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.
Many people know about the World Series of Poker from the television coverage on ESPN. Mostly they just show the “Main Event” on TV. Hoa Nguyen from worldseriesofpoker.com. The main event has a $10,000 buy-in and lasts for two weeks. Leading up to the main event, there are dozens of other tournaments, some of which are going on right now. . . .
Joshua Gans, (author of the forthcoming Parentonomics), has an interesting post on “data-driven Parenting.” Turns out that there is a cool web service: Trixie Tracker, that allows parents to record and revisit information on sleep, nappy changes, feeding (both breast-milk and solids), medicines, and pumping. Keeping track of your child’s evolving sleeping patterns (via the internet or even your iPhone) . . .
We’ve written quite a bit about various information asymmetries — i.e., when one party in a transaction has a lot more information than another — and how the Internet is very good at correcting that asymmetry. Among the examples we used were the cost of term-life insurance, the price of coffins, and real-estate listings. The Wall Street Journal recently published . . .
A story on Yahoo news mentions that the Philadelphia newspapers are running advertisements for a fake airline, Derrie-Air (get it?). The airline advertises that it is carbon-neutral, and that it charges per passenger pound — $1.40 from Philadelphia to Chicago, $2.25 from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Screen shot from flyderrie-air.com. While quite mythical, this pricing structure is not unreasonable: the . . .
Because the talent that made them rich in the first place lies in something — television hosting, for example, or heavyweight boxing — that doesn’t teach them anything about how to stay rich. Brian Cuban offers further insights. Last week, Justin Wolfers wondered why Belgium seems to have so few celebrities, and he issued you a challenge to name some. . . .
I just ran my horse racing model for the Belmont Stakes. It predicts that Big Brown will go off at odds of 1/5…even lower than his morning line odds of 2/5. I estimate that a $2 bet on Big Brown has an expected value of $1.81. Although the expected value is negative (you will lose an average of 19 cents . . .
Ralph Steadman, self portrait from Stop Smiling magazine. British cartoonist and caricaturist Ralph Steadman is best known as the late Hunter Thompson‘s collaborator. Starting with their first assignment together — illustrating the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan’s (Steadman forgot his “colors” and drew with a friend’s makeup samples) — Thompson and Steadman invented a genre of narrative storytelling that may (or . . .
Where can you go to get a $1 billion dinner? Zimbabwe, where runaway inflation has given rise to mulit-million dollar loaves of bread as the country’s currency moves even further into collapse. So could now be the best time to invest in Zimbabwe? Oxford University economist Paul Collier writes in the Boston Review that Tanzania, which suffered a self-imposed economic . . .
Sometimes a story is so irresistible that the media can’t stay away from it, even if it’s not much of a story. Consider the following scenario: A. The U.S. is hit by a seeming economic downturn; B. The costs of basic goods like fuel and food begin to rise; C. And so consumers flock to a cheap, old-fashioned staple to . . .
From a reader named Joe McCright of Alexandra, La., comes the following bleg. Please help him out in the comments section. Past blegs can be found here; you can send your own bleg requests here. I teach Spanish to kids in pre-K through 4th grade, and I play music of the Spanish-speaking world to expose them to aspects of the . . .
Election fraud by the numbers. (Earlier) Tax alcopops and they go for the strong stuff. (HT: Mathew Linley) Debunking myths about the developing world. (HT: Benjamin Childers) Museums love impostors.
Traffic and congestion have come up a lot on this blog lately. We even blegged for parking solutions and analyzed the effectiveness of traffic signs — according to Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book Traffic (due out July 29), they’re virtually ineffective and may even “allow us to basically stop thinking.” But dozing cows, he says, can work better than . . .
Jessica’s past posts can be found here, her own blog here, and her new book here.
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here. Send us your own bleg requests here. For years I have been posing a question about the term “bargaining chip” that no one has yet answered. This is widely assumed to be a poker metaphor, but I . . .
We recently posted a contest, asking readers to choose the one question they’d ask if picking a partner to play the Prisoner’s Dilemma. I did not expect this contest to generate more than 350 replies. Picking the single best out of 350 seemed impossible, so I thought we should winnow it down to the Top 5 and ask you to . . .
My Dutch co-author and I biked to his office this morning, with very nice new bikes he owns. I remarked on them, and he said his university gives him the right to buy a bike out of pre-tax income every three years. Every Dutch employer can offer this triennial subsidy of $750. I thought that was quite interesting, and asked . . .
Are you driving less than you used to? As Dubner blogged last week, Americans logged 11 billion fewer miles on the road in March of this year than they did in March 2007. That contributed to a cut of 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted by the U.S. in the first quarter of 2008. The rise of gasoline . . .
The Noel Coward song suggests that “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” Following Saturday’s Stockholm Marathon, I’ll add marathon runners and thousands of cheering Swedes to that list, too. Every novice runner begins a marathon with three aims: to finish; to run the whole way; and to beat some special time (usually four hours). Following . . .
Inevitable: … Vista at your workplace. … Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray. … Hearing loss after age 50. … Star Wars references in response to Bill Gates‘s holographic appearance. … A clash between parents and kids about whom they should date/marry.
My favorite kind of museum is the one where the deeds being celebrated were actually committed on that site — the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, for instance, or the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. I also love visiting the old homes of interesting people, like Washington Irving. There’s nothing like being able to literally walk in the footsteps of someone . . .
I recently published a paper on urban gun markets with Philip J. Cook, Jens Ludwig, and Anthony A. Braga. I was sort of the odd man out. The three researchers have been studying gun use in the United States for many years. I had access to gun sellers, prospective customers, ammunition dealers, and gun brokers who bring purchasers and sellers . . .
If your eBay user name is lpinok, then the answer is $55.71. This seems to defy all logic. The item description is: “Just a $50 gift card to Target … .” Why would anyone pay more than face value? (Hat tip: David Hansen)
I stayed up way too late last night watching the first hockey game I’ve watched this year — Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Detroit Red Wings were up 3 games to 1, playing the Pittsburgh Penguins at home, hoping to clinch the title. The Pens won in the third overtime. It was a phenomenal game, with great . . .
We like to give readers the chance to ask their own bleg — i.e., to use this blog to beg for ideas or information. Here’s an interesting one from a reader named Philip . I look forward to your input; you can send your own bleg suggestions here. Many cities around the country have parking problems in their urban neighborhoods. . . .
Over a long dinner (and more than a few glasses of wine) with some economist friends, conversation turned to trying to understand why happiness is declining in Belgium. Helena Svaleryd offered an audacious new theory: the Belgians have not enjoyed the rise of celebrity culture that provides so much amusement for the rest of us. Concurring, Anna Sjögren argued that . . .
Fares for a trip to Goree Island in Senegal (the Communaute Financiere Africaine franc, CFA, is the Senegalese currency) break down like this: Foreigners: Adults- CFA 5,000 (US $13) Children- CFA 2,500 (US $6) Africans: Adults- CFA 2,500 (US $6) Children- CFA 1,500 (US $3.60) Senegalese: Adults- CFA 1,500 (US $3.60) Children- CFA 500 (US $1.20) Johannes Kiess In this . . .
My father has a lot of ideas. Some of them are pretty good. Others get me into a lot of trouble. Back in July of 2005, my dad had an idea I thought was interesting enough that I passed it along to the staff of Barack Obama. This is well before Obama was running for president — back when he . . .
For a number of years I’ve been impressed with the wireless credit-card machines with which many European restaurants equip their wait-staff. This substitution saves workers time (and also that of their customers). This technology is now adopted more widely in the U.S. But on this trip I’ve noticed yet another innovation. In several restaurants wait-staff have wireless devices that also . . .
A few weeks ago, we posted an item about an ad executive in Australia named James Hurman who auctioned off his smoking habit, agreeing to pay a steep fine (about $800) for every cigarette he smoked after the auction closed. He wound up selling the contract, he writes, “for NZ $300 [about US $240] to somebody at the agency where . . .
Jessica’s past posts can be found here, her own blog here, and her new book here.
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