…tell the story are: Robert Shiller, the Yale economist and Irrational Exuberance author, who has indexed U.S. home prices back to 1890; Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association…
The answer is a firm yes, at least according to three IMF economists who studied the correlation between firms’ lobbying efforts, financial risk-taking, and default rates. Their findings (abstract here;…
Taxes on alcohol and tobacco promise to make people healthier and raise public funds. But can they backfire? Bapu Jena looks at the complicated economics of sin taxes….
The Nobel laureate and pioneering behavioral economist spars with Steve over what makes a nudge a nudge, and admits that even economists have plenty of blind spots….
A conversation with former Major League Baseball player and current E.S.P.N. analyst Mark Teixeira, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Hidden Side of Sports.”…
…comes from two sources. First, he gets the best clients to begin with. He gets the most because he shops the best. He’d probably tell you as much. But Boras…
You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done. In an interview from 2018,…
Enrollment is down for the first time in memory, and critics complain college is too expensive, too elitist, and too politicized. The economist Chris Paxson — who happens to be…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges also operate like firms, trying to differentiate their products to win market…
…as the Undercover Economist; at the FT, he goes by Dear Economist. His latest book combines the two: Dear Undercover Economist. He explains why an economist is actually a perfect…
Medicine has evolved from a calling into an industry, adept at dispensing procedures and pills (and gigantic bills), but less good at actual health. Most reformers call for big, bold…
The economist Joseph Stiglitz has devoted his life to exposing the limits of markets. He tells Steve about winning an argument with fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, why small governments…
One of the most storied (and valuable) sports franchises in the world had fallen far. So they decided to do a full reboot — and it worked: this week, they…
Some of the biggest names in behavioral science stand accused of faking their results. Last year, an astonishing 10,000 research papers were retracted. We talk to whistleblowers, reformers, and a…
…and increased interest costs by nearly $3 trillion between 2001 and 2011. In 2011, Federal tax receipts amounted to just 14.4 percent of GDP, far below the postwar average of…
Before she decided to become a poker pro, Maria Konnikova didn’t know how many cards are in a deck. But she did have a Ph.D. in psychology, a brilliant coach…
Before she decided to become a poker pro, Maria Konnikova didn’t know how many cards are in a deck. But she did have a Ph.D. in psychology, a brilliant coach,…
Video We wrote quite a bit in Freakonomics about parenting, trying to figure out what makes someone a good parent. (Here’s an adaptation of one section, from USA Today.) A…
Freakonomics makes the case that good parenting doesn’t necessarily produce good children. But what’s the effect of bad parenting — especially child abuse? Martin Amis offered some evidence on that…
Shankar Vedantam of Slate hypothesizes that people continue to procreate, despite overwhelming evidence that parenting isn’t very fun, for much the same reason that cocaine users can’t quit: they’re addicts….
A new working paper (abstract; PDF) by Paul Gertler, James Heckman, and several other co-authors examines the impressive long-term effects of a Jamaican program that taught low-income parents better parenting…
…it turns out, Conley has the same approach to parenting. He chronicles his unorthodox, research-inspired parenting in his new book Parentology: Everything You Wanted to Know about the Science of…
Photo: iStockphoto It’s time for the annual Name of the Year contest. The 2008 winner, Destiny Frankenstein, is still our favorite, but there are some strong contestants this year. Among…
…the top five players this season in key categories. For instance: 2011 Passing Yards (Avg. Draft Position for Top 5 Performers = 51.4) Player Overall Pick Number …
It isn’t just supply and demand. We look at the complicated history and skewed incentives that make “affordable housing” more punch line than reality in cities from New York and…
When the uncelebrated Leicester City Football Club won the English Premier League, it wasn’t just the biggest underdog story in recent history. It was a sign of changing economics —…
We often look to other countries for smart policies on education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. But can a smart policy be simply transplanted into a country as culturally unusual (and as…
He’s a cognitive neuroscientist and philosopher who has written five best-selling books. Sam Harris also hosts the Making Sense podcast and helps people discover meditation through his Waking Up app….
