It’s been widely reported that London cab drivers have “enlarged hippocampi” thanks to their years spent memorizing London’s streets (a.k.a., acquiring “the Knowledge.” But do their skills generalize?
Britain will soon begin “measuring people’s psychological and environmental well-being” — i.e., their happiness.
Shankar Vedantam of Slate hypothesizes that people continue to procreate, despite overwhelming evidence that parenting isn’t very fun, for much the same reason that cocaine users can’t quit: they’re addicts.
The Economist explains how discrimination in the labor market can be reduced by competition in product markets. As in the U.S., Korean women obtain at least the same education as men; but their rates of labor-force participation are much further below those of men than is true in the U.S., and that’s even true for highly educated women. This provides room for companies to hire equally or more qualified women at the same or even lower wages than men.
If you’re looking for a hot stock tip, consider Twitter. A new paper by Timm O. Sprenger and Isabell M. Welpe looks at the effects of microblogging on stock prices.
Delhi’s Blueline buses are notoriously deadly, perhaps due to a perverse incentive system that rewarded drivers for speedy progress and discouraged investments in the vehicles.
Kal Raustiala, a professor at UCLA Law School and the UCLA International Institute, and Chris Sprigman, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, are experts in counterfeiting and intellectual property. They have been guest-blogging for us about copyright issues. Last time, they wrote about the roles of “tweakers” and “pioneers” in the innovation world; today, they expand on the topic.
The Big Think profiles Paul Zak, a neuroeconomist and Freakonomics guest blogger whose research has focused primarily on oxytocin, a chemical that’s “critical to creating and sustaining trust among people.” Zak has even explored the relationship between trust and national prosperity.
That’s the question asked by U.C.-San Diego economist Gordon H. Hanson in a new working paper.
Are McDonald’s* hamburgers immune to natural processes like rotting? There’s some evidence that they are, but a truly scientific inquiry into the matter has been lacking – until now.
Given the massive uncertainty about the near (and long-term) future of the U.S. tax code, we recently invited Michael Mundaca, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy, to field questions from Freakonomics readers. You asked about everything from offshore tax shelters to the messy estate/death tax situation; here are his answers. A big thanks to all.
In the wake of any financial crisis, a few people are always trotted forth (sometimes they do the trotting themselves) as having seen the particulars of the crisis in advance — but who, despite all their hand-waving and teeth-gnashing, were roundly ignored. In the Wall Street Journal, Jason Zweig profiles Melchior Palyi, an economist who seemingly predicted many of today’s big economic problems. But here’s the twist: he did it some 70 years ago.
One of the exceptional things about the U.S. is how mobile our workers are. It means that worker shortages in North Dakota won’t last long, as workers will move there from jobless Nevada. There’s been a lot of concern that the housing crisis has halted this important adjustment mechanism. According to the Census Bureau, the number of people moving across state lines has plummeted in recent years. Problem is: It’s just not true.
Having spent recent weeks soliciting suggestions of favorite quotations and phrases from readers for the next edition of The Yale Book of Quotations, let me now again turn the tables. Do any readers have any quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
When I stated on this blog that I was hoping to run the NY marathon in under four hours, I was hoping that my public commitment would spur me on. And it did. Sort of. I ran under four hours – 3:54:59 to be precise – which I’m thrilled by. So score one for Ian Ayres and the value of public commitments.
The world is full of efforts and estimates toward reducing carbon emissions. A new paper by David Wheeler and Dan Hammer argues that the best bang for the climate change buck may lie in family planning and girls’ education: $1 million spent could save 250,000 tons of CO2.
I told my wife that I’m happy when I run my best possible, which I did (25:58) in Sunday’s Komen Run for the Cure 5KM race in Austin. She said that I should also be very happy that I took first place out of eight old guys in my age category (65-69).
I was at the Legg Mason Thought Leader Forum last week, talking about my research over recent years on prediction markets. It was good fun, but the real novelty was that as I was speaking – literally, in real time – there was a cartoonist next to the stage, cartooning my talk on a five-foot-wide poster. I’ve never seen this before, but it was a real hit.
On page 9 of Lifecycle Investing, Barry Nalebuff and I write:
“[B]efore you invest in stocks, first pay off all your student loans and credit card debts.”
On reflection, we were only half right. You should pay off your high-interest-rate credit card loans before investing in stock. But in this post from our Forbes blog, Barry and I show why young investors need not pay off their student loans before investing in stock.
When it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), one criticism stands above the others: it’s unnatural. The idea that (unlike conventional genetic exchange within a species) genes from one species can be transferred to another fuels this perception of unnaturalness.
The Center for Global Development has just released its 2010 Commitment to Development Index: “Rich and poor nations are linked in many ways-by foreign aid, commerce, the environment, and more. Each year, the CDI rates rich-country governments on how much they are helping poor countries via seven key linkages: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology.”
In case you haven’t heard, California’s Proposition 19 was defeated last week. The initiative, which would have revoked state laws that prohibit the possession and small-scale cultivation of marijuana, drew only 46 percent of the vote. I’m no expert on what this will mean for incarceration rates, California’s budget, drug-related violence or the sales of Phish concert tickets, but what will keeping pot illegal mean for transportation?
I keep thinking the headlines are from The Onion but they are not. First we read that San Francisco has effectively banned the Happy Meal. Then we learn of a new law that bans people from sitting or lying on city sidewalks from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. (known, naturally, as the “sit/lie law”). Some months ago, the city’s Commission of Animal Control and Welfare proposed banning the sale of any pets other than fish, but that measure has apparently been tabled.
Very applied personnel economics. During an upcoming stay in Florida with the extended family, all six adults want to go out to a fancy dinner, leaving the six kids alone (since their parents say the older ones – boy, 14; boy, 13; girl, 12; girl, 11 – can care for the little boys, ages 7 and 4). The older ones have had a lot of successful babysitting experience, and their parents say they typically get paid. But what payment mechanism is both efficient (will induce careful babysitting) and equitable?
A few years back, a Freakonomics reader named Stephanie Downs wrote in with an idea: bribing people (with cash, gift certificates etc.) to spay or neuter their pets. “I found your story about the [Israeli] daycares very interesting,” she wrote. “I want to do the research upfront on what will motivate people instead of spending years finding the right formula.”
Previous research indicates that the more years of education a person has, the more he thinks like an economist. A new paper (summarized by the BPS Research Digest) by Bryan Caplan and Stephen C. Miller, however, attempts to separate the role of intelligence and education in “thinking like an economist.”
A few days ago, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange began selling futures contracts on rain. As this Marketplace report points out, the Merc – best known for selling agricultural commodities and futures – “already sells futures for temperature, frost, snow – even hurricanes.”
Ha! That headline probably got you thinking this was a post about Governor Cuomo. It’s not. It’s about an economist trying to keep fit despite the rising demands of work, parenthood, and the shrinking supply of energy that comes in your mid- to late thirties.
Turning from celebrity culture to a weightier arena, I am again seeking suggestions of notable quotations from United States Supreme Court decisions of recent years. Are there any worthy successors to the eloquent justices of the past, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Robert H. Jackson?
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has “passed an ordinance that will require meals to meet certain nutritional guidelines if restaurants wish to include a toy with the food purchase.”