Last year we blogged about the fascinating study written by economists Ray Fisman and Ted Miguel analyzing the patterns of parking violations among diplomats to the United Nations in New York. They find that diplomats from high corruption countries have more unpaid parking tickets, as do diplomats from countries that are more anti-American. Armed with that information, try to guess . . .
My friend and co-author Roland Fryer, an assistant professor at Harvard, has just been promoted. Usually, for an academic, that would mean getting tenure. For Roland, it is a little different. He’s been named a CEO — not Chief Executive Officer, but rather Chief Equality Officer for the New York Public Schools system. You can read about it in this . . .
It seems that there are few things more fun than playing massive multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft. I don’t play these games, but an incredible number of people do, investing significant amounts of time and money in them. Last week, the New York Times Magazine published an article on what it seems to consider the dark side . . .
For a long time I have felt the price of gasoline in the United States was way too low. Pretty much all economists believe this. Greg Mankiw blogged back in October about the many reasons why we should raise gas taxes. The reason we need high gas taxes is that there are all sorts of costs associated with my driving . . .
My dad claims he reads this blog. I guess now we will figure out whether he is telling the truth or not. Here is an article from Discover magazine highlighting some of my father’s greatest contributions to science. (If you never click through anything on this blog, this is definitely the link to follow.) Links to a few of his . . .
What a difference a day makes. I blogged yesterday about my first foray into World Series of Poker action. It started and ended very badly, with me failing to win a single hand. Who knows why I signed up for another day of punishment at the hands of the poker pros the very next day. The structure of this tournament . . .
We came to Vegas so my wife, Jeannette, could play in the Ladies Event at the World Series of Poker. It is my dream for her to win, and she kindly humors me with it. She played well, but got no cards — or, that’s what she says at least. She outlasted a number of big name pros, but went . . .
Associated Press reporter Robert Tanner writes an article today stating that evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the death penalty reduces crime. As with most media coverage of controversial issues, there is a paragraph or two in which the other side makes its case. In this instance, the lone voice arguing against the efficacy of the death penalty is Justin . . .
It might surprise you to learn that more members of the Freakonomics Fan Club hail from New Jersey than any other state. Well, actually, all of the Freakonomics Fan Club members are from New Jersey. All two of them. Except for my mother, Janice and Carole Szelich (president and co-president of the fan club) are the most loyal fans we . . .
There are not many strong incentives for individuals to provide great customer service. There may be small financial rewards that accrue if customers routinely tell an employee’s supervisor what a great job they did; but if someone owns the business, the rewards are greater because positive word of mouth will generate new customers. Not surprisingly, many reports of great customer . . .
Before reading further, take a guess at what the five most popular baby names for boys were last year in the U.K. If you can guess No. 2, you are bloody brilliant. If you are like me and not so bloody brilliant, you can find the answer here. (Hat tip to Matt Hawke.)
I am an editor at one of the top academic economic journals, the Journal of Political Economy. I handle between 150 and 200 manuscripts a year, deciding whether or not the journal should publish each of them. It takes a lot of time — something I’ve been short on lately. I’ve turned into a lousy journal editor as a consequence. . . .
If you wanted to get elected President of the United States, which of these would you least like to be? (At least, according to the fraction of those surveyed who said they wouldn’t vote for a candidate with this characteristic): a) Black b) Catholic c) Homosexual d) Jewish e) Female f) Atheist The answer is here at www.data360.org, an interesting . . .
My good friend and co-author Roland Fryer, much of whose work was featured in Freakonomics, has a fantastic new web page that details his research at the American Inequality Lab. It is definitely worth a look if you are interested in race and inequality.
Oprah Winfrey speaking at Howard University while receiving an honorary degree: “[My grandmother] was a maid and worked for white folks her whole life….She used to say I hope you get some good white folks that are kind to you. I regret that she didn’t live past 1963 to see that I did grow up and get some really good . . .
New research has demonstrated a link between the ratio of the length of the index finger to the ring finger to relative scores on the math and reading SAT. The relative length of these two fingers is apparently related to testosterone and estrogen levels in utero. While this research focuses on comparisons between the sexes, a logical extrapolation would be . . .
I was recently at a Hyatt hotel in Lost Pines, Texas. The posted speed limit on one stretch of road was 11 mph. In another area, it was 19 mph. Very clever. My guess is that if you did a randomized experiment, actual driving speeds would be lower with the 11 mph speed limit than the more familiar 10 mph . . .
Take all your winnings from the Kentucky Derby and play an exacta box on Hard Spun and Circular Quay. Of course, if you followed my picks for the Kentucky Derby, you won’t have any winnings.
If a genie came out of a bottle and gave me the choice between magically doing away with global warming or getting rid of the threat of global pandemics, I think I would choose the latter. I am probably in the minority on this one, but I think a pandemic might be the graver threat. A few years ago I . . .
Last week I blogged about the decision to abort when faced with a diagnosis of Down Syndrome. A similar issue arises, perhaps in an even more intense way (if such a thing is possible), with foreign adoption. When you adopt from, say, China, they send you information about the baby that’s been assigned to you, including health information that is . . .
The New York Times had an interesting article the other day, by Amy Harmon, on how more advanced and widespread testing for Down Syndrome is leading to a shrinking population of babies born with this condition. As evidence, the article cites research finding that 90% of parents choose to abort when they are given a diagnosis of Down Syndrome. I . . .
The media has been abuzz lately over a new research paper by Dr. Paul Winchester of the Indiana University School of Medicine. It purports to find that babies conceived between June and August in Indiana perform worse on standardized tests. I can believe that this conclusion might be true. Fifteen years ago, economists Josh Angrist and Alan Krueger found that . . .
Breaking news on CNN: Six terrorists were caught plotting an attack on Fort Dix. From the report: “Their alleged intention was to conduct an armed assault on the army base and to kill as many soldiers as possible,” the office said. If your goal is to kill people other than yourselves, I cannot think of a worse plan than having . . .
We’ve blogged quite a bit about prediction markets. Now, some very prominent economists (including four Nobel prize winners) have come together to release a joint statement asking the U.S. government to make it easier for researchers to create them. While the statement argues the merits of prediction markets extremely cogently, and while I’m completely in favor of prediction markets and . . .
I was searching the internet, researching a blog post I had in mind about the Duke Business School cheating scandal, when I stumbled onto the online version of the Russian newspaper Pravda (in English). For those who may not remember, it used to be the mouthpiece of the Communist Party. Here’s a link to the front page. I have to . . .
We’ve blogged quite a bit about Phil Gordon. The other day, I finally picked up his Little Blue Book. I read just about any poker book that comes out, although not with the gusto I used to have. I am glad to say that I am experiencing rapidly diminishing returns from this activity, which perhaps shows that I have actually . . .
Despite a complete lack of expertise and insight, I’ve made it an annual tradition here at the Freakonomics blog to offer my picks in horse racing’s Triple Crown. I’ve had some lucky successes (like Giacomo at 50-1), and, not surprisingly, some duds. My buddy Bill Hessert and I actually invested a little time over the last few months trying to . . .
Blog reader Peter Bergman tells me that John Hollinger has an interesting analysis of the NBA racial bias piece at ESPN.com, although you have to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. I haven’t actually read it because I’m not a subscriber, but Hollinger apparently does a nice job of putting the magnitude of the bias into perspective: The . . .
I’ve blogged before about my friend Justin Wolfers’ research on point shaving in college basketball and the death penalty. Now Justin is back stirring up more controversy with a paper that claims that there is racial bias on the part of NBA referees, written up in the New York Times by Allen Schwarz. The claim of the paper is that . . .
We’ve mentioned a few times on this blog (see here and here) how often criminals seem to have the middle name “Wayne.” Turns out the shooter in the Kansas City Mall was named David W. Logsdon. I have a pretty good guess what the “W” stands for. (hat tip to Matt Randolph.)
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