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.
New research shows that obesity has been on the rise for longer than you think.
The Freakonomics documentary gets a distributor.
A change in U.S. law has killed 12,545 people, and nobody seems to have noticed.
Are imports from low-wage countries driving technology advancements in the U.S.?
Economist George Johnson passed away this week, at age 70. He and his work are remembered fondly.
In this world there nothing is certain but death and misquotation. Fred Shapiro is here to clean things up.
A new program giving Federal workers an incentive to improve efficiency pays dividends.
New research indicates that exposure to green products and the purchase of green products have vastly different effects on behavior.
In recent years, the randomized program evaluation has become the gold standard for evaluating development programs – and the bread and butter of many development economists. The evaluations often uncover valuable new information, but are controversial, and can also be prohibitively expensive to implement for small NGO’s.
It’s Passover. That means eight days of eating matzoh, which gets me thinking about products that are complements with or substitutes for matzoh.
Peter Robinson interviews Gary Becker about healthcare reform, the future of capitalism, and what this November’s elections will bring.
A new working paper by Jennifer Hunt examines the exodus of women from the science and engineering fields, and upends some popularly accepted wisdom.
Kal Raustiala, a Professor at UCLA Law School and the UCLA International Institute, and Chris Sprigman, a Professor at the University of Virginia Law School, are counterfeiting and intellectual property experts. They have been guest-blogging for us about copyright issues; this week they write about an alternative method of enforcing intellectual property rights.
Alright, I’ll admit it: when I first sat down with Steve Levitt in the econ department at the University of Chicago back in 2003, and asked him to explain how economists use regression analyses to measure the impact of individual variables within a complex scenario, I was thinking, “Man, this is the kind of material that would really light up the silver screen.”
Black-market smugglers are literally stealing Indonesia’s small islands, including the legendary Krakatoa.
Dave Jamieson’s new book (excerpted at Slate) covers the history of the baseball card, including the baseball card bubble of the 1980s and early 1990s.
During the 2008 presidential election, a lot of people — myself included — wondered if some sort of October Surprise might be launched. None were. In the U.K., however, Conservative leader David Cameron — the likely winner, per the prediction markets, in the yet-to-be called election — has just unleashed a doozy: his wife Samantha is expecting the couple’s fourth child.
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