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Freakonomics Blog

Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing

A new study of capital sentences handed down in first degree murder cases finds evidence of racial bias against minority defendants who killed white victims. The study (abstract here; pdf here) was conducted by Harvard economist Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara of Universita’ Bocconi. It finds that for sentences handed down to minority defendants convicted of killing white victims were as much as 9 percent more likely to be reversed than in cases involving a minority defendant killing a minority victim. The study examined the race of the defendant and of the victim(s) for all capital appeals that be came final in the U.S. between 1973 and 1995.


Quotes Uncovered: Honest Abe

I’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent researches. Hugo asked: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” – Abe Lincoln. The Yale Book of Quotations has the following entry.


Ten Reasons Why I Would Never Donate to a Major Charity (How to Be a Superhero, Part 2)

“Giving to Charity” is another myth we fervently uphold as part of the Great American Religion — just like “own a home” or “send your kids to college.” It’s time we stop blindly believing in mythology. I’m not saying don’t give. I’m not saying don’t be spiritual or don’t be good. But do it with thoughtfulness, with true spirit, with a true desire to help. More harm than good is done when you blindly throw money at most charities.
When the first version of this article came out (“How to Be a Superhero…or Why I Would Never Donate to a Major Charity”), I got a lot of criticism. So I’m going to answer some of the criticisms/questions that arose and I look forward to any comments or further suggestions.


Prostitute Pay in India

We’ve written about prostitution more than a few times on this blog, and in SuperFreakonomics, we devoted an entire chapter to the economics of prostitution. Now comes an interesting bit of new academic research from India that draws similar conclusions: once you put aside your moral views, it’s not hard to see that entry into the profession is driven by salary and career options.


Can You Copyright a Tattoo?

Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson is famous for a lot of things, including biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear in a fight. A few years later he got this unusual tattoo on his face, also now famous.
Last week, Victor Whitmill, the tattoo artist who inked Tyson, filed suit against Warner Brothers, claiming they had infringed his copyright in Tyson’s tattoo. Which raises an interesting question: Can you copyright a tattoo?


The Happiness Wars Continue

There’s a growing sentiment among economists that GDP is a poor measure of a country’s well-being. (See our recent podcast on the topic; also, the research of Joseph Stiglitz.) The latest fad among European governments seeking to separate the overall health of citizens from sluggish economic data is to ask them if they’re happy. The results aren’t exactly encouraging. Less than half of British adults feel they are thriving. And France now ranks as the world’s most pessimistic country, with only 15 percent saying they expect things to get better in 2011.


How Big Will the Osama Halo Effect Be for Obama?

Think back to high school. The quarterback on the football team had a legendary game over the weekend, and made everyone associated with the school so proud they could split their pants. On Monday, he’s treated like a hero.
But, interestingly, people find themselves thinking better of him not only for his athletic exploits. Suddenly, everything about him seems a cut above.


Fill Up the Tank in Luxembourg

The price of gasoline is currently outrageous in the Netherlands, about €1.60/liter (about $8.80 per U.S. gallon). What do residents do? They arbitrage, so that if they’re headed south they plan to drive through and fill up in Luxembourg, where the price is “only” about €1/liter. This is a bad idea, unless your trip would take you near there anyway. Also, because there are often long lines of liked-minded arbitrageurs waiting to fill up, this is a bad idea if your time is valuable.


Women Continue to Make Education, Labor Gains

A new Census report finds that for the first time, more women in the workforce have bachelor’s degrees than men (37 percent vs. 35). Women are gaining on the education front in general: for ages 25 to 29, 36 percent of women had a bachelor’s or advanced degree versus 28 percent for men. Women were also slightly more likely to have a high school diploma than men: for age 25 and above, it’s 87.6 percent versus 86.6 percent.


Keynes Vs. Hayek, Round 2

Remember Round 1? Here now, the two economics heavyweights square off again, in spectacular rap-ified fashion: You can find more related material here. It is the co-creation of Russ Roberts, who you may remember making some provocative arguments in our “What Would the World Look Like If Economists Were in Charge?” podcast. And here‘s a Q&A with Roberts about the . . .


Will New HTML Unlock the True Power of Smartphones?

Photo: Nokia Connect A new report from the consultants at McKinsey touts the impact that a new generation of HTML code will have on the world’s smartphones. HTML is the programming standard that’s the backbone of the Internet. The latest version, HTML5, will essentially allow mobile programs to run through a Web browser rather than a specific operating system. That . . .


Did the Sale of Pyrex Hurt the Crack-Cocaine Industry?

We’ve written a lot about the economics of drugs, both legal and illegal. There’s an interesting article in Popular Science about Pyrex bake ware, crack cocaine, and the unintended consequences of reducing a product’s quality.


The 100 Rules for Being an Entrepreneur

This is a cross-post from James Altucher‘s blog Altucher Confidential. His previous appearances on the Freakonomics blog can be found here. If you Google “entrepreneur” you get a lot of mindless cliches like “Think Big!” For me, being an “entrepreneur” doesn’t mean starting the next Facebook, or even starting any business at all. It means finding the challenges you have . . .


FREAK-est Links

Children in Armenia are now required to learn chess at school. For New York taxi drivers, economics is always on the mind. Cost benefit analysis of actions from the movie Star Wars. Royal wedding to add £1 billion to UK economy. 120 years later, an uncensored version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is published. Professor Charles De . . .


East Coast Nostalgia in the Netherlands

One of my biggest thrills as a kid in the 1950s when we visited New York City was to go to the Horn & Hardart Automat. The last one closed in 1991—and I haven’t seen anything similar in the U.S. since. But: Walking around Eindhoven, Netherlands, there was the automat concept visible in the doorway of an eatery. Why here in the Netherlands, but not in the U.S.?


India's Worsening Gender Imbalance

We’ve written a lot about gender on this blog, and the preference for boys over girls has been a hallmark of Asian societies for centuries. This has led to large gender imbalances across much of Asia, particularly in China and India. In China, there are 119 boys born for every 100 girls. According to India’s recently completed census, among children six and under, there are only 914 girls counted for every 1,000 boys.


Why Water Will Never Be the Next Oil: A Guest Post by Charles Fishman

Here now is the second in a series of guest posts from Charles Fishman, whose new book is called The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water. (Fishman’s last book is The Wal-Mart Effect.) In The Big Thirst, Fishman tackles the debate around water as an increasingly precious resource while reminding us that water can’t actually be . . .


What Can Movie Stars Tell Us About Marriage And Education?

According to a study published in the Journal of Human Capital, marriages among movie stars may help unravel the mystery behind why people tend to marry partners of similar education levels. It’s a question that’s been puzzling social scientists for years. Some reason that it is mostly due to monetary reasons: a partner with similar education should have similar salary . . .


Bring Us Your Most Uninviting Ideas

I like this question: If you keep a folder of important/embarrassing material on your computer’s desktop (or I guess a real desktop, even) and want to make sure that no one ever opens it, what’s the best name to give the folder? “Actuarial Test Prep” maybe? Suggestions, please. Also, does anyone know the name for this dilemma?   ADDENDUM: Thanks . . .


The Value of Unpaid Work: Which Countries Do the Most and Why

A new report from the OECD paints a fascinating picture of how citizens from different countries stack up on an assortment of metrics: from who works the longest hours, who shops the most, to who is most trusting of others. The annual report, titled “Society at a Glance 2011 – OECD Social Indicators,” is chock-full with interesting data on all kinds of social behaviors.


How Prevalent Is Insider Trading? And What's to Be Done About It? A Freakonomics Quorum

As I type these words, the biggest insider-trading trial in years, that of Raj Rajaratnam, has just gone to the jury. I haven’t followed the trial too closely, but the gist is evident: the line between “insider trading” and the legitimate, if sharp-elbowed, acquisition of useful trading information is extremely blurry. This is hardly the only insider case at the moment. Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, famously said last fall that “illegal insider trading is rampant and may even be on the rise.” So it seemed a good time to put together a Freakonomics Quorum and ask a couple of straightforward questions.


Gary Becker in a Web-Chat, Interviewed by Dubner

Not long ago, Levitt solicited your questions for the economist Gary Becker. Dubner interviewed Becker for a new project called Expert Insight (see BusinessWeek writeup here), whereby various “experts” — in economics, poker, golf, etc. — can be booked for web-chats. Becker is, as always, fascinating and far-ranging, covering everything from immigration policy and organ transplantation to (at the suggestion . . .


"The Quarterback Quandary"

Selecting a player in the NFL draft is essentially trying to predict the future, and human beings are simply not very good at it. Things get even harder when trying to pick the most important position in all of sports: the quarterback.


Quotes Uncovered: Twain or Not Twain

I’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research.


Does More Education Lead to Less Religion?

According to a new working paper that looks at Canadian compulsory schooling laws, an additional year of education leads to a 4 percent decline in the likelihood that someone identifies with a religious tradition.