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.
An economist at an elite university, wishing to remain anonymous, has written the following rap in honor of Levitt. S/he sent it directly to me (Dubner) to ensure that even Levitt doesn’t know who wrote it. I think you’ll agree it’s sick enough to be worthwhile. Sing it to the tune of Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” If you’re getting rejected I . . .
There’s an article in today’s New York Times about “Deal or No Deal.” (See previous posts here, here and here.) From the headline — “A Game Show for the Probabilities Theorist in All of Us” — it sounds like it might be heading into a nifty theoretical realm but, alas, it is really a TV review at heart.
So, first of all, Happy ChanuKwanzaMasNewYear to everyone. And thanks for making 2005 such a freakonomical year. A while back, we offered to send a signed bookplate to anyone who wanted one. The good news is that about 2,000 of you replied. The bad news is that about 2,000 of you replied. The demand severely outstripped not only our supply . . .
Being a contestant on this show requires no talent whatsoever. You pick suitcases. You decide whether you prefer a riskless offer of money to a risky one. Then you go home with a bunch of money. Along the way, the crowd and your chosen friends scream and cheer like there is great skill in choosing among ex ante identical suitcases. . . .
Levitt went home last weekend to visit his family in Minn./St. Paul, and look what happened: the local newspaper got hold of him for a Q&A. (Note: if Levitt were actually awarded the Clark Medal in 1994, as the paper states, he would have been only 27; the actual year was 2004.)
I blogged yesterday about a new game show called “Deal or No Deal” and how it was an obvious candidate for economists to study risk aversion. So obvious, in fact, that Jennifer List (who is not even an economist, only married to one of my colleagues here at University of Chicago), yelled up to her husband that she had his . . .
We’ve heard reports here and there of expectant parents plucking a name or two from the various lists of first names in Freakonomics, but these folks are taking it pretty seriously. Personally, I’d vote for “Lucienne Rachel,” even though I’d prefer “Lucienne Aviva.”
Or at least somebody should be taping this new game show Deal or No Deal so they can write a paper about it. On the show, contestants get a suitcase with some amount of money in it and they get to keep the contents or take a certain offer that some “banker” on the phone is offering. A good chance . . .
Here’s concrete proof: an article in the new issue of Newsweek is headlined “Economics: Sexiest Trade Alive,” and credits Freakonomics with leading the way.
This season’s show “Apprentice” with Donald Trump ended with Trump asking the winner whether the runner-up, Rebecca Jarvis, should also be hired. The winner said, “The show is called ‘The Apprentice,’ not ‘The Apprenti.’ ” Not particularly important, but first let’s just note that if the plural of apprentice is “apprenti,” then by the same token our book should be . . .
According to the New York Times, the most blogged-about book of the year is Freakonomics. Here is the complete list; and here is a rather exhaustive list of Freakonomics blog citations. (Thanks to Connie Sartain for the links.)
Earlier I mentioned that my undergrad alma mater, Appalachian State University, was playing for the NCAA I-AA national championship. Well, they won, the first national title in any sport for the university. Congratulations to one and all. When I was there, they had a Top 10 soccer program, full of African and Irish and South American players. Thompson Usiyan, from . . .
Many of you have expressed confusion as to what the illustration accompanying the latest Freakonomics column means, so I went ahead and posed the question to illustrator David M. Brinley. He replies: “The couple is a metaphor for sexual desires and how his sexual identity has been influenced by the points made in the article. His ‘new’ identity and desire . . .
The new issue of People lists the 10 best-selling movies, books, CDs, DVDs, etc. of the year. Freakonomics was the No. 7 book among those first published in 2005. (The new Harry Potter was No. 1 by a landslide.) Here, from the other categories, are the other No. 7’s. #7 movie: Madagascar #7 CD: Gwen Stefani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby. . . .
Last week’s issue of The Economist gleefully (and a bit prematurely, I might add) reported that everything in Freakonomics was wrong. This weeks edition finds Freakonomics occupying a highly coveted spot as one of The Economist’s “books of the year.” We’re crossing our fingers regarding what next week’s issue will bring.
Our latest Freakonomics column described a recent academic paper by Andy Francis. I asked him to respond to the comments that have been raised on our blog (see here). He was kind enough to oblige. Here is what Andy has to say: Thank you for all your comments. They were insightful, and I enjoyed reading them. Let me take a . . .
Now we learn that iTunes has named Freakonomics its Editors’ Pick for 2005. Very nice. That and $2.00 will get you a subway ride — unless, of course, NYC transit workers really do go on strike on Friday, as they are threatening, in which case $2.00 will get you one cup of strong Starbucks coffee to fortify you for a . . .
Here’s what New York Magazine‘s year-end roundup thinks of Freakonomics: “This book has no thesis, an annoying title, a phony humility, and sundry other grating tropes.” Pretty grim, huh? But in fact the magazine gave Freakonomics a 2005 Culture Award. Here’s the rest of the blurb: “Yet it makes such interesting arguments and compiles such counterintuitive data that you can’t . . .
I did my undergraduate work — which consisted mainly of playing in a punky/country/rock band called The Right Profile — at Appalachian State University, which is located in the mountain town of Boone, N.C. (Levitt probably would have gone there too, if he had gotten in, but he had to settle for Harvard.) A.S.U. is not well-known nationally but that . . .
A bunch of people have asked what the illustration that accompanied our latest N.Y. Times column is supposed to mean. Honestly, I have no idea. If you want to see a considerably less abstruse illustration concerning Freakonomics, take a look at this. It was done by a Portuguese artist, Goncalo Viana, to illustrate our Times column as it is carried . . .
The latest runaway best-seller in Brazil is the autobiography of a young prostitute, Raquel Pacheco, a.k.a. Bruna the Surfer Girl. The book is called The Sweet Venom of the Scorpion: The Diary of a Call Girl and here’s what Reuters has to say: “In just over a month, it has sold some 30,000 copies and is already in its third . . .
In Freakonomics (the book), Levitt and Dubner often combine disparate subjects to sensible, if startling effect: the commonalities between sumo wrestlers and schoolteachers, for instance, or the KKK and the National Association of Realtors. In their latest Freakonomics column in the New York Times Magazine, they combine another seemingly unlikely pair of ideas: price theory and sexual preference. What does one have to do with the other? And what does it matter?
Our latest New York Times column asks whether sexuality responds to prices. Not just sexual behavior, but even sexual orientation. What Andy Francis (the author of the study our column is primarily based on) finds may surprise you, unless you are an economist. Read more about our column here.
Steven Landsburg has an interesting column on the impact that delaying having a family has on a woman’s lifetime income. It is based on a study by Amalia Miller who is an economist at the University of Virginia. The column is less about the specifics of the problem Miller solves than about her approach: cobbling together four of five different . . .
I first met Preston McAfee in Barcelona about 10 years ago. I was giving my paper on Lojack, which I had given way too many times because it was the paper I used on the job market. I had stopped getting new and interesting comments from the audience at least 5 seminars earlier. But in Barcelona, the next-to-last time I . . .
And, actually, it isn’t Freakonomics either. It is Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. My good friend Jimmy Golen, a sportswriter for the AP, forwarded me this interview with Joe Maddon, the new manager of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays Q: Are you doodling lineups, doodling rotations — JOE MADDON: You know what? No, not yet. We’re talking about that on the way . . .
I’ve just returned from a quick trip to British Columbia (specifically to the ski town of Whistler, to which one can only properly say “wow”), and a couple of things from western Canada caught my eye. The first is this blog post about the use of urinalysis for construction job applicants in Alberta, where the long-standing oil rush is headier . . .
On a few occasions in the past, we’ve asked you to vote for awards for which Freakonomics was nominated, and you did, and we were and remain grateful. Now, if you’re not too exhausted to vote again, there’s another award (albeit a very small one, given the posted vote tally), and it’s actually a little closer to home because it’s . . .
Thanks to articles in the Wall Street Journal and the Economist, a working paper by Chris Foote and Chris Goetz that is sharply critical of John Donohue and me has gotten an enormous amount of attention. In that working paper Foote and Goetz criticized the analysis underlying one of the tables in our original article that suggested a link between . . .
Michael Lewis writes in today’s New York Times Sunday Magazine about Mike Leach, the innovative coach of the Texas Tech football team. As Lewis describes it, Leach takes a totally different view of football and is on the cusp of revolutionizing the game. It is a very interesting article, and beautifully written. As usual with Michael Lewis, there is a . . .
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