I like to stop by the National Association of Realtors’ blog now and again to see what the N.A.R. is making of the many changes in real estate. A recent posting referred to a Harris Interactive poll from July in which people were asked to rate the prestige of various occupations. Firefighters were No. 1, while nurses, teachers, and military . . .
Not long ago, we posted here about the supposedly desperate future of newspapers. Now here’s a S.F. Chronicle column by Peter Scheer saying the same thing I tried to say, but Scheer says it better: i.e., if the future of newspapers is so bleak, why are so many smart people rushing to buy them? (The list includes Jack Welch, David . . .
We blogged earlier about how online buzz for Snakes on a Plane failed to translate into box-office success — in part because the buzz was perhaps manufactured. That film was released by New Line. Now comes word that Fox, the studio that released Borat, was scared off by what happened to Snakes. And so, while Borat also had gigantic pre-release . . .
A while back we wrote a New York Times column on organ donation: why there is so little of it, and why we don’t pay people for organs. One of the central themes in that column was Harvard economist Al Roth‘s idea that repugnance constrains markets. For those of you with a slightly more academic bent, Roth has just released . . .
I love Aaron Sorkin’s new show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. But it’s not doing so great ratings-wise. That’s what led to reports like this one, calling its cancellation “imminent.” Happily for me and about 7.7 million other people, however, NBC has ordered up nine more episodes, which means that the show (which is very expensive to produce) will . . .
Here’s an interesting article from Reuters about how Israel is trying to overcome a perceived religious objection to organ donation. (We’ve blogged previously about organ transplants in Israel here, and written on the subject in general here and here and here). One quibble with the Reuters article, an example of journalistic innumeracy (or, worse, journalistic obfuscation), which reads like this: . . .
Is it just me, or does it seem that the failure of the abortion-ban referendum in South Dakota hasn’t gotten much attention? It’s certainly understandable why, what with the Democratic blowout, the Rumsfeld throwout, and a million other pieces of election interest. But still, take a look at this N.Y. Times election post-mortem: you have to get to the fifth . . .
My wife and I spent a night last week learning about Smile Train, a non-profit that provides free cleft surgery to poor children throughout the world. We’ve made donations to them in the past (including this one), but we never really knew much about them. All we knew was that a $250 donation could pay for an operation that would . . .
I’m happy to announce that my first book, a family memoir called Turbulent Souls, has just been republished by HarperCollins. It’s got a new cover, a new essay in the back, and even a new title, Choosing My Religion. The success of Freakonomics has made me grateful on many levels. But one of the best results is that my earlier . . .
Have you ever been to a funeral or memorial service where someone stands up and trashes the deceased? It’s often a subtle or left-handed insult, but it sticks out like a black rose in a field of white ones. My reaction to such comments is probably typical: part of me applauds their honesty; and another part of me is saddened . . .
A lot of people today are voting, and a lot of people are not voting, and a lot of other people are wondering if their vote matters in the least. Here is what we wrote on the subject last year. If it is indeed irrational to vote, as many economists believe, then instead of mourning low voter turnout, perhaps we . . .
Maira Kalman is one of my favorite living artists, and also a friend (though she was a favorite artist before we became friends). Her children’s books are extraordinary (Next Stop, Grand Central is a great piece of kids’ non-fiction), as is her product design (her multi-lingual building blocks, not pictured, are great), though she is probably most famous for her . . .
I try to keep up with the current economics literature, which means reading quite a few papers and a whole lot of abstracts. Most of the literature isn’t very interesting or meaningful to me (this is simply a matter of preference); and some of it might be interesting or meaningful but I am unable to tell. Why? Because the language . . .
There was an article in the N.Y. Times a few weeks back (“A Pro-Business City Policy Backfires on a Few,” Terry Pristin, Oct. 11, 2006) about a big real-estate deal in an industrial section of Brooklyn that will seriously raise the rents on a couple dozen businesses there. As a real-estate article, it was pretty standard fare. But one detail . . .
The November 5, 2006, Freakonomics column examines the economic implications of a random series of ungovernable events: the weather. This post contains bonus material.
Our latest column in the N.Y. Times Magazine is about the weather. Exciting, huh? Specifically, it’s about how some economists are studying the weather itself (particularly the potential impact of global warming) and how others use weather as an instrumental variable to measure various human behaviors, including crime, war, rioting, etc. This column is more of a review of the . . .
I think I will have disappointed many blog readers. The question about who was the most trusted man in America was not meant to be a trick one. I was just struck at the charity event, in the 10 seconds between when they said they had a clip from the most trusted man in America and when the clip started, . . .
From today’s Chicago Tribune: COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. – One of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders admitted Friday that he visited a male prostitute for a massage and bought methamphetamine for personal use – though he said he threw the drugs away without using them. The Rev. Ted Haggard denied the prostitute’s allegation that the two men met for sex . . .
I was at a charity event the other night (more on that event when I have the time to do it justice). The charity group had a clip from someone they touted as “the most trusted man in America.” Who do you think they were referring to? I tried to think of who it might be before they showed the . . .
Here’s a nice article on my friend and colleague at University of Chicago Kevin Murphy. He doesn’t look the part, but he is the smartest human I have ever met. You can also see my past blogs on him when he won the MacArthur Genius award and when he got some other nice magazine profiles.
An interesting article by Steven Lee Meyers in the N.Y. Times says that there are more than 60 casinos in Moscow. According to the World Casino Directory, this is more than any other city in the world except for Las Vegas and Miami (where most of the casinos are on cruise ships). But Vladimir Putin, who is “the only political . . .
An economics student in Portugal, who grew up in Angola, recently wrote to say he was disappointed that we’ve never written anything about Africa. He is right. But, I told him, in our upcoming N.Y. Times Magazine column (due out Nov. 5), there is a short but intriguing bit about the causes of civil war in African countries. He wrote . . .
This new United Nations report makes it clear that in many countries around the world, being a woman is dangerous to your health, to say nothing of your future prospects or pursuit of happiness. From the executive summary: “The roots of violence against women lie in historically unequal power relations between men and women and pervasive discrimination against women in . . .
In response to yesterday’s post about declining newspaper circulation, there was a reader comment that surprised me: I think The N.Y. Times and Washington Post websites are great (although I don’t pay for “Times Select” but I do think that their site has the best presentation, appearance-wise). I always try and remember to click on the ad banners once in . . .
Where I was a kid, there was some expectation that (a) you would wear a costume when trick-or-treating, and (b) if you were old enough to drive, then you would not go trick-or-treating. When did that change and why?
Everybody and their brother is sending me links to Steven Landsburg’s most recent Slate column that reports on studies by economists that suggest internet porn reduces rape and the release of blockbuster violent movies reduces violence. While the idea might strike non-economists as crazy, the theory makes sense. When you lower the price of a good that is a substitute . . .
For the past several years, newspapers have been reporting on their own circulation declines with a strange degree of intensity. They write prominent, mournful, self-flagellating stories of their own decline that remind me of a friend who used to sniff his own underarm when he knew it was particularly randy. Every six months, when the circulation figures are reported, a . . .
Tara Parker-Pope wrote about a really interesting-sounding health website in today’s Wall Street Journal, called YourDiseaseRisk.com. I say “interesting-sounding” because the site has been so deluged with traffic since this morning’s article that it is inaccessible at the moment. But I, along with a lot of other people, am eager to check it out. It is run by the Harvard . . .
I blogged just a few minutes ago about a purported causal link between sports and crime. Now comes word that according to the latest F.B.I. statistics, the most dangerous city in America is St. Louis, and No. 2 is Detroit. Those cities are, of course, home to the recent World Series-winning Cardinals and the runner-up Tigers. So is a high . . .
That is the argument of Sebastien Roche, a French political scientist. In writing about the French riots last year, Roche has challenged the conventional wisdom that sports provide a good outlet for young men and perhaps keeps them out of trouble. To the contrary, Roche contends, “the practice of sport never reduces the number of crimes” and, furthermore, sports can . . .