When Freakonomics.com was launched in 2005, it was essentially a blog (c’mon, blogs were a thing then!). The first Freakonomics book had just been published, and Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt wanted to continue their conversation with readers. Over time, the blog grew to have millions of readers, a variety of regular and guest writers, and it was hosted by The New York Times, where Dubner and Levitt also published a monthly “Freakonomics” column. The authors later collected some of the best blog writing in a book called When to Rob a Bank … and 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants. (The publisher rejected their original title: We Were Only Trying to Help. The publisher had also rejected the title Freakonomics at first, so they weren’t surprised.) While the blog has not had any new writing in quite some time, the entire archive is still here for you to read.
In response to my last blog post, Steve Sailer posed the following question in the comments: The abortion rate among whites fell from 19 in 1991 to 11 in 1999, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute of Planned Parenthood. Should we thus soon expect an upturn in crime rates among white 14-17 year olds? This is a great question. And . . .
The FBI released preliminary estimates for crime in the year 2005 earlier this week. This is how the headlines read: From The Independent, a British newspaper, writes: “Violent crime on the increase, says FBI report” The first line of the article says “The United States is experiencing its biggest jump in violent crime in 15 years…” From CNN: “Violent crime . . .
Last month we wrote a New York Times column asking whether superstars are born or whether they are made through a combination of the lots of practice, the right kind of practice, and coaching. The experts in the area suggest that superstars are made. One conjecture we made in that column was that because the FIFA cutoff date for determining . . .
Sure seemed that way. He took a really hard crash into the wall today in the Pocono 500 when his brakes failed, but he walked away from it. In an interview soon after the crash, even Gordon sounded surprised by the fact that he wasn’t badly hurt, or even killed. “That was one of the hardest hits I have ever . . .
About four percent of the value of your home. That’s what the economists Leigh Linden and Jonah Rockoff (both of Columbia University) concluded in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper called “There Goes the Neighborhood? Estimates of the Impact of Crime Risk on Property Values From Megan’s Law.” Here’s how the NBER Digest summarizes their findings: They combine . . .
So many of the rules and regulations regarding what happens on airplanes seem completely ridiculous. For starters, there is the requirement that you turn off your electronic devices for takeoff and landing. Whatis the point of making me turn off my iPod? I guarantee you that it does not interfere with the airplane’s instruments (or if it does, I have . . .
That’s the question answered here in an e-mail we just received from the very lovely and hard-working man who translated our book into Japanese: Gentlemen, This is Mamoru Mochizuki, your translator for the Japanese edition. About a month passed since the Japanese edition of Freakonomics was published. I would like to report how Japanese people reacted to the book, especially . . .
Actually, two examples in today’s New York Times*, and in the Arts section of all places. 1. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt solve a big problem — the illicit distribution of photos of their new baby — by distributing the pictures themselves and donating the proceeds to charity, thereby thwarting the paparazzi free market and potentially setting a new model . . .
A couple weeks ago, a member of suburban Chicago’s high-school district 214 asked that Freakonomics, along with several other books, be removed from a list of required summer reading. In the end, none of the books were removed — and since District 214 students are free to read Freakonomics, we offered to send free signed copies to the first 50 . . .
We wrote about Seth Roberts’ Shangri-La Diet in the New York Times last summer, which he has since turned into a best-selling book. Seth’s research suggested that the key to weight control was consuming flavorless calories. Adam Scott has a new diet idea: Monkey Chow. For the next week, he plans an experiment in which he consumes only Monkey Chow. . . .
The guy sitting in the chair next to me was reading a book the whole time he was having his hair cut. As he left, I managed to catch the title: “Quantum Physics in America.” Only in Hyde Park.
I got my most expensive haircut ever yesterday: $117. Actually, the haircut itself was only $17. But, as I walked from the barber to work, I passed by a young couple eating breakfast on their stoop. The woman called out, “Aren’t you Steve Levitt?” So I stopped to talk to them. I asked her how she knew who I was, . . .
This story is so poignant in so many ways. As you read it, imagine yourself in the shoes of the various people involved. Mistaken identity follows tragic crash By Russell Working and Tim Jones Tribune staff reporters Published May 31, 2006, 8:15 PM CDT GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — In a tragic case of mistaken identity, the family of an Indiana . . .
We get at least 50 Freakonomics-related emails a day. Here is a sampling of emails from the last day or two, just to give you a flavor of the mixed blessing that comes with a best-selling book. email #1: I think this email is actually serious, although maybe it comes from someone with such a great sense of humor that . . .
This weekend, Freakonomics received its 1,000th customer review on Amazon.com. Is this at all noteworthy? Some of you may recall that we have previously posted here about Amazon reviews. Levitt wondered why people bother to write reviews at all. I wrote about one particular reviewer who somehow managed to always float his review to the top of the heap. (That . . .
Last week, I posted here about how a member of the school board in suburban Chicago’s District 214 wanted to have several books removed from the schools’ reading list. Among them was Freakonomics. The board member, Leslie Pinney, objected to the various books for various reasons, including pornography, vulgarity, and in the case of Freakonomics, the argument that legalized abortion . . .
Reason #1: There is a huge Freakonomics poster on the wall behind the cash register in Authors Bookstore in Terminal C of the airport. Reason #2: They have my favorite restaurant, Dairy Queen, right in the terminal.
I’m curious who is standing out in Times Square asking people if they know who I am. I am even more skeptical than Dubner regarding the methodology in his post below. Four out of ten? Forget about it. Just for fun, how about we do an experiment. I will give $100 (or all the money I have in my wallet . . .
Have them play the National Economics Challenge, which sounds like Quiz Bowl with yield curves. Whatever you do, don’t send them to Times Square, where only 4 of 10 people on the street know who Steve Levitt is, but 8 of 10 know Jessica Simpson. (Honestly, I’d be shocked if as many as 4 of 10 random Americans could i.d. . . .
In Dubner’s last post, he noted that Wikipedia sometimes gets it right and sometimes misses badly. I just visited the entry on me in Wikipedia. What is amazing to me is that if you click on “history,” the page has been altered about 50 times in the last few months. Don’t people have anything better to do? The amount of . . .
That’s the question sent our way by a reader (who happens to work for the Federal Trade Commission). To be exact, here’s what he wrote: Why don’t media companies act more like sports teams in trading assets? Why don’t we ever something like this: FOX trades Arrested Development to ABC for Alias and a pilot to be named in the . . .
Most people don’t like Ticketmaster very much. They have monopoly/quasi-monopoly in the market for selling event tickets. And they price accordingly. But their latest move is one that economists will love. USA Today reports that the best seats for some concerts will start to be auctioned off, rather than sold at below market prices, as has been done in the . . .
They teach you a lot of things when you study economics: about marginal cost, incentives, dynamic optimization, etc. But up until now, the real reason for why people study economics had been a closely held secret known only to economists — kept carefully hidden away from the hoi polloi. Well, it turns out Joey Cheek, of all people, is the . . .
There aren’t enough people like John Stossel on television: smart, curious, cantankerous, and very willing to shoot at sacred cows. I say this not because Stossel hosted the recent hour-long 20/20 program on Freakonomics, but because I’ve always admired his reporting and especially his attitude. His recent 20/20 special on education, “Stupid in America,” is a particularly good example. A . . .
That’s the question I’m asking myself today. I’ve spent the past couple of days in Washington D.C. for Book Expo America. My five-year-old son is a football fanatic, so whenever I’m in a town with an N.F.L. team, I try to bring home a souvenir for him. Today, I went to a huge souvenir store in D.C., with thousands of . . .
It has been said many times that awards are meaningless — unless you happen to win one. I guess that’s true. When we heard not long ago that the Webby Award for Best Copy/Writing on a website was not awarded to Freakonomics.com (yeah yeah yeah, we were happy just to be nominated) but to some hack outfit called TheNewYorker.com, I . . .
There’s a fascinating article by Nicholas Wade in today’s New York Times about a new understanding of human evolution — i.e., that “the split between the human and chimpanzee lineages … may have occurred millions of years later than fossil bones suggest.” Furthermore, “A new comparison of the human and chimp genomes suggests that after the two lineages separated, they . . .
What child hasn’t played around with the spelling of his or her name — wondering, e.g., how it would sound if it were spelled backward? (I admit that I signed some school papers “Evets Renbud” when I was a kid.) Well, now it seems that at least 4,457 parents last year did the work for their children, giving them the . . .
A board member at a suburban Chicago high school is trying to wipe Freakonomics off a required-reading list, along with The Things They Carried, Beloved, and The Awakening. “One part of Freakonomics that raised her ire,” reports the Daily Herald, “hypothesizes that legalized abortion could lower the homicide rate.”
The key is reliable feedback. On pain management, recent studies using fMRI technology finds that that showing you a visualization of your own brain’s pain center gives the sort of feedback that lets you figure out what works and doesn’t in fighting pain. Here is a discussion of another study on burn victims. Melanie Thernstrom wrote an interesting article about . . .
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