, I blogged about my inability to recognize how new technologies would change my life for the better. I typically wait years to adopt things, then do so grudgingly, only to find within days that I don’t know how I ever lived without them. I asked our readers to offer suggestions about my next life-changing technology. The enticement: . . .
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman kicked off his new blog a couple days ago with a long entry on inequality. While economists are well aware of the patterns in inequality, there is less agreement concerning the reasons for its ups and downs. Krugman believes that the primary factor driving inequality is politics. I suspect that most economists would disagree. . . .
Let’s say you discover an old lamp and rub it, and out comes a genie offering to grant you a wish. You are greedy and devious, so you wish for the ability, whenever you play online poker, to see all the cards that the other players are holding. The genie grants your wish. What would you do next? If you . . .
I received the following e-mail today. If you read this, apply, and make the show, we’ll give you a month’s supply of Freakonomics T-shirts and yo-yos, as long as you agree to wear them on the show: Hi, My name is Laina Rose, I’m currently casting a new reality show. You are being contacted because our research team thinks you . . .
That is the title of my latest academic working paper, written with Roland Fryer. It details the rise and fall of the Klan in the 1920s. Incredibly, the Klan had millions of members at that time, and most of them were reasonably well-educated. Based on a variety of data sources, we argue that, despite its size and education levels, the . . .
Alan Greenspan has a new book out. I haven’t seen it yet, since I am in London for a few days and it isn’t available here. Economist Brad DeLong talks about the book (among other things) in this podcast. Over at MarginalRevolution, Tyler Cowen offers a set of links as well. So here is my economic forecast for the book: . . .
One of the most important political questions of the day is whether the troop surge in Baghdad is working. If you ask politicians, the answer you get to that question is very predictable. Republicans say yes, Democrats say no. What do the data have to say about this question? Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. professor, good friend, and one of the . . .
From research by economists J.J. Prescott and Jonah Rockoff, here are a few current statistics on sex offenses reported to the police: 1) 25 percent of victims are 10-14 years old; 23 percent are nine or younger. 2) 22.5 percent of the offenders are family members. Only 8 percent are strangers. 3) 25 percent of sex offenses reported to the . . .
Shortly after Brian Jacob and I did our research on teachers who cheat, we thought about starting a company that would provide cheating detection services to schools systems. What I quickly discovered, however, was that there were few things in the world that school systems wanted less than to catch teachers who cheat — suffice it to say that school . . .
I’m a notoriously late adopter of technologies. It is not a conscious decision, and I don’t take any pride in it. I just do not have enough imagination to figure out ahead of time how much I will like things once I actually have them. E-mail is a good example. I couldn’t see how e-mail would be of much use . . .
If you ask an economist how to price a new product that is just being introduced, the response you will get is that you should charge a very high price at first and then steadily reduce that price over time. There are two reasons for doing this. First, it generally gets cheaper to produce things over time, so it makes . . .
My good friend Dave Eldan sends me interesting tidbits on a regular basis. More often than not, they are pulled from obituaries. Everyone needs a hobby, I guess. I found his latest missive very interesting. It is from an obituary by Morton White for the great philosopher and mathematician Willard Van Orman Quine. (Unless I am dreaming, I actually had . . .
Well, at least the folks at the PopSci Predictions Exchange listen. Last week Dubner blogged about Jatropha, a weed that could spearhead a biofuel revolution. At the end of his post, he urged the PopSci Predictions Exchange to launch a contract on Jatropha. Voila. So far there are only sellers — people betting against Jatropha — and no buyers.
Back when I was a graduate student at MIT in desperate need of a haircut, I stumbled into a place called The Hair Connection. Little did I know it would change my life. A pleasant woman named Carmella cut my hair, and even offered me a generous student discount. I soon became a loyal customer, dropping in every three to . . .
First, Dubner graduates. Next, they beat Michigan in football. Then Miss Teen South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton plans to attend Appalachian State. Not sure if they offer this as a major, but perhaps Miss Upton has a future writing librettos.
Why do brands of whiskey, rum, and gin stay constant, while new vodkas spring up like weeds? Dubner offers one explanation.
A few days back I posed the question “Why are we eating so much shrimp?” Between 1980 and 2005, the amount of shrimp consumed per person in the U.S. has nearly tripled. I didn’t expect more than 1,000 responses! I asked the question because Shane Frederick, a marketing professor at MIT’s Sloan School, had contacted me with an intriguing hypothesis. . . .
You never know when you are going to get a tough question like this one.
The most surprising thing I learned today comes from the opening paragraph of a paper by Anne Case and Christina Paxson: In late 19th Century Europe, adult height was attained at age 26. This is just one reminder of how radically life has changed in the last 100 years. At least in the developed world, we have moved from a . . .
We need your help with a little social experiment. Between 1980 and 2005, the amount of shrimp consumed by Americans nearly tripled, from 1.4 pounds per person to 4.1 pounds per person. Shane Frederick, an M.I.T. management professor, has made a hobby of asking anyone he meets why Americans eat so much more shrimp today than they did 25 years . . .
I always love it when I see a paper that only an economist could write. An ingenious new study by Stefano DellaVigna and Eliana La Ferrara definitely fits that description. The issue they tackled is detection of illegal arms trades that defy United Nations embargoes. Their idea was to use the information embedded in stock markets to tease out indirect . . .
I am delighted to report that the economics paper on AC/DC I blogged about yesterday was meant as a joke. It takes a lot of work to run an experiment on real people, just for a gag paper. It turns out they meant to play the same AC/DC song in both treatments, but made a mistake and accidentally played two . . .
They grow up to write economics papers like this one, which looks at whether participants in lab experiments get closer to efficient outcomes when exposed to one lead singer of the rock band AC/DC versus another. I hope for this guy’s sake he has tenure. (Hat tip to Joshua Gans.)
Back in the day, when people noted that Diet Coke was 99% water, it was an insult. The point was that water was free, and Diet Coke was just free water plus a little bit of artificial this and that — so you would have to be a fool to pay so much for it. Of course, times have changed. . . .
Freakonomics and High School Musical have a lot in common. Both were surprise hits that had no reason to be commercial successes, but managed to do well by not taking themselves too seriously. My kids and my wife love the original High School Musical. I kind of like it myself. It is played an average of three times a day . . .
Does the President matter? Levitt continues the discussion
Levitt on terrorism: The third and final (maybe) chapter
Levitt’s take on the current crime stats for the five largest U.S. cities
Levitt discusses the economics of reinstating a draft.
Levitt discusses poverty and wage issues raised in writer-turned-New York cop Edward Conlon’s book, “Blue Blood.”
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