Langston Walker is 6-foot-8 and 345 pounds. He majored in economics at Cal. He plays football now for the Oakland Raiders. He said this in a recent Sacramento Bee article: “I bring a book for the plane ride,” Walker said. “Something that’s educational, something that will expand my mind.” Such talk causes running back Justin Fargas to ask Walker, “Are . . .
It seems like not a week goes by without another prediction market being launched. This week’s entry: CasualObserver.net . Up and running just one week, it focuses on the U.S. midterm elections. The good news is that you can participate for free. The bad news is that if you want to win real money, you have to look elsewhere. (I . . .
Lindsay Davenport, former number 1 ranked female tennis player, talking about the new tournament format being introduced in professional tennis, via Reuters: The ATP, as part of sweeping changes aimed at making tournaments more attractive to fans, television, players and tournament directors, plans to play early rounds of tour events as round-robins to ensure that marquee players remain throughout the . . .
The “efficient market hypothesis” argues that markets quickly and correctly incorporate all publicly available information into prices. Under the strong version of this theory, the only reason prices of assets like stocks move is because new information becomes available. (The ideas underyling efficient markets are largely associated with the University of Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s.) Most economists these . . .
Of all the questions that readers of Freakonomics ask me to explore, understanding the explosion in autism is at or near the top of the list. I haven’t read the original study, but this news report offers an interesting hypothesis about the rise in autism: older fathers. Don’t tell Dubner I’m citing Wikipedia, but there is a nice entry there . . .
Seven years ago a Harvard undergrad named Ilyana Kuziemko emailed me asking if I had any summer research positions available. At the time, nobody ever sent me this kind of email, so I hired her and she spent the summer in Chicago doing research with me. It was clear then that she had a very special talent for economics. Consequently, . . .
The movie “Snakes on a Plane” had enormous internet buzz before being released , but fizzled at the box office. This has led to a great deal of discussion in both the traditional media and online about what does or does not make internet buzz translate into commercial success. One reasonable answer to that question may be that when the . . .
I’ve written in the past about how much I have enjoyed the TED conference held annually in Monterey, as well as the associated blog. Now, you can get a taste of TED without even leaving the house. At TedTalks, a handful of the presentations have been posted, including ones by Al Gore, Larry Brilliant, and Daniel Dennett (who is indirectly . . .
Forwarded to me by my good friend Sherman Shapiro, but originally published here in The Onion : WASHINGTON, DC – Congress is considering sweeping legislation, which provides new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislation by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition. . . .
Dubner recently posted about criminal names in England. The American parallel to that list is one maintained by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The Texas list has information about all 396 people currently on death row in that state. It includes first names, as well as details about their life and crimes in some instances. The most likely first . . .
The U of C economics Ph.D. program is hardly known as a place where dreams come true. It is a tough program that breaks the spirit of many who attempt it. Courtesy of Herbert Baum, here is the feel-good story of the year coming out of U of C economics. The story starts 60 years ago when Herbert Baum first . . .
In case anyone is interested, you can read it here. Our motion to dismiss has been filed and the judge is currently considering the arguments.
There is a website — one that is so stupid I feel embarrassed to even give it free publicity — called www.whotohate.com. The idea behind the site is you pay them five bucks, write in the name of someone you hate, and the website writes to the person telling them that there is someone who hates them. I got one . . .
I went to the Wisconsin Dells as a kid. It was the hokiest sort of tourist trap you could ever imagine. All those same places I went to as a kid (Fairytale Garden, the Wonder Spot, etc.) are still there, almost unchanged. In the ensuing 30 years, what has changed are water parks. Now, everywhere you look there are enormous . . .
I was up with my family at the Wisconsin Dells last week. The water park we were staying at offered hair braiding for children on the following price schedule: 3 braids: $10. 6 braids: $22. Each additional braid: $4. This is a very unusual pricing schedule, to say the least. Rarely do you see a product priced so that each . . .
My friends over at Tradesports are catching some heat. Tradesports is an online prediction market that allows you to make bets on all sorts of unusual outcomes. A controversy is brewing, though, over the outcome of a contract on whether North Korea would have a missile launch before July 31. Reading the newspapers, you might think that North Korea did . . .
If you go to google images and type the word “children,” the first image that comes up is this picture of my kids. (I don’t routinely type the word “children” into google images…I only discovered this when a woman who works for Sesame Street e-mailed me asking if she could use the picture for a project she is doing.)
My son Nicholas is three and hopes to be a Power Ranger when he grows up. Thanks to Tivo, we are able to tape every single showing of Power Rangers (for all Dubner’s critiques of Wikipedia, it sure is a good place to learn about Power Rangers). In various incarnations, the show has been on for more than a decade. . . .
Not long ago we wrote about organ donation and how the current shortages could likely be solved if we let the market work. The most obvious way to accomplish this is by paying organ donors. Governments have been quite hostile to this idea around the globe. On Monday, Israel took some halting steps in this direction. As reported in a . . .
As reported by the BBC, Malaysia has banned “unsuitable” first names. An excerpt from the article: Parents will not be able to call their babies after animals, insects, fruit, vegetables or colours. Numbers are also not allowed, so little James Bonds cannot flaunt their 007 status on their ID cards. Other restrictions stop parents giving children royal or honorary titles . . .
I personally was far too pampered to deliver newspapers as a kid, but many other people I know (like my wife Jeannette) did deliver newspapers growing up. Anecdotally, at least, newspaper deliverers are now mostly adults with cars, rather than kids on bikes. Does anyone have any theories as to why? I can think of many possible explanations, but none . . .
If you can’t wait for the polished version on ESPN, here is the rough cut of the final showdown in the World Series of Poker Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament. Thanks to Dean Strachan for filming and posting the video.
A few months ago, after someone claimed I was a celebrity, I offered to test that hypothesis by giving $100 to anyone who identified me spontaneously over the next 30 days. (In the deal I excluded the U of C campus area, because people know me there just because I am a professor.) It was an easy bet to make, . . .
Only in Vegas can you, on one day’s notice, get 64 people to put up $500 each to compete in a Rock, Paper, Scissors contest. Phil Gordon was responsible for the tournament. Phil is a great poker player, perhaps an even better poker author, and one of the most kind and generous people I have ever met. The tournament raised . . .
What group of people do you think is more likely to have heard of Freakonomics, top bridge players or top poker players? Far and away it is bridge players. We ran some experiments at a big bridge tournament last week and used the Freakonomics name to help recruit volunteers. Many of the bridge players had heard of or read the . . .
It seems that Stephen Dubner and Kevin Federline (Britney Spears’s husband) find themselves at odds over one of the great crises of the day. Not the Middle East or Social Security, but rather, whether the government should keep making new pennies. Dubner better be careful or Federline’s next rap will be dissin’ him.
I loathe going on TV for so many different reasons. First, doing a TV interview can take the better part of a day and in the end you are lucky if there is one minute of on-air time. Second, it is a terrible medium for expressing any idea with subtlety and complexity. It is all about sound bytes, whether or . . .
The answer, apparently, depends greatly on where you are in the hotel. In the lobby, a one-day pass to use their wireless internet connection costs $10.95. Not cheap, but standard for nice hotels. Down in the main ballroom, however, the story is very different. A one-day pass to the internet there costs $300! Economists have a name for this: price . . .
A headline on the DrudgeReport reads “13 Days, 14 Homicides in D.C.” and links to a Washington Post story on the subject. It shows just how far we have come in reducing crime when this sort of crime spree is headline news. Washington, DC averaged well more than one homicide a day in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It . . .
I might have thought the answer to that question was “nothing,” but it seems I would have been wrong. Tony Vallencourt has an interesting post on his econball blog. He tallies the astrological sign of members of the U.S. House of Representatives. This exercise is inspired by the work of Anders Ericsson and others; they find that month of birth . . .
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.
