Why the Chinese Save
…save up wealth that boosts their children’s marriage prospects. In their paper, Wei and Zhang argue that Chinese marriage-price inflation could account for as much as half of the increase…
Influenza kills, but you’d never know it by how few of us get the vaccine.
…save up wealth that boosts their children’s marriage prospects. In their paper, Wei and Zhang argue that Chinese marriage-price inflation could account for as much as half of the increase…
…transit can help save the environment. The proposition seems intuitive and even obvious: by no longer encasing each traveler in thousands of pounds of difficult-to-move metal, surely transit is more…
He’s one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, with a focus on the physiological effects of stress. (For years, he spent his summers in Kenya, alone except for the baboons he…
…would have saved a nice tidy sum to spend as they please: college, car, suit. Who knows, the kids might even garner a better appreciation for math because of its…
In his new book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror, Mahmood Mamdani “attacks the Save Darfur Coalition as ahistorical and dishonest, and argues that the conflict…
The legendary venture capitalist believes the same intuition that led him to bet early on Google can help us reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But Steve wonders why his…
Every year, there are more than a million collisions in the U.S. between drivers and deer. The result: hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, and billions in damages. Enter the…
A new working paper by Felipe Kast, Stephan Meier, Dina Pomeranz combines two of our favorite topics, both explored in recent podcasts: our inability to save money and the efficacy…
…harder about smoke alarms. Do Smoke Alarms Really Save Lives? By Joseph M. Fleming As a deputy chief on a major municipal fire department, I have preached for years about…
…To test her idea, the Planet Money crew played a game designed by German zoologist Manfred Milinski to determine whether people will spend money now to save the planet later….
…which produced the study, says the biggest health gains came among those people the ban saved from regular exposure to second-hand smoke. The rate of heart-disease-related deaths has been cut…
It’s a surprisingly hard question to answer. Bapu talks with a health economist about a natural experiment that led to some unexpected findings….
A team of economists has been running the numbers on the U.N.’s development goals. They have a different view of how those billions of dollars should be spent.
How likely is it that this conversation is happening in more than one universe? Should we worry more about Covid or about nuclear war? Is economics a form of “intellectual…
Photo: procsilas A coalition of college presidents has been pushing states to lower the drinking age as a way to discourage problem drinking on campuses. But here’s one unintended consequence…
Our recent podcast “Parking Is Hell” explored the high costs of free parking. Transportation scholar Donald Shoup described one study, from L.A.: We made 240 observations. When you add it…
Nearly two years ago, I blogged about my fear of global pandemic and how I thought Google might be the thing that saves us by providing an early warning system….
It is devilishly hard to lose weight. A randomized control year-long study looked at the impact of four different diets (Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets) on a group…
…more than once a month. But each time I do, the home machine saves me easily 15 minutes. I believe similar small technology-induced time savings are ubiquitous, and that together…
(Photo: Stella Benezra) Freakonomics fans will already know that financial literacy is a hot issue for researchers – it’s in everybody’s best interest to get people making better financial decisions,…
(Brand X Pictures) Our latest Freakonomics podcast, “Misadventures in Baby-Making,” includes a discussion of how sex-selective abortion has led to 160 million missing females in Asia. Closer to home, however,…
Read the Column » The February 19, 2006, Freakonomics column in the New York Times Magazine concerns NASCAR, or the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, which in a…
Is a bad movie review even worse than no movie review at all? Studios often refrain from pre-screening movies for critics if they believe the movie will get bad reviews,…
(Photo: Dan bennett) Allison Zelkowitz, the Thailand program director for Save the Children, writes in to say: I listen to your podcast frequently, and I was particularly interested by your…
For nearly a decade, governments have been using behavioral nudges to solve problems — and the strategy is catching on in healthcare, firefighting, and policing. But is that thinking too…
…tune of $12,803 in cost savings from fewer dates,” they continued. “Assuming you go Dutch, each party saves a touch over $6,400 in choosing the online route to marital bliss.”…
Naturalist Sy Montgomery explains how she learned to be social from a pig, discovered octopuses have souls, and came to love a killer that will never love her back.
Hollywood loves stories of canine heroism. But can ordinary dogs really be heroes? To find out, Alexandra Horowitz talks to a dog-cognition researcher and to Susan Orlean, author of the…
(Photodisc) Researchers working in South Africa are using a rolled-dice trick to solicit honest answers from farmers suspected of illegally killing leopards and hyenas. The trick uses randomized response, a…
