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.
A few weeks back Dubner blogged about the video resume. Far more effective, it turns out, is the front-page resume. I have a good friend named Sally. Last week she won a $25,000 prize as “Nurse of the Year.” This week she got laid off! That made for a great story in the Chicago Sun-Times today. The new job offers . . .
After Dubner’s questioning of libraries, Folksonomy.com interviews Greg Boesel, co-founder and CEO of Swaptree, a Netflix-esque online trading site for books, DVDs, CDs, and video games — that’s also free of charge. Via Bloomberg.com: While the athletes have been busy training for the Pan Am Games in Rio De Janeiro (July 13-29), the city’s prostitutes have also been preparing for . . .
I am scheduled to fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in September for a lecture and then to Rio de Janeiro for a book festival. I have never been to Brazil before and, until this horrible plane crash in Sao Paulo the other day, I was very much looking forward to the trip. Now I am not. As someone who flies . . .
Of all the stories we told in Freakonomics, the most popular was the section on the economics of crack cocaine. While it related a lot of particular facts about the crack trade, I believe that readers responded most vigorously to the daring and smarts of the researcher we wrote about, Sudhir Venkatesh, who went and hung out with the crack . . .
July 19 is Flitch Day, a surviving relic from Medieval England in which married couples appear before a “mock court.” Those who can prove that they had “lived in harmony and fidelity” for the past twelve months were awarded a flitch, defined as a “salted and cured side of bacon.” According to Thinkquest.org, “very few [couples] ‘took home the bacon.’”
Via Reuters: A study led by Max Planck Institute biologist Keith Jensen found that, unlike humans, chimpanzees are capable of revenge but not spite. Researchers tested the apes’ reactions to theft by their peers using collapsible tables that allowed chimps to steal food from each other. While the chimps who were left hungry later sought revenge as punishment, they showed . . .
Money magazine has a new columnist who simply goes by the name “The Mole.” I love the idea behind the column: an industry insider reveals the dirty secrets of financial planner misdeeds to the general public. I won’t blow his cover, but I know the guy who is writing it. He is smart and has interesting ideas. And, surprise, surprise: . . .
At least for me, there are not too many questions that would lead me to respond, “For $25 million, no way, but for $50 million I’ll think about it.” Twenty-five million dollars is so much money that it’s hard to think about what you would do with it. It sure would be nice to have the first $25 million. I’m . . .
July 18 is National Ride to Work Day, in which commuters are encouraged to abandon their cars for the day in favor of motorcycles or scooters.
More on the clash of sex and legal issues in Second Life: Tech.Blorge.com reports that one Second Life user is suing another (in real life) for copyright infringement over a virtual “sex bed” that lets avatars simulate 150 different carnal acts. Plaintiff Kevin Alderman, founder of Eros LLC, alleges that the defendant, “Second Life resident” Volkov Catteneo, copied and is . . .
Los Angeles Times real estate columnist Peter Viles writes of a tale from would-be homebuyer and blogger Kate in the Valley, who hatched the following money-saving plan while making an offer on a home: Traditionally, when you buy a house you just give the purchase money to the seller and the seller pays the 5% commission out of that. But . . .
Although I’ve been writing journalism in one form or another for a long time, I would like to think that I am not the kind of journalist who makes friends or family uncomfortable about saying something casually that that they don’t want known publicly. That said, it does happen that someone will mention something over dinner, e.g., and then quickly . . .
AIDS in Africa is one of the gravest problems facing the world. Emily Oster has some of the most interesting ideas about AIDS in Africa. You can see and hear these ideas online, courtesy of the wonderful folks at the TED Conference.
We’ve written often — most recently here — about the fact that just because two things are correlated, it does not necessarily follow that one causes the other. For instance: campaign spending and electoral success; “culture cramming” and childhood test scores; the use of child car seats and the decline in auto fatalities. So it was interesting to see, on . . .
July 17 is Yellow Pig Day, which was started in the ’60s by the founder of Hampshire College’s prestigious summer math program. Each year, alumni return to celebrate the mysterious Yellow Pig, a seemingly random inside joke that’s inextricably linked with the number 17 (a “random number,” according to program founder David Kelly, in that “the chances are more than . . .
Via Marginal Revolution: the U.K. Times reports that, while the installation of speed cameras has led to far more tickets being issued and licenses canceled in France,?French drivers are circumventing the laws by selling their good driving points to speeders.?Those with poor driving records can and will pay another driver?up to 1,500 Euros to substitute his or her own points . . .
Greg Mankiw, an energetic blogger (you may have heard of him? he teaches econ at Harvard? and used to advise President Bush?) wrote a super-compelling piece in Sunday’s New York Times, whose headline says it all: “Fair Taxes? Depends on What You Mean By Fair.” It is about taxing the rich, and begins by explaining why Warren Buffett can afford . . .
While at this celebrity golf tournament, I met a lot of stars, from Kevin Nealon to Gale Sayers. None of them were as friendly as Super Bowl MVP Mark Rypien. He and I don’t have much in common. The one thing we share, I wish we didn’t. Just like us, he lost a young son named Andrew. The Rypien Foundation . . .
There are a lot of things to think about, and a lot of ways to assess the stream of flawed and dangerous Chinese imports, the accumulation of which has lately captured the public and media imagination. (We touched on the issue briefly here; a new book by Sara Bongiorni, A Year Without “Made in China”: One Family’s True Life Adventure . . .
If you can’t figure out the answer to that question, you need some serious help. Thanks to the kindness of Jonathan Thomas, Martha Miller, and all the other fine folks at American Century Investments, I got the chance to play golf with Emmitt Smith, winner of Dancing with the Stars. Before that, he had some success in football as well. . . .
July 16 is National Get Out of the Doghouse Day, a stunt created by a motivational speaker named Heidi Richards to promote her flower business. Let the commoditization of guilt bloom.
I blogged a while back about parking spaces in New York City, wondering why there aren’t more spaces for sale rather than for lease. An article in yesterday’s New York Times reveals that more new buildings are indeed selling a few parking spaces, including one building in Chelsea whose five spots are selling for $225,000 apiece. This isn’t quite the . . .
Driven by a question similar to Dubner’s theory on libraries, University of Texas economist Stan Liebowitz examines the effects of radio play on record sales, and finds that heavy radio rotation may actually hurt sales. Reader Geoffrey Wiseman pointed us to an alternative explanation for violinist Joshua Bell‘s remarkable inability to draw a crowd during his impromptu concert in a . . .
In testimony before the Senate health committee, James Holsinger, President Bush‘s nominee for Surgeon General, listed his three top priorities if approved. According to the New York Times, these priorities would be: “tackling childhood obesity, ‘making America a tobacco-free nation’ and improving the ability of the Public Health Service to respond to emergencies.” While these priorities are certainly in sync . . .
We recently posted a series of excerpts from The Economic Naturalist, a new book by the Cornell economist Robert Frank (who has another new book out this week, Falling Behind, a brief treatise on income inequality). Because the Economic Naturalist excerpts were well received and vigorously debated, we asked Frank if he would reply to some of the feedback. Kindly, . . .
In response to yesterday’s post about how our site was overwhelmed by Reddit traffic, which was a response to a post two days earlier about the economics of libraries, Reddit co-founder Alexis (knOthing) Ohanian has weighed in on the matter, going so far as to make our Freakonomics apple/orange the Reddit logo of the day. I don’t know whether to . . .
As far as I know, American Indians did not invent casino gambling. They did, however, invent lacrosse, a sport more typically associated these days with the likes of young men at Johns Hopkins and Duke. But in a fitting and culturally resonant reallocation of resources, Indian tribes in upstate New York are now pouring profits from their specially licensed casinos . . .
Today is Friday the 13th, considered the ultimate day of bad luck in modern culture. While historians have yet to verify the root of the superstition, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that more than 17 million people are affected by fear on this day, causing up to $750 million in lost profits for stores, airlines, and other . . .
Steven Peisner, whom Dubner and Levitt wrote about recently in a column on identity theft, has made a career out of trying to stop people from hacking or otherwise stealing valuable information from websites. So Peisner’s ears perked up when he learned of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott‘s announcement on May 31 that Texas now requires companies to shred documents . . .
Every once in a while I do something really stupid. In this case, it was to accept my friend Jeff Thomas‘ invitation to play in a celebrity-amateur golf tournament. (Just to be clear, I’m the amateur; Emmitt Smith is the celebrity in our foursome.) “It is totally relaxed,” Jeff said. “The celebrities play in a televised NBC tournament on the . . .
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