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.
Richard Gray at the U.K. Telegraph reports that Sir David King, a University of Cambridge chemist, staunch global warming activist, and one of Britain’s top government scientists, gave the following advice to a woman who asked him what she could do to curb global warming: “[S]top admiring young men in Ferraris.” King’s larger point — that we should act individually . . .
My last quiz on horse racing was hard: you needed to know some institutional details, and even if you did, it was still very tricky. This next quiz is quite easy. For a piece of Freakonomics schwag, just be the first one to correctly answer the following question: What do my wife Jeannette’s grandmother and Mark Twain have in common? . . .
Dan Hamermesh, on his Economic Thought of the Day blog — it is excellent, and always fun — wrote this recently: A disaster has occurred in Germany: The staple drink – beer – is rising in price. The reason is that there is a worldwide shortage of barley, a major ingredient in the brew. This has pushed up the price . . .
Which M.L.B. players performed better after using steroids? (Earlier) Confusion over euro conversion good for Spanish waiters. Rare $90 video game sells for more than $9,000 online. Apple beefs up program security to thwart hackers. (Earlier)
Remember our contest on the Coase Theorem? It asked for good examples of the Coase Theorem failing in regard to URLs — i.e., instances in which a company that is most motivated to own a URL for some reason doesn’t. The winner of the contest proposed Nissan.com, which belongs not to the car company, but to a far lesser-known computer . . .
We wrote in Freakonomics about our views on parenting. Mostly, we were skeptical of how much parents could do to improve their kids’ futures. One can clearly be a terrible parent through neglect or abuse. The tougher question is whether being an “obsessive” parent who drags children to a never-ending procession of soccer practices, museums, and acting classes is better . . .
Rocco Landesman is a Broadway original, a producer with the heart of an artist, and a rogue businessman if ever there was one. (He is also, I am happy to say, an old friend of mine.) He is president of Jujamcyn Theatres, one of the big three Broadway theater companies, and is also one of the most prolific and award-winning . . .
Receiving a kidney: a personal account. (Earlier) A wonderful meditation on globalization and journalism. Online game’s in-world economist issues his first newsletter. (Earlier) “The Wallet Test” captures honesty on camera. (Earlier)
Any history book will give you a chapter on the Treaty of Versailles, during which delegates from around the world gathered in France to hammer out peace terms following World War I. The men (and occasional woman) who negotiated the outcome may have had their own individual and national agendas, but their decisions arguably set the stage for decades of . . .
What does it mean to use “the economic approach” to thinking about the world? In the old days, if you asked 100 people this question, I bet at least 80 of them would have given some kind of answer having to do with dollars and cents, supply and demand, etc. Over the past few decades, however, “the economic approach” has . . .
Peter Landesman has written a fascinating article for L.A. Weekly on street gangs. The events he details are chilling. I can’t say I agree with some of the broader claims of the piece, however. Landesman argues that the gang problem is worse than it has ever been, and that gang violence hasn’t dropped the way other crimes have. A quick . . .
Why cancer vaccines don’t work. (Earlier) Professor predicts “exodus” to virtual worlds. (Earlier) Electric cars vs. gas-guzzlers: further analysis. (Earlier) Traveler chugs vodka to avoid surrendering bottle to airport security. (Earlier)
A new healthcare Web site called iMedix has just been launched, and it could revolutionize the way people take care of themselves. Or it might gum up the works further; at this point, it’s hard to tell. But you have to applaud the effort. A privately funded startup launched by Amir Leitersdorf and Iri Amirav, it allows users to search . . .
… to support my alma mater, Appalachian State University, in its quest for a third consecutive national football championship at the FCS (formerly Div. I-AA) level. But I won’t be, so I will cheer them on in absentia. These are the guys, remember, who beat (presumably) mighty Michigan at the start of the season, so hopefully they can handle the . . .
I had my annual physical the other day, and my doctor asked the typical battery of questions before the physical exam began. As we got to the end of the questions, I couldn’t help but note that she’d added a few questions that doctors didn’t ask in years past: “Are you sexually active?” … and then: “Is there any reason . . .
National cholesterol levels fall to “ideal” range. (Earlier) A survey on the ethics of book reviewing. (Earlier) Hedge fund buys professional soccer team. (Earlier) Corporate battle underway over rest stop naming rights.
Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell today released his long-anticipated report on steroid use in baseball. It charges many star players with having used steroids, including Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGwire. Here’s one thing about the report that really jumped out at me, as portrayed by Michael Schmidt and Duff Wilson in the Times‘s lead story: [Mitchell] did say . . .
Last week, we solicited your questions for Second Life creator Philip Rosedale. Your questions were excellent, as are his answers. Thanks to all. Q: Do you have macroeconomists regulating the supply of Linden dollars? [Some virtual worlds do.] Are they Keynesians? Monetarists? Does the economy experience inflation? A: We don’t have an economist on staff yet, but we’d love to . . .
Until recently, I had known Katherine Ozment only as the easy-to-like wife of my good friend and former colleague Michael Greenstone. Then I discovered her Web site, which contains examples of her writing. She has an amazing gift. Check out “Winter of Discontent,” “The Last Hurrah,” and everything else in between. But make sure you have some time to spare . . .
We have blogged repeatedly — mercilessly, some might say — about the serious shortage of human organs for transplantation, and what might be done about it. The basic problem is that relying on altruism doesn’t produce enough donated organs, but there is widespread repugnance at the idea of paying people for organs. There’s a fascinating article by Laura Meckler in . . .
After publishing quite a number of Jessica Hagy‘s Indexed pieces on this blog, and viewing many more on her own site, I have finally figured out how to optimize the reading experience: look at the diagrams while covering up her caption with your hand, and then try to guess what she’s getting at. To my mind, this is at least . . .
Are prediction markets efficient? Robert Frank back on his feet after a heart attack. (Earlier) Hackers use “flirt” program to fool would-be online daters. (HT: Marginal Revolution) Malawian innovator builds windmills to provide local electricity.
Talk about a nickname that is hard to live up to! Franziska Michor, who is a friend, former Harvard Society Fellow, and honorary economist, is featured in this year’s Esquire “Genius” edition under the headline “The Isaac Newton of Biology.” And she is only 25, and can also drive an eighteen-wheeler. Here is a link to her research on cancer.
A reader named E. Allyn Smith, a Ph.D. student in linguistics at Ohio State University, wrote in with the following observations. I’ve been thinking about birthdays a lot lately, because November 15th to the 27th is one of the annual “birthday rushes” in which I have eight birthdays in two weeks. It got me thinking that not only are there . . .
The Great Penny Debate continues to limp along. One hundred million pennies, collected by schoolchildren, were put on display at Rockefeller Center. Meanwhile, lots of people continue to argue for elimination of the penny. I am firmly on the abolitionists’ side, as stated previously here and here. The only reasons I can think of for keeping the penny are inertia . . .
One of my daughters recently had a second-grade friend of hers over to the house for a play date. My wife, Jeannette, was down on the first floor, while the two girls were up in our attic playroom. Suddenly, Jeannette heard screams of terror from the visiting friend. She ran upstairs, fearing the worst. “What happened?” my wife asked. The . . .
How is baseball signaling like financial markets? Steve Pinker to speak in New Jersey. (Earlier) Airlines offering better meals, albeit for a price. (Earlier) Chinese cremator leaves corpses half burned to save on fuel costs.
Last time out, we asked if you’d rather be arrested for embezzlement or prostitution. Your response was overwhelmingly in favor of prostitution. Here’s another choice between two bad options: Would you rather be Conrad Black or Michael Vick? Yesterday, both of them were sentenced to prison terms, Vick for nearly 2 years and Black for 6-1/2 years. (Black’s sentence was . . .
Urbanization has been climbing steadily of late, with more than half of the world’s population now living in cities. Given the economic, sociological, political, and environmental ramifications, how should we be thinking about this? We gathered a quorum of smart thinkers on this subject — James Howard Kunstler, Edward Glaeser, Robert Bruegmann, Dolores Hayden, and Alan Berube — and posed . . .
Here’s the latest guest post from Yale economist and law professor Ian Ayres. His past posts can be found here and here. In a recent post, I mentioned that when playing poker, I use my watch as a crude random number generator to tell me when to bluff. While there are lots of sports in which it’s best to play . . .
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