…of traditional subjective committee decision-making?? Does providing free chlorine dispensers at water sources reduce child diarrhea?? Scholars associated with these charities ran randomized experiments (described?here and?here) to find out.? What…
…local communities rather than being squandered in Washington. Finally, I think that the smallest level of government possible best performs education. Teachers, parents, and local community leaders should be making…
…willing to come play in New York City.? The negotiation would likely lead to a more equitable split of New York’s revenues – as it would include all revenues, not…
In this special crossover episode, People I (Mostly) Admire host Steve Levitt admits to No Stupid Questions co-host Angela Duckworth that he knows almost nothing about psychology. But once Angela…
…the original employees consistently rated the manager as better at his or her job than did the new employees. And managers rated the new employee as less competent than his…
This is the first installment of a new Freakonomics.com feature from Sudhir Venkatesh. Each AI: Adventures in Ideas post will showcase new research, writing, or ideas. A new book is…
Delaware is beloved by corporations, bankruptcy lawyers, tax avoiders, and money launderers. Critics say the Delaware “franchise” is undemocratic and corrupt. Insiders say it’s wildly efficient. We say: they’re both…
…compared to the competition. On longer-distance trips, flight is vastly faster. The car isn’t much slower, is fairly inexpensive (particularly with multiple passengers, common on intercity trips), and provides far…
…the next decade? — Billy M Let me give you one that will lead to dozens more. Last year, the Federal Communications Commission conducted an auction for 700 MHz commercial…
…prizes to people coming up with radical new ideas to tackle various global “grand challenges”. But developing a new drug and bringing it to market takes 15 years or more,…
…A Failure of Capitalism at TheAtlantic.com. We mentioned Posner’s new book earlier, and now he has agreed to answer some of our questions about it and the financial crisis. What…
More and more people are calling for the government to create a Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) modeled after the New Deal version that went by the same name. The…
Bapu talks to White House Covid Czar Dr. Ashish Jha about becoming a household name, studying pandemics, and the frustrations of politics. Also, when will he be out of a…
What happens when the most disturbing ideas are also the best?
It’s the banking tool that got millions of people around the world to stop wasting money on the lottery. So why won’t state and federal officials in the U.S. give…
The racial wealth gap in the U.S. is massive. We explore the causes, consequences and potential solutions. Also: another story of discrimination and economic disparity, this one perpetrated by an…
…new products. Almost all major new drugs are discovered and developed by these companies, and most are located inside the U.S. We have a free market system here that supports…
Serial entrepreneur Miki Agrawal loves to talk about the bodily functions that make most people flinch. That’s why she’s building a business around the three P’s: periods, pee, and poop.
Thanks to decades of work by airlines and regulators, plane crashes are nearly a thing of the past. Can we do the same for cars? (Part 2 of “Freakonomics Radio…
…economy of new cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. increase to a combined city/highway m.p.g. of 35.5, up from about 27.9 under today’s CAFE standards. Although hybrids and…
In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the economist Amy Finkelstein explains why insurance markets are broken and how to fix them. Also: why can’t you buy divorce…
The economist Amy Finkelstein explains why insurance markets are broken and how to fix them. Also: why can’t you buy divorce insurance?…
(Photo: Alex Starr) Writing at Slate, Ray Fisman reviews the latest research on the efficacy of charter schools. The study focuses on students at six Boston schools that had previously…
…of students. Rockoff and Speroni call for more research into the nuances and possibilities of subjective and objective testing, writing that “policymakers will need to have a better understanding of…
It’s awkward, random, confusing — and probably discriminatory too.
…and only one blind test on tequila to test the conjecture that the popular rums and tequilas taste better. Perhaps some curious/degenerate blog readers can undertake such tests and report…
…that economists will start theorizing about it, and crunching these data to test their theories. What is your theory of love, and how might we test it in the data?…
In the early 20th century, Max Weber argued that Protestantism created wealth. Finally, there are data to prove if he was right. All it took were some missionary experiments in…
From the results of the high-school “maturity exam” in Poland (courtesy of reader Artur Janc), comes this histogram showing the distribution of scores for the required Polish language test, which…
It’s awkward, random, confusing — and probably discriminatory too.
