Investment advice from my old quiz bowl teammate
…becoming one of the big shots at thestreet.com, making (and I fear eventually losing back) millions in the internet boom. Now, he is back at the Wall Street Journal, where…
…becoming one of the big shots at thestreet.com, making (and I fear eventually losing back) millions in the internet boom. Now, he is back at the Wall Street Journal, where…
In case you didn’t get your fill from our previous post, the e-mail guide Send — by The Times‘s OpEd editor, David Shipley, and former Hyperion Books editor-in-chief, Will Schwalbe…
…at Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen’s Guide to the Debate Over Taxes, by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija. Slemrod, an economist at the University of Michigan, is a profoundly experienced researcher…
…considered dollar-maximizing without making any assumptions about interpersonal comparisons. It could well be that the value of the ham and bacon to him and any competitive advantage that he might…
…I saw the study guide that provided the basis for the subsequent test, I have to say I was stunned by what to me (and I’ve had econ in college,…
…to gently guide people to save is one of the linchpins of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein‘s Nudge. Yes, Keep the Change leads to more savings in that Bank of…
…if it doesn’t help criminals to see what they’re doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights — one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country — often fail…
…at international travel. Frommer returned to New York to practice law but he quit in 1962 to found Arthur Frommer International, Inc. The company has published more than 350 guides…
From a reader named Josh Slavin comes an interesting request for help: My friend was just telling me about a recent dream in which she was naked at a party…
As the Senate and the House look to reconcile competing stimulus plans, the big debate is whether to emphasize government spending or tax cuts. A new paper by the New…
…than the result of individual weakness and faulty character, conformity appears to arise from the same neural systems that guide behaviour towards highly-valued outcomes, including such basic needs as food,…
…the past 30 years and still learn something new with each reading. It is single best guide to being effective I have every come across. The Godfather by Mario Puzo…
…warm Sunday that we got to see happy Orthodox families stroll around the Old City in full Purim regalia. But Henry and I were floored when we passed a 6-year-old…
Via CNN.com: In the current New England Journal of Medicine, Brown University assistant medical professor David Dosa profiles Oscar, a cat in a Rhode Island nursing home who has demonstrated…
(Photo: Gail) Our recent podcast, “What You Don’t Know About Online Dating,” offered an economist’s guide to dating online. Here’s one more perk: a report by CovergEx Group estimates that…
On Thurs., June 9, we’ll bring Freakonomics Radio alive (or die trying) on the stage of the historic Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn. Details here and here. St. Paul…
…people who haven’t been through a painful experience have a hard time estimating just how painful it is (doctors underestimate patients’ pain; even patients underestimate how much pain they’ll experience…
Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success…
There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scrutiny. Freakonomics Radio digs through the numbers and finds all kinds of…
…conduct, for example, “drive carefully.” A rule is a much more specific command, as in “drive 65 miles per hour or less.” Fair use is more like the first than…
…versus children who are unrestrained. Maybe we need to rethink this going forward? Demand that the physicians at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who have repeatedly found that car seats…
The World Trade Organization is the referee for 164 trading partners, each with their own political and economic agendas. Lately, those agendas have gotten more complicated — especially with President…
…you, nothing good will happen to you in life. The lowest common denominator for having a kid who turns out well is the kid being loved. And if I were…
…there were perhaps 200 people standing around with handwritten cardboard signs. I guessed maybe they were unemployed and looking for work. It turns out they actually were working, but I…
A New York guide to holiday tipping. Researchers discover the surefire way to win at Rock, Paper, Scissors. (Earlier) An economic case for predicting no recession. Monkeys exhibit the same…
…by me. Dozens responded via comments or e-mails. I am responding as best I can, a couple per week. Authors Uncovered Here are more quote authors Shapiro’s tracked down recently….
…Social Survey comes from kid No. 1. Second, doubling your kids definitely less than doubles the financial cost of raising them. Hand-me-downs and nannies are the most obvious examples. But…
They should! It’s a cardinal rule: more expensive items are supposed to be qualitatively better than their cheaper versions. But is that true for wine?
…will make much of a dent in the unemployment rate. Yet the Fed believes otherwise, cheerfully (wishfully?) forecasting declining unemployment. The blue dots in the graph below show how economic…
…found that the underpricing had disappeared within a year of the book’s publication. Established sabermetric principles were low-hanging fruit that have been quickly harvested, and now the A’s, along with…
