Lottery Tickets for Safe Drivers?
…most interesting bit comes from the Sydney Morning Herald, which reports that one of Achterstraat’s recommendations is to give lottery tickets and thank you cards to randomly selected drivers who…
It’s hard enough to save for a house, tuition, or retirement. So why are we willing to pay big fees for subpar investment returns? Enter the low-cost index fund. The…
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…
…most interesting bit comes from the Sydney Morning Herald, which reports that one of Achterstraat’s recommendations is to give lottery tickets and thank you cards to randomly selected drivers who…
…look great. As an incentive to get people who tossed coins at Freakonomics Experiments to complete follow-up surveys, we promised to give away prizes via lottery. As evidence we kept…
Also: What does your desired superpower say about you?…
As investment schemes, state lotteries are about as sound as a Bernard Madoff venture. But at least one lottery might be worth it — if you do the math. When…
How is “negative reinforcement” different from punishment? Could positive reinforcement encourage prosocial behavior on a national scale? And what’s the deal with Taiwan’s dog-poop lottery?…
Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about junk food, insurance, and how to make an economist happy.
The U.S. immigration system is a massively complicated machine, with a lot of worn-out parts. How to fix it? Step one: Get hold of some actual facts and evidence. (We…
…entitled to win the pool by lottery. The researchers noticed that 62 percent of the participants in the incentive group achieved the goal, while just 26 percent from the non-incentive…
…all three simultaneously, meaning you can save your wishes for Middle East peace, tomorrow’s lottery numbers, or cursing the Miami Heat. The miracle innovation is self-driving, robotic cars. Urban planner…
…have a bit of a profit motive.? I’ve put a lot of money at risk in the past to lose weight without ever being compensated.? This fairly simple auction shows…
Should you visualize success or failure? How do you bounce back from a mistake? And will Maria hustle Angela into a poker game?…
Pro footballer and star podcaster Jason Kelce is ubiquitous right now (almost as ubiquitous as his brother and co-host Travis, who’s been in the limelight for his relationship with Taylor…
In my paper with Tim Groseclose and Pierre-Andre Chiappori, we test the predictions of game theory using penalty kicks in soccer. We find that the players’ actions conform very closely…
…contract. Barry is a world-class game theorist who hasn’t only written about the benefits of commitment devices; he’s also used them to lose weight. He’s the father of the bathing…
Does having more health information actually change behavior? To test this question, host Bapu Jena explores whether doctors make healthier choices than the rest of us (and he fesses up…
We’ve said it many times before: your name is not your destiny. Unless you choose to make it so. In our continuing quest to bring you Grade A aptonyms from…
A lot of the conventional wisdom in medicine is nothing more than hunch or wishful thinking. A new breed of data detectives is hoping to change that.
…(the lottery losers) to successful artists (the lottery winners). And now the N.Y. Times reports that Congress may be set to impose the California resale royalty rule on the rest…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman is also a friend and former business partner of Steve’s. In discussing Danny’s new book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment,…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March. In 2021 he talked with Steve Levitt — his friend and former business partner — about his book…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March. In 2021 he talked with Steve Levitt — his friend and former business partner — about his book…
For soccer fans, it’s easy. For the rest of us? Not so much, especially since the U.S. team didn’t qualify. So here’s what to watch for even if you have…
| Losing your job in this economy is turning out to not be so terrible as long as you’ve bought the right things just beforehand. Suits, cars, airline tickets, and…
How pharma greed, government subsidies, and a push to make pain the “fifth vital sign” kicked off a crisis that costs $80 billion a year and has killed hundreds of…
…relative to what management and investors should have expected. [T]he experience of the last decade suggests that until legacy carriers can either close the cost gap with LCCs or increase…
Why are people so inconsistent? Is there such a thing as character? And did Stephen once have the world’s longest chain of gum wrappers?…
Following Steve Peisner’s infiltration of the Texas state database, BBC News reports that Equifax, a credit information service, is warning that users of social networking sites are heightening their risk…
