Michael and I looked over the 500 plus comments and suggestions that were generously offered regarding his upcoming dilemma: How should I give away $70 million? We were joined by his sister, Cathy, who also has a “small sum of money” (her words) that she needs to donate in the coming decade. Apparently, she will have to give away “only” . . .
Three days: … The amount of time auto-rickshaws are striking. … How long it took to crack the iPhone root password. … The length of the papal visit to New York. … How long a man played online games before dying. … How long a cow-human cross embryo lived.
Here’s the latest bleg request from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. You can find his past blegs here and you can send blegs of your own here. The past few weeks I have been blegging for information about famous computer quotations to help with future editions of the recently published Yale Book of Quotations. Another questionable . . .
The actor Ed Begley Jr. has a widely-circulated OpEd piece touting his eco-friendly activities, featuring a proud announcement that his exercise on his stationary bicycle generates the electricity he uses to toast two pieces of bread. Now those two pieces give him 200 calories, but he burns at least 100 calories on the bike. So half of his eco-friendly exercise . . .
In 2006, a Rhode Island jury found three major paint makers liable for the toxic effects of lead paint on children. One of those effects may have been a rise in the crime rate — and the removal of lead from house paint has been linked to the crime drop of the 1990’s (as Levitt blogged about here). Now the . . .
Arthur Brooks, the Louis A. Bantle Professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, made his first appearance on this blog when he found that religious conservatives are more philanthropic than secular liberals. He has appeared a few more times since then. He has just published a new book, Gross . . .
How do you score a bruising fight like the Pennsylvania primary? In politics, it seems, expectations are everything. And regular readers will not be surprised to hear that I would argue that political prediction markets can help us understand which candidates actually exceeded pre-poll expectations. Some simple observations: Clinton‘s 9.5 point victory margin was roughly what one might expect from . . .
I walked into a Starbucks in Manhattan the other day and noticed that the food in the glass display case now lists three key facts: the name of the item, the price, and the calories. This last fact is new. It is the result of a recent New York City regulation that requires chain restaurants — those with 15 or . . .
In a famous 1995 paper, Richard Easterlin asked: “Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?” His analysis involved studying the evolution of happiness through time in Japan, the U.S. and Europe. His answer? “No.” Betsey Stevenson and I recently returned to examining the evolution of happiness in these three important regions, and we conclude that the . . .
In some cases, both rely on the honor system to collect their revenue. During tax season, New York State asks its citizens to voluntarily pay sales tax on any untaxed internet purchases they have made over last year. The plea has been pretty effective — New Yorkers handed over $45 million in internet sales tax last year alone. Still, that’s . . .
Robert Reich Robert Reich, perhaps best known as labor secretary under Bill Clinton, recently announced his endorsement of Barack Obama. He explains his decision on his blog. Reich has served in three national administrations, and implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act while he was labor secretary. He was awarded the Vaclev Havel Foundation Prize for his work in economic . . .
One of the fun things about living in Philadelphia is that elections here are always hard-fought, and often have a national impact. And today’s Democratic primary is no exception. What can I tell you from being on the ground here in Philly? First, there is no shortage of Penn students for Obama. They are everywhere. And second, in an unscientific . . .
Can you measure success by the opportunities you’ve blown? America’s oldest venture capital firm thinks so. Bessemer Venture Partners, which has been betting on startups since 1911, has posted this anti-portfolio of once-fledgling companies they sent packing, including Apple, Google, eBay, Intel, and FedEx. Maybe Dubner and Levitt can interest them in this new baby-name-consulting firm …
I was sitting in the student union at the University of Chicago last week when a student came by putting “Free Mumia” leaflets on the tables. I have never paid much attention to the Mumia Abu-Jamal case. On the one hand, I know enough about police, the criminal justice system, and racism to believe that an innocent black man could . . .
Continuing on the theme of the relationship between income and happiness (previous posts: 1, 2 , and 3), let me show you what Betsey Stevenson and I learned when comparing the happiness of rich and poor people. Let’s begin with the most recent data from the 2006 General Social Survey, which asked: “Taken all together, how would you say things . . .
A recent N.P.R. report about housing prices in D.C. shows the close link between driving costs and the housing market. According to the report, home prices in the suburbs have fallen 18 percent while those in the District have risen 11 percent. No doubt some of this difference is due to a change in demand toward the District resulting from . . .
Eggleston and his daughter two minutes before it began to hail. Says Eggleston, “Hail was not in the forecast.” A gentleman named J.D. Eggleston recently wrote to us with a rather interesting report, a nice piece of D.I.Y. Freakonomics concerning the accuracy of local T.V. weather forecasts. I thought it was interesting enough to post in its entirety here on . . .
Taiwan’s major newspapers charge a higher advertising rate on days when Yankees right-hander and Taiwan native Chien-Ming Wang pitches, Sports Illustrated reports. Computer maker Acer claims Wang’s name increased its product sales by 10 percent, and the Taiwanese business journal Money Weekly attributed a 25 percent rise in the Taiwan Stock Exchange to Wang’s strong performance last June and July. . . .
Levitt and I missed a terrific business opportunity. If we had even an ounce of entrepreneurship between us, we would have parlayed the Freakonomics chapter on baby names into a baby-name-consulting business. According to this Reuters report, parents in Britian spend “up to 45 hours” picking out a name for their child, “a combined 30 million hours annually.” Let’s see: . . .
No matter what the engineers do, the squirrels still manage to gnaw their way through the garbage bins in my alley. The city keeps coming up with new garbage bins that thwart the squirrels’ previous strategy, but the squirrels just keep coming up with new and better ideas. They used to chew through the lid. So the engineers made the . . .
Dubner recently questioned whether there’s much (or anything) to be learned from stock market news. A paper by University of Michigan political science professor Arthur Lupia and his students points to a major reason stock stories lack substance: “Point blindness,” or what happens when news reports and citizens don’t realize that the value of a stock index point changes frequently. . . .
Dubner and Levitt have written a column for the Times Magazine‘s inaugural “green” issue of Sun., April 20. The subject: how auto travel produces a variety of negative externalities — pollution, carbon emissions, congestion, accidents — and how one new strategy may be able to help: pay-as-you-drive (P.A.Y.D.) auto insurance. The strange truth is that most auto insurance in the . . .
Yesterday I noted that there is powerful evidence from the recent Gallup World Poll that rich countries are happier than poor countries. Today, I want to show you how this fact remained hidden in the data for several decades. (And I don’t mean to suggest that we are the first to discover this, but rather that those who noted this . . .
We recently solicited your questions for poker man Phil Gordon. In his answers below, he discusses (among other things) variance, sunglasses, and why he’s not a gambler by nature, but rather “a strategic investor.” This is a really good and smart Q&A (although he did neglect to mention a certain beat-down he once suffered). Thanks to Phil and to all . . .
I blogged a few days back about how letters without postage still get delivered and urged blog readers to carry out some field experiments on the subject. It turns out that blog reader Aaron — who wants his last name withheld (you know how ruthless the Canadian Postal Service can be) — had run a somewhat different experiment in the . . .
Remember when the Michigan Wolverines kicked off their football season last year with a loss to Appalachian State University? Some people called it the biggest upset in college football history. Well, as Mike Huguenin notes at Rivals.com, it looks like the big-time schools are being a lot more careful this year in picking their supposedly patsy opponents. Appalachian, meanwhile, is . . .
If you are a parent who’s trying to save for your kids’ college education, you should check out Jane Kim‘s article in the Wall Street Journal about 529 college-savings plans. If you don’t know what a 529 plan is, you should; and if you do, Kim’s article is helpful in assessing whether you’re optimizing your participation. In a nutshell: a . . .
My college friend Greg Spira writes in Slate about the exaggerated share of American-born Major League Baseball players with fall birthdays. This is more evidence in support of the idea that arbitrary eligibility cutoffs for youth sports programs have long-term impacts on who invests in the sport and eventually reaches the highest levels. One of our earlier Freakonomics columns in . . .
Following yesterday’s post, I promised to describe the new evidence that rich countries are happier than poor countries. The simplest way to make this point is with a chart, using data from the Gallup World Poll. This amazing new dataset contains detailed data on subjective well-being for 132 countries in 2006. (Amazingly, Gallup plans to continue to field this poll . . .
As has now become Thursday custom, we’ve posted below a bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. This is easily my favorite so far. I hope you all can help him out. (As always, feel free to send us your own bleg requests here.) Our Daily Bleg by Fred R. Shapiro Last week I blegged, seeking . . .