A Poll Tax on Selfishness
…worth your while to vote in order to impact an election, because of the small probability that any one vote is “pivotal.” But Aaron, together with co-authors Andrew Gelman and…
What surprises lurk in our sewage? How did racist city planners end up saving Black lives? Why does Arizona grow hay for cows in Saudi Arabia? Three strange stories about…
In their chase for a global audience, American movie studios spend billions to make their films look amazing. But almost none of those dollars stay in America. What would it…
Why have fertility rates dropped so dramatically? Do fathers or mothers get more happiness from parenting? And how does birth order affect a child’s future?…
A tiny behavioral-sciences startup is trying to improve the way federal agencies do their work. Considering the size (and habits) of most federal agencies, this isn’t so simple. But after…
Interest in houseplants has exploded in recent years. But what causes floral trends, and prices, to grow? Zachary Crockett sows a few seeds….
…worth your while to vote in order to impact an election, because of the small probability that any one vote is “pivotal.” But Aaron, together with co-authors Andrew Gelman and…
…or not the officers behavior violates the law, the behavior does not display a racial bias, conscious or not. Among the relevant predecessors to this paper are Gelman et al….
…have guessed what was going on. That’s a real concern.? And despite their detective work, the authors still don’t know what caused the sharp shift around 1999. Hat tip:?Andrew Gelman….
…their article. In future posts, I’ll do that. I’ll also write about Andrew Gelman’s interesting comment that “self-experimentation is the opposite of the NIH approach to medical research,” the response…
…for the full research paper; a companion post at the Google blog; a recent write-up in the Times. Other commentary: Marginal Revolution, Andrew Gelman, Zubin Jelveh at Portfolio, Justin Lahart…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, and David Paterson….
…is inherently about a clash of cultures, I was pretty shocked to read the following: Some parents at J.H.S. 22 … were suspicious, viewing Mr. Waronker as too much an…
The famously profane politician and operative is now U.S. ambassador to Japan, where he’s trying to rewrite the rules of diplomacy. But don’t worry: When it comes to China, he’s…
March 22 was World Water Day, and two excellent photo essays draw attention to the issue. Foreign Policy shows images of water crises in places like China, Pakistan and Iraq,…
…photography in the magazine, by the way, and will do so even more in 2008. So I don’t think we’re overlooking anything. However, when the Brazilian edition runs 22-24 page…
…where 22% more solar energy lands each year (according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory), and yet only one in 90 homes harvest it. If San Francisco’s residential solar panels…
Covid-19 has shocked our food-supply system like nothing in modern history. We examine the winners, the losers, the unintended consequences — and just how much toilet paper one household really…
…stop something else that’s going on.” “So instead of hiding the 22 Marlo Stanfield murders and playing it down, the mayor should make it out to be a gang war?”…
There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day Tower of Babel? (Part 3 of the “Earth 2.0” series.)…
Playing notes on her piano, she demonstrates for Steve why whole numbers sound pleasing, why octaves are mathematically imperfect, and how math underlies musical composition. Sarah, a professor at the…
Celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli joins us to co-host an evening of delicious fact-finding: where a trillion oysters went, whether a soda tax can work, and how beer helped build an…
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…
…the U.K. Here’s the schedule: June 20: Birmingham Town Hall, 7:30 pm (tickets). June 21: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 7:30 pm (tickets). June 22: Brighton Corn Exchange, 8:00 pm (tickets). June…
Photo: David De Lossy Last week I posted about Bob Parsons from GoDaddy and his elephant hunting/culling trip to Zimbabwe. Parsons went on a trip to Zimbabwe and killed an…
You know the saying: A winner never quits and a quitter never wins. To which Freakonomics Radio says … Are you sure?…
The last two years have radically changed the way we work — producing winners, losers, and a lot of surprises.
By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. How can that be? And what’s to be done? Our third and final episode in this…
Think you know how much parents matter? Think again. Economists crunch the numbers to learn the ROI on child-rearing.
…that were close to the top five were Seattle with 22 and London with 21. What made this question so hard? My crack researchers Jordan Ou and Laura Rivera analyzed…
…Permissive Society” (lecture), March 22, 1972. I am sure that Megarry did not originate the England-Germany-France triad. Bev Smith asked: “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a…
