How to Get the Best out of College? Your Questions Answered
…a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, so this is a decision best entered with the wise advice of parents, teachers, and/or high school counselors who know you best….
When small businesses get bought by big investors, the name may stay the same — but customers and employees can feel the difference. (Part 2 of 2.)…
Most travelers want the cheapest flight they can find. Airlines, meanwhile, need to manage volatile fuel costs, a pricey workforce, and complex logistics. So how do they make money —…
Do economic sanctions work? Are big democracies any good at spreading democracy? What is the root cause of terrorism? It turns out that data analysis can help answer all these…
Some people argue that sugar should be regulated, like alcohol and tobacco, on the grounds that it’s addictive and toxic. How much sense does that make? We hear from a…
…a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, so this is a decision best entered with the wise advice of parents, teachers, and/or high school counselors who know you best….
Joshua Gans is an economist at the University of Toronto. He has appeared on this blog before and, as the author of Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting ,…
Steve shows a different side of himself in very personal interviews with his two oldest daughters. Amanda talks about growing up with social anxiety and her decision to not go…
Steve shows a different side of himself in very personal interviews with his two oldest daughters. Amanda talks about growing up with social anxiety and her decision not to go…
…episode of the hour-long Freakonomics Radio show, “The Economist’s Guide to Parenting.”) There’s something new and strange about all this. Today, I feel the powerful force of biology. It’s visceral;…
…with my own decision to become a dad (a theme Betsey and I explored with Dubner, in the recent hour-long episode of Freakonomics Radio, “The Economist’s Guide to Parenting.” You…
Every December, a British man named Tom Whitwell publishes a list of 52 things he’s learned that year. These fascinating facts reveal the spectrum of human behavior, from fraud and…
This new Jeopardy! host is best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, but she has a rich life outside of her acting career too,…
We asked you to nominate the worst sins of the modern age. Which one do Stephen and Angela think belongs on the list? And which does Angie struggle with the…
In just a few weeks, the novel coronavirus has undone a century’s worth of our economic and social habits. What consequences will this have on our future — and is…
For lots of things, price is an indicator of quality. But what about in health care? Bapu Jena gets some clues from Steve Levitt’s wine tasting experiment, and looks at…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the former N.F.L. player, union official, and all-around sports thinker, recorded for our “Hidden Side of Sports” series….
Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940’s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrimination is incredibly costly — to the victims, of course, but also the perpetrators. One modern…
Their trade organization just lost a huge lawsuit. Their infamous commission model is under attack. And there are way too many of them. If they go the way of travel…
…time he took a hard look at corporate diversity programs. As a follow-up to our recent series on the Rooney Rule, we revisit our 2022 conversation with the controversial economist….
…is it? We’ve blogged more than a few times about the spike in American obesity. These posts have included: economists’ attempts to identify the causes of this spike; a post…
The families of U.S. troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan are suing several companies that did reconstruction there. Why? These companies, they say, paid the Taliban protection money, which gave…
Influenza kills, but you’d never know it by how few of us get the vaccine.
When a doctor’s shift ends, or a physician retires, are patients left in the lurch? Bapu Jena looks at the challenge of managing medical transitions….
Liberals endorse harm reduction when it comes to the opioid epidemic. Are they ready to take the same approach to climate change?…
Why do we mirror other people’s accents? Does DJ Khaled get tired of winning? And also: life is good — so why aren’t you happy?…
When she’s not rescuing chickens from coyotes, Susan Athey uses economics to address real-world challenges — from online ad auctions to carbon capture technology….
Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. In the N.F.L., the long snapper is proof of that argument. Just in time for the Super Bowl, here’s…
What happens when tens of millions of fantasy-sports players are suddenly able to bet real money on real games? We’re about to find out. A recent Supreme Court decision has…
