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.
Craig Glenday with Lucky Diamond Rich, the most tattooed person. (c) Guinness World Records. Last week we solicited your questions for Guinness Book of World Records editor Craig Glenday. Among other interesting queries, you asked: Is Barry Bonds in this year’s book? What (besides being in the book) is in it for the record breaker? How much alcohol, exactly, can . . .
Tomorrow is a big day for me — I’m running the Stockholm marathon. Here’s a simple wisdom of crowds experiment: A free piece of Freakonomics schwag to whoever comes closest to guessing my finishing time. Leave your guesses in the comments anytime before the race begins (2 p.m. Stockholm time = 8 a.m. EST). And now, the form guide: The . . .
When Levitt and I were up in Boston a couple months ago to write about the Celtics’ reliance on statistical analysis to make strategic and personnel decisions, one goal was to figure out strengths and weaknesses the Celtics knew about their own players and other teams’ players that weren’t obvious. Danny Ainge and Mike Zarren were understandably not very forthcoming . . .
My last post showed that people with relatively extreme political views tend to be significantly happier than moderates. I’ll admit I have a harder time relating to political zealotry than I do to political views that simply oppose my own. I have definite opinions — especially on issues like regulation, taxes, and freedom — but I’ve looked at a lot . . .
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. Thanks to the hundreds of people who have responded to my blegging for contributions of modern proverbs over the past two weeks. Now I turn to something that may have . . .
Emek Basker is an incredibly creative (and under-appreciated) industrial organization economist. She is also surely the leading Wal-Mart-ologist, and has been studying big box stores for several years. Her most recent piece provides a very nice teaching example highlighting the importance of the income elasticity of demand; she also managed the perfectly accurate but cheeky turn of phrase that we . . .
We wrote not long ago about the various negative externalities produced by driving — congestion, pollution, accident risk, etc. — and how pay-as-you-drive insurance might help impose the true cost of driving on each driver. Now a reader named Larry Holt, the director of research of the Birmingham (Alabama) Regional Chamber of Commerce, writes in with an interesting point about . . .
The headline says it all, although the unspoken question is: will globalization indeed result in the hegemony of English, as has long been promised/threatened? We gathered up some wise people who spend their time thinking about such things — Christian Rolling, Mark Liberman, Henry Hitchings, and John Hayden — and asked them to answer our question. Many thanks for their . . .
I’m currently in Sweden, spending a couple of weeks at Stockholm University’s Institute for International Economic Studies. It is really a remarkable place. “The Institute” was founded under the directorship of Nobellist Gunnar Myrdal, it thrived under the great Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck, and is now guided by Torsten Persson, a giant in political economy. By any measure, that’s quite . . .
Screen Shot from the Marketplace Web site. It’s next to impossible to find an economist who will support a gas tax holiday, but cutting the gas tax altogether is an option in Budget Hero, a surprisingly entertaining online game that puts you in charge of balancing the federal budget. Based on budget models from the Congressional Budget Office, Budget Hero . . .
I’m trying to decide what to do about train travel during our 5-month sabbatical in Germany. For $55 I can buy a card that gives me a 25 percent discount on all train tickets I buy. So if I buy $220 worth of train tickets I break even — any more than that is a good deal. I have to . . .
Lots of people want to buy property in outer-space, argues blogger Glenn Reynolds. He points to customers of Lunar Embassy who pay $16 or $20 for novelty acres on the moon. But to go from gimmicky certificates to serious lunar (and Martian) real estate development takes a serious economic incentive — like the concept of “land claims recognition legislation,” as . . .
What do American drivers, the children of Lake Wobegon, and termites have in common? They are all above average. Here’s what a regular reader called LLP pointed out in an e-mail: There is a TV ad running here in Southern California for a pest control company. It states that “the average termite eats 24 hours a day, 7 days a . . .
I recently returned from a cool conference in Athens and I was surprised to see the following poster for Silk Cut cigarettes plastered all around the city. Photo: Hetal Thaker, Product Manager-Dimensions, SPSS Inc. We see a bone propping open an alligator’s jaw and a bulldog looking on intently with the slogan “Must-have Silk” written below. The “bone” in the . . .
I love to read books written by police officers about being police officers, and books written by criminals about being criminals. In the latter category, I highly recommend Brutal by Kevin Weeks and Phyllis Karas. Kevin Weeks was Whitey Bulger‘s right-hand man. He is loyal, loves to punch people in the face, and doesn’t mind committing the occasional murder. It . . .
The statistics of the one-hit wonder. (HT: David Fortune)(Earlier) How to donate your organs and get paid leave. (HT: Nick Mulcahy)(Earlier) Bad business? It’s Hollywood’s fault. An insurance policy against extinction? (HT: Spectre)
I’ve been thinking a lot about teeth lately. First I read this post by Ian Ayres on the value of getting a tooth cleaning. Then I was out in Salt Lake City to give a lecture at the University of Utah, and the student who drove me around was a very nice guy whose father is a dentist, and we . . .
Lucian Freud‘s painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping recently set a sale record for a living artist at $33.6 million. Does this symbolize a thriving art market, is it a happy exception, or is it even worth the price? According to one estimate, the money paid for the painting could have paid for 20 minutes of America’s gasoline consumption. Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, . . .
Jessica‘s earlier posts can be found here, her own blog here, and her recent book here. Dubner and Levitt further discuss the economics of the gift card in this Times article.
What kind of people use check-cashing places? How do they work? Do such places contribute to inequality? And most important — why are people paying for their own money? In their video “Checkmate,” the Internets Celebrities, a.k.a. Dallas Penn and Rafi Kam, explore these questions and eventually, in their words, “make it rain.”
I had a sobering moment a couple of years ago when I noticed that MSNBC’s recommendation engine predicted that I would enjoy stories about American Idol. It’s a guilty pleasure, but AI is one of the more normal things that I do with my 11-year-old daughter, Anna. So my household is quite happy that (fellow Kansas City area native) David . . .
Freakonomics readers know that cars don’t cause traffic jams — drivers do. New technology might eventually eliminate drivers altogether, but probably not anytime soon. Meanwhile, at least one driver has taken matters into his own hands, posting YouTube videos of problem spots on his commute to embarrass transit officials into making repairs, the Los Angeles Times, reports. Are more to . . .
The Shangri-La staples. A couple of years back, we wrote about the very interesting research of Berkeley psychology professor Seth Roberts, whose self-experimentation included a weight-loss program that was incredibly simple, cheap, and seemingly effective. Later, Seth turned his method into a book called The Shangri-La Diet. The diet is really a simple appetite-suppressing plan whereby you regularly ingest some . . .
Say you’re hired for a new job. At the end of a four-week training period, your new boss offers you a big bonus to quit right then. Would you stay on the job, or take the money and run? Zappos employees interact on Twitter. Think of it as an employer’s test for whether you’ve come on board for the money . . .
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here. Last week I blegged for examples of modern proverbs, like “Sh*t happens,” “It takes a village to raise a child,” “Different strokes for different folks,” “The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” “There ain’t no . . .
A few years back Dubner and I wrote a piece on Slate heralding a remarkable young economist, Emily Oster. She has continued to do great work. She also has done something incredibly rare for an academic economist: she has admitted she was wrong. In places like India and China, there are many “missing women.” In other words, the sex ratios . . .