Global Warming as International Peacemaker?
New Moore Island in the Bay of Bengal, the subject of a long-running dispute between India and Bangladesh, was recently completely submerged by rising sea levels.
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 Moore Island in the Bay of Bengal, the subject of a long-running dispute between India and Bangladesh, was recently completely submerged by rising sea levels.
We’ve blogged a few times about the effect of calorie-count postings in restaurants in New York City – the extra information is valuable, but its efficacy in changing eating habits may be minimal among the people most likely to need a change. That said, the New York movement is now going national as part of the new healthcare law, which requires restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets to post calorie information at all their restaurants.
Each week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research. Here is the latest round.
Last post, I presented research showing that men are more deadly than women when behind the wheel. Researchers presume this is because men have a predisposition toward aggression and thrill-seeking, thanks to the testosterone that helped our male ancestors stalk, struggle and seduce their way to successful gene replication.
March 22 was World Water Day, and two excellent photo essays draw attention to the issue.
The 1989 ivory trade ban has led to government stockpiles of ivory (from seizures/arrests and herd culling), and no legal means of selling the stuff.
One point of our upcoming podcast is that economists — academic economists in particular — are generally free from the political and moral boundaries that restrict most people, and are therefore able to offer analysis or recommendations that politicians, e.g., wouldn’t go near with a ten-foot pole.
New research indicates that dogs and humans have some things in common in the willpower department.
There’s a new working paper (summary here; PDF here) from Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches called “Home Computer Use and the Development of Human Capital.”
A number of countries have passed naming laws, forbidding citizens from giving their kids certain types of names, but North Korea’s new naming law is more meaningful.
A charter school organization in Arizona offers a glimpse at what the educational system would look like if economists were in charge.
What good does green building do when our cities are, by design, ecological train wrecks?
These days, you can do pretty much anything online, except for one: submit your U.S. census forms.
Each week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research. Here is the latest round.
Annamaria Lusardi, one of the leading academic lights of financial literacy, has begun a new Financial Literacy Center.
Last post, I passed on some data showing that women are somewhat more likely than men to be involved in car accidents on a per mile driven basis. But men are far more likely (by between 50 and 100 percent) to be in crashes involving loss of life. Why are men’s crashes so much more tragic?
I have a brief visit to Hong Kong soon (my first!) and would like to bring back some material for our Freakonomics Radio podcast. Suggestions?
Economics departments in the U.S. and the U.K. use very different hiring processes for senior tenured positions. Which way is better?
In this interesting article from the American Prospect, Bruce Ackerman reveals how in 1957 Lyndon Johnson opposed an effort of Vice-President (and President of Senate) to reform the filibuster rule.
Does a bad winter equal more traffic fatalities? Not in Sweden.
This fall, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov made a bold declaration. With the help of the Russian Air Force, he was going to use cloud seeding techniques to keep it from snowing in Moscow this winter. Did Luzhkov vanquish Mother Nature as he predicted he would?
The Daily Beast ranked America’s “craziest” cities by psychiatrists per capita, stress, eccentricity, and drinking.
If college and professional football are the unique and entire domain of male athletes, such that former players are most likely the most knowledgeable as to the game’s nuances both on and off the field, why is it that, while all the off-field commentary is also male-dominated, all the on-field interviewing and commentary is done by females who never touched a football, let alone played a down?
Sunday’s New York Times reported on attempts by the Texas Board of Education to rewrite the high school curriculum in accordance with its conservative values. So I find the raw ideological force exerted by these “educators” to be both striking and dispiriting.
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