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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.

Men or Women: Who Travel More?

Typically, I run my stuff past a few test readers to see if it will meet the lofty standards of Freakworthiness. Reactions were mixed on my plan to do a series on gender and travel (see the first installments here). Some thought it was bound to be a bore because, duh, of course men’s and women’s travel patterns are going to be very different. Others thought it was bound to be a bore because, duh, of course in this day and age men’s and women’s travel patterns are going to be very similar. There was widespread sentiment that I’m going to bore you – but who was right about why?


Can Faithfulness Be Lucrative?

The companies Tiger Woods endorsed – and their shareholders – are feeling the negative effects of his extramarital affairs. A new company called Off the Market, reports CNBC’s Darren Rovell, hopes to take advantage of this development by helping athletes keep their existing relationships “positive and sexy.”


Freakonomics meets Pirates of the Caribbean

That’s how the Las Vegas Weekly describes economist Pete Leeson’s book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates.
The Invisible Hook is an excellent book by one of the most creative young economists around, Pete Leeson, based off some of his academic papers, including this one that was published in Journal of Political Economy when I was the editor. I have to admit that as an editor I was skeptical when I received a manuscript on pirates from an obscure economist, but the combination of careful research and really interesting insights quickly won me over to Leeson’s work.


Monkeys to Mars?

We’ve blogged repeatedly about the fascinating capabilities of monkeys and now it seems our primate cousins may beat us to Mars. Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy, which first sent monkeys into orbit in 1983, is in talks with Georgian scientists to prepare monkeys for a simulated Mars mission.


Geoengineering Is in the Air

Levitt recently wrote about geoengineering going mainstream – i.e., being featured in the M.I.T. Technology Review. That fine publication may not be as “mainstream” for the rest of us as it is for Levitt. But now NBC Nightly News has weighed in on the topic.


Can Public-Funded Entrepreneurship Work? A Q&A With the Author of Boulevard of Broken Dreams

In recent months, the U.S. government has taken on a challenging and controversial new role: private sector investor. This development has raised a host of questions about the government’s role in the economy and a new book by Josh Lerner, Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed – and What to Do About It, is required reading for anyone hoping to understand the issues.


The Quiet Danger of Non-Inflation-Adjusted Stock Returns

In today’s Wall Street Journal, E.S. Browning has written a quietly important article (gated) about the fact that stock-market returns are almost never adjusted for inflation. While most shrewd investors factor in this omission, my sense is that a great many people never think about it, and therefore significantly overestimate their investment gains.


Where Is All the Hard-Time Crime?

Despite the recession, the Associated Press reports, U.S. crime rates continue to fall in 2009 compared to last year. Sociologists and crime experts are citing the economic stimulus, people staying home from lack of work, and even an aging population as possible causes of the drop.


Incentivized Altruism

Only one in ten Israeli adults is an organ donor and the country is addressing the situation with an innovative new policy. Organ donors and their close relatives will now receive priority if they require a transplant.


Geoengineering Goes Mainstream

The MIT Technology Review — one of my favorite magazines —
writes about geoengineering in the January/February 2010 issue. Much of what is said in the article will be familiar to people who have read SuperFreakonomics, but it also talks about carbon capture, which we didn’t discuss much.


Black-Market Breast Milk

Australian mothers pay up to $1,000 for it on the Internet due to the country’s shortage of breast-milk banks, the Courier Mail reports.


Captain Steve Answers More of Your Airline Questions

For a few months now, we’ve been soliciting reader questions for Captain Steve, a pilot with a major U.S. airline. You can find his first few batches of answers here, and he’s back now with another round. You can leave new questions for him in the comments section below.


Where Has All the Viagra Spam Gone?

Same for Nigerians seeking to transfer millions of dollars to me (if I give them my bank account number).
I haven’t gotten one of these in a year, after often getting several a day. I assume that the spammers realized that the return per period of time — the price of the activity — was less than its marginal cost: the opportunity cost of their time.


Are the Lakers a Sure Thing?

For the 20-year period ending in 2007, the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA championship record did a surprisingly good job of reflecting the stock market.


The Rights to a View

Who owns the rights to an air space and to a view? What are property rights in such cases? An article in our local paper discusses complaints of residents in a luxury condo complex who are insisting that the City Council help pay the $75,000 it would cost an outdoor advertiser to move a billboard that blocks their view and lowers their property values.


Death and Taxes, Slightly Less Certain

The second chapter of SuperFreakonomics, which is primarily about catching terrorists and running an emergency room, includes a few passages about the timing quirks of births and deaths.


A Naked Self-Promotion Roundup

If you’re in Times Square on Saturday, Dec. 19, keep an eye out for SuperFreakonomics on the Dow Jones news zipper. A piece of Freakonomics schwag will go to the first person who sends us a photo of the book’s name up in lights.


Worth the Wait?

Waiting may be fun when it involves opening Christmas presents or paying off your credit cards, but waiting for the bus is a miserable experience pretty much any way you look at it.
Long waits are one of the most important — perhaps the most important — barriers deterring Americans from riding mass transit.


What to Get an Economist for Christmas?

Christmas and economists go together like – well, like drinking and walking. Joel Waldfogel, the economist who is famous for highlighting the deadweight loss of gift-giving, has a new book out called Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays.


Cool Down on the CT Scanning?

As the L.A. Times reports,
two new studies, from researchers at the University of California-San Francisco and the National Cancer Institute, suggest that hospitals may want to cut down on the volume of CT scans.


The Power of Pilot Programs

The always-enlightening Atul Gawande evaluates the new health-care bill’s efforts (or lack thereof) to control runaway health-care costs. The bill, which has been widely criticized for its lack of significant cost reductions, proposes a few small pilot programs aimed at cost containment.


How Kids Talk to Santa

University of Scranton psychology professor Carole Slotterback analyzed about five years’ worth of children’s letters to Santa that were sent to her city’s central post office.


Pay When They Let You

It’s one Los Angeles boutique owner’s answer to the pay-what-you-wish pricing scheme: only open your store to customers you want to let in — and set prices on the spot by sizing customers up. The strategy, she says, has helped her store stay open when other shops around hers are struggling.


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The Books

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