Golden Chazzie Award for Best Non-fiction Book
The good news is that Freakonomics won the Golden Chazzie Award for best non-fiction book. The bad news is that I never heard of the Golden Chazzie Awards. Or any…
The good news is that Freakonomics won the Golden Chazzie Award for best non-fiction book. The bad news is that I never heard of the Golden Chazzie Awards. Or any…
When Stephen Dubner learned that Dallas–Fort Worth will soon overtake Chicago as the third-biggest metro area in the U.S., he got on a plane to find out why. Despite getting…
…we gave of the World Cup might not have been the best one, even though the age effect is very strong in the national youth squads that feed many World…
The last two years I’ve run an “externality” contest in my giant intro class, offering $5 to the student who comes up with the best example. Both positive and negative…
…–Andrew Ward A. It’s unfortunate that this is the reality of our situation. Players continue to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Our best leverage right now…
This guy is offering to be your best friend, for a price, via eBay. He lives in New York City and calls himself Rent-a-Pal: “The lucky Winning Bidder and RENTAPAL…
I’m always suspicious of companies who tout how environmentally friendly they are, when being green happens to coincide with cost savings for the firm. The best example is the ubiquitous…
The U.S. spent the past few decades waiting for China to act like the global citizen it said it wanted to be. The waiting may be over.
How can you strive for excellence without overworking yourself? Why is perfectionism on the rise? And is Angela part of the problem?…
Fareed Zakaria says yes. But it’s not just political revolution — it’s economic, technological, even emotional. He doesn’t offer easy solutions but he does offer some hope….
…downside of violence only in financial cost. But the report got me to thinking: Is the U.S. the best place in the world to be a woman? I am guessing…
If we could reboot the planet and create new systems and institutions from scratch, would they be any better than what we’ve blundered our way into through trial and error?…
Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic, is launching a month-long “hive” project at Slate called Nimble Cities. It asks for suggestions to improve urban mobility: “we want your best proposals…
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….
Humans have a built-in “negativity bias,” which means we give bad news much more power than good. Would the Covid-19 crisis be an opportune time to reverse this tendency?
She might not be a household name, but Suzanne Gluck is one of the most powerful people in the book industry. Her slush pile is a key entry point to…
Great athletes aren’t just great at the physical stuff. They’ve also learned how to handle pressure, overcome fear and stay focused. Here’s the good news: You don’t have to be…
…to share with Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. Thanks to all for participating. Q. Any advice on choosing the best food when eating at a college cafeteria? – Philip…
…answer, as determined by us. Write the best headline you can think of that would suck the most traffic to a blog post. Keep it as clean as it needs…
Soil scientist Asmeret Asefaw Berhe could soon hold one of the most important jobs in science. She explains why the ground beneath our feet is one of our greatest resources…
Sure, medical progress has been astounding. But today the U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country, with so-so outcomes. Atul Gawande — cancer surgeon, public-health researcher, and best-selling…
Stefanie Stantcheva’s approach seemed like career suicide. In fact, it won her the John Bates Clark Medal. She talks to fellow winner Steve Levitt about why she uses methods that…
The documentary filmmaker, known for The Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball, turns his attention to the Holocaust, and asks what we can learn from the evils of the past….
…in an effort to create “the world’s best economics department.” The WSJ reports: “We’re doing this because we think economists have a distorted role in policy debates,” said Brian Barry,…
Moon Duchin is a math professor at Cornell University whose theoretical work has practical applications for voting and democracy. Why is striving for fair elections so difficult?…
What does it take to “play 3D chess at 250 miles an hour”? And how far will $12.5 billion of “Big, Beautiful” funding go toward modernizing the F.A.A.? (Part two…
Distractions are everywhere — including in the operating room. So, what happens if a surgeon loses focus? A tap dancer, a health researcher, and a surgeon help Bapu Jena find…
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…
When we try to improve things, our first thought is often: What can we add to make this better? But Leidy, a professor of engineering, says we tend to overlook…
We’re working on a new Freakonomics Radio piece about what might best be called “retail etiquette.” It was inspired in part by this blog post, about how the quantity and…
