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.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to write about a great many interesting people. My mother had an extraordinary (and long-buried) story to tell. I’ve interviewed Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; the rookie class of the N.F.L. ; a remarkable cat burglar who stole only sterling silver. But lately I have been writing about economists — and, most fruitfully, . . .
The prices at McDonald’s didn’t go down yesterday, but eating fatty foods nonetheless just got a lot cheaper. A new study released by the CDC is described in news reports as follows: The death toll from obesity is less than a third of the government’s previous estimate, researchers are reporting today, contradicting warnings that poor diet and physical inactivity are . . .
A few bloggers have pointed out that the cover of Freakonomics is, shall we say, quite similar to the cover of this book. To which we initially said: Yikes. Should we be embarrassed about this? We thought the cover of Freakonomics was brilliant the moment the publisher showed it to us. We had been suggesting something along similar lines — . . .
Not that Malcolm Gladwell needs us to blog about him. He only happens to have the #1 ranked book on both the New York Times hardcover and paperback lists (Blink and The Tipping Point respectively). Those are the two most interesting and entertaining books I have read in the last five years. And his New Yorker stuff is incredible. In . . .
Well, Freakonomics is finally on sale. It should be in most bookstores today, and is ready to ship from Amazon.com, bn.com, etc. The good news is that the book is already in a fourth printing. The bad news is … well, there is no bad news, not yet at least. Early reviews are excellent. On Slate, the 2nd portion of . . .
Not many people dream the dreams of economists. But for someone like me, I was able to live out a little fantasy today. As part of the Center I run, we had a conference call with our board of advisors. In the room or on the phone were many of the greatest living economists: Gary Becker, Ronald Coase, Milton Friedman, . . .
Freakonomics is almost officially for sale (Tues., April 12 is the date), and on Amazon.com and bn.com, where it can be pre-ordered, it has jumped onto the best-seller lists. (As of 9:00 p.m. EDT on April 9, it was #15 on Amazon.) Its authors are happily mystified. This spike seems attributable to a very nice interview of Steve Levitt by . . .
Of the top 50 selling books at Amazon when I checked the other day, 47 were sole-authored. In contrast, I would guess that more than 80 percent of articles published in academic journals are co-authored. This strikes me as a real puzzle. Why should this be? Usually, we tend to think that as projects become larger and more complex, the . . .
I do not deny that the Oakland As record in the past is amazing. People seem to be missing this point. What I am arguing is that they were not successful for the reasons that were most prominently trotted out in Moneyball, namely the ability to find good offensive players cheap. I think it is important to keep our eye . . .
If you happen to listen to NPR’s “Weekend Edition” with Scott Simon, you will hear Steve Levitt discussing Freakonomics this Sat., April 9. (Click here to find the time and station in your area.) Simon himself has a new book out soon, Pretty Birds; we haven’t read it yet but if it is half as good as his 2000 memoir . . .
My comments on Billy Beane have a lot of people upset, as usual. So you tell me. If the Oakland A’s win 80 games a year for the next five years, would those who think Billy Beane should be the next pope still hold that opinion? (BTW, I see Beane is a real long shot to succeed John Paul II . . .
My friend and colleague Gary Becker is arguably the most influential economist of the last fifty years. I published a study in the American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings a few years back that attempted to identify which economic theories and economic theorists were having an influence on cutting edge, data driven economic research today. The most amazing finding was . . .
It seems like just about everyone thinks Billy Beane is a genius, thanks to the Michael Lewis book Moneyball, which details the way in which his Oakland A’s use statistics in innovative ways to choose talent and win games. I’ve never been part of the Billy Beane cult. For instance, in a January 2004 Financial Times interview about my research . . .
It seems like just about everyone thinks Billy Beane is a genius, thanks to the Michael Lewis book Moneyball, which details the way in which his Oakland A’s use statistics in innovative ways to choose talent and win games. I’ve never been part of the Billy Beane cult. For instance, in a January 2004 Financial Times interview about my research . . .
Chapter Two of Freakonomics is titled “How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?” It deals with the power of information, and more particularly the abuse of information. The K.K.K. part of the story concerns a man named Stetson Kennedy who, in the 1940’s, went undercover and joined the K.K.K. in order to try to dismantle . . .
Roland G. Fryer Jr. is a young black economist at Harvard whose work and background are equally fascinating. (At least I think so.) He and Steve Levitt have written a number of papers together, and Fryer is scattered throughout the last couple chapters of Freakonomics. Quite separately, I’ve written a profile of Fryer that appears in today’s New York Times . . .
Every parent thinks he has the most beautiful baby in the world. Evolution, it seems, has molded our brains so that if you stare at your own baby’s face day after day after day, it starts to look beautiful. When other people’s children have food clotted on their faces, it looks disgusting; with your own kid, it’s somehow endearing. Well, . . .
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