The Japanese version of Freakonomics hits stores next week and looks like this: The academic version of my research with Mark Duggan alleging match rigging in sumo wrestling never got any exposure in Japan, so this will be the first time the results gets widely circulated there. If there are blog readers who read Japanese, maybe they can keep the . . .
Arthur Hertzberg was a prolific and polemical rabbi, scholar, and thorn in the side of Jewish institutionalism. (Although I rarely talked economics with him, I’m sure he would have embraced Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” as his own.) I was very fortunate to have known him, even more fortunate to have been married by him, and very saddened by his . . .
For the past year or so, I’ve been blessed with a terrific assistant, Rachel F., who regular readers of this blog may appreciate as a fulfiller of many seminal tasks. Alas, it is time for Rachel to fly the coop. If you know of a meticulous, organized, enthusiastic person who would like to work somewhere between half- and full-time in . . .
A while back, Levitt and I wrote an article about a former economist in Washington, D.C., who sells bagels and donuts on an honor-system payment scheme. We later adapted that article for inclusion in Freakonomics. Now Levitt has posted a National Bureau of Economics working paper that looks at the Bagel Man’s profit maximization, an important element that we didn’t . . .
Way back when, we wrote about the Berkeley psychology Seth Roberts and his yen for self-experimentation in the realms of mood, sleep, and especially weight control. Because there was such an intense interest in his work, we asked him to guest-blog on this site, which he did, for several days. (If you want to read a complete record of Seth . . .
An article in yesterday’s USA Today reports on a recent survey of health care providers. The study asked them whether or not they would report to work in a flu pandemic. Nearly half said they would be no-shows. If there is one thing economists have learned, it is that what people say and what they do are often not the . . .
Fresh on the heels of a great 20/20 show, Freakonomics returns to ABC, this time on Good Morning America. Stephen Dubner is scheduled to appear around 8:15 am EDT on Thursday, April 20th to discuss a favorite Freakonomics topic. Set your DVR or tune in to see what it will be. [Update: here’s a link.]
Maybe if he checked out this picture, he’d consider it.
People often ask us how they can apply the “lessons” of Freakonomics to their daily lives. Here’s an interesting case: the city of Fresno is saying straight up to drug dealers — Hey, we know you don’t make much money doing what you’re doing, so why don’t you let us help you come in from the cold? Will be interesting . . .
Steve O’Keefe, editor of smarteconomist.com writes: Would you mind posting an announcement on the Freakonomics Blog about the new Smart Interviews feature at SmartEconomist.com? Here’s the announcement: SmartEconomist.com Launches Smart Interviews Fiona M. Scott Morton, Professor of Economics at Yale University’s School of Management, is on the hot seat at SmartEconomist.com April 17-21. Morton has agreed to field questions for . . .
This past Friday night, the ABC News program 20/20 showed an hour-long John Stossel special based on Freakonomics. Because our involvement was quite limited — we helped brainstorm the segments and sat for interviews, etc. — I can say without bragging that it was really, really good. A large and very hard-working team of producers took a bunch of our . . .
Considering Dubner and Levitt questioned the value of voting in the New York Times and have still asked for your vote on more than one occasion, they should probably hesitate to ask you to vote for Freakonomics in the Webby Awards People’s Voice race. But if you should happen to be in the mood, the Webbys are pretty cool, and . . .
A few months ago, Levitt blogged here about a purported link between nutrition and crime. This link derived from a study by Bernard Gesch, a physiologist at the University of Oxford, who took a group of British prisoners, divided them into a control group and an experimental group, and fed the experimental group nutrition supplements (containing vitamins, minerals, and fatty . . .
One of the highlights of the recent conference we had honoring Gary Becker was a speech given by his wife, Guity Becker. Guity was kind enough to let me reprint parts of it here. This is how Guity and Gary met, according to Guity: I saw an ad for a table with ten chairs, for only $200. I called immediately . . .
In Chapter 5 of Freakonomics, which explores the art and science of parenting, we pose this question: Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? It turns out that far more children die each year in swimming pool accidents than in gun incidents. For parents in warm-weather states like Florida, California, and Arizona, this is plainly a year-round . . .
Don’t blink because it surely will not last long, but for the first time ever Freakonomics just reached #1 on Amazon.com after the 20/20 special. Indeed, by the time you read this it will probably be too late. For weeks last April and May we were #2 behind Harry Potter and could never make it to the top. A year . . .
I was quite sure that the National Right-to-Ride Carpool Coalition was a parody but in fact it doesn’t seem to be. The organization is trying to get pregnant women permission to use H.O.V. highway lanes. Here are a couple tips the group offers to pregnant women who might be pulled over for driving solo — well, seemingly solo: Carry documentation . . .
Sudhir Venkatesh, the then-grad student who hung out for several years with a Chicago crack-selling gang, and who is the star of Chapter 3 in Freakonomics, knows an awful lot more about urban life than just the crack gang. On this weekend’s edition of the NPR radio program This American Life (this site tells you when the show plays in . . .
Here is one of Steve Sailer’s more amusing blog posts . He offers his typical, right-on-the-money assessment of me. And then he delivers some insightful social commentary. Some choice excerpts from it: I was pleased to see that Levitt has been replaced as a New York Times columnist by economist-aesthete Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution. Sorry, but believe it or . . .
On Friday, April 14, just in time to mark the one-year anniversary of Freakonomics, the ABC News program 20/20 will devote a full hour to Freakonomics. The program airs at 10:00 pm EDT and will cover parts of the book as well as some interesting new material. Earlier in the day, Stephen Dubner will appear on Good Morning America at . . .
Goodness, it’s been busy. This entire year, and this week in particular. I meant to sit down and write some long and perhaps meaningful note of thanks to everyone involved in the publication of Freakonomics, but time has slipped away and soon the seder guests will be arriving. So let this stand as a very brief thank-you, from Levitt and . . .
The Center I direct at the University of Chicago got a new name last weekend. It is now the “Becker Center for Chicago Price Theory founded by Richard Ryan.” We had a great collection of speakers at the event, including top academics like Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and George Akerlof, Andrei Shleifer, Kevin Murphy, Ed Lazear, and Ed Glaeser, as . . .
Best-seller leads scholar to file lawsuit Defamation allegation targets U. of C. author By Michael Higgins Tribune staff reporter Published April 11, 2006 A scholar known for his work on guns and crime filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, co-author of the best-seller “Freakonomics.” John Lott Jr. of Virginia, a former U. of C. . . .
I blogged about Thomas Dolby a few days back. The Freakonomics blog fact-checker must have been on vacation that day, as I guess I got the story a little bit confused, as Thomas Dolby makes clear in this very amusing blog entry about my blog entry.
The good news is that Freakonomics won the Golden Chazzie Award for best non-fiction book. The bad news is that I never heard of the Golden Chazzie Awards. Or any of the winners in any of the other categories, for that matter. The blog that sponsors it, NeedCoffee, is pretty amusing.
It seems that many people never get tired of talking about real estate. If you’re one of those people, tune in to CNN Saturday April 8th at 1pm, or Sunday April 9th at 3 (Eastern). Dubner will be on In The Money to talk about the New York Times column and the real-estate agent as the next endangered species.
We all know about payola in the record industry, in the medical industry, and elsewhere. Why should journalism be any different? Still, as a journalist, I’d count this story about journalistic hush money (here’s another article) to be one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in a while. If this turns out to be true, Jared Paul Stern makes . . .
A team of German economists has found that the risk of punishment is an essential factor in a money-making venture. Common sense already tells us this is true. But it is nice to see it confirmed in an academic study. The economists designed a set of investment games in which participants could join one of two groups: Group A, which . . .
One of them is Dubner, if his long ago rock career counts. The other, without question, is Thomas Dolby. I sat next to him at lunch last summer at the TED conference in England. He was quite impressive. Dolby’s father was a classics professor, I think. Thomas Dolby is back with his first album in 15 years, and –what else– . . .
Alex Tabarrok, of MarginalRevolution fame, relays the following story, in response to my posting yesterday about the textbook in India that compares wives and donkeys: I told my wife about the donkey to wife comparison. She responded, “they should have made the comparison between a husband and an ass. That’s a much more difficult choice.”