Plan Colombia: A $5 Billion Failure?
…and keep its government allies in power,” writes Fisman. “Greater U.S. aid is associated with a decline in voter turnout, concentrated in municipalities with Army bases.” (HT: Daniel Lippman) [%comments]…
Is a walk through the city as good as a walk through the woods? Who’s most likely to die while taking a selfie? And how does Angela protect herself from…
Are we using technology to make ourselves numb? What’s the downside of air conditioning? And was Angela the most annoying person in her college classes?…
…and keep its government allies in power,” writes Fisman. “Greater U.S. aid is associated with a decline in voter turnout, concentrated in municipalities with Army bases.” (HT: Daniel Lippman) [%comments]…
(Photo: Erik Daniel Drost) One of our very first Freakonomics Radio podcasts focused on brain trauma among NFL players. Writing for Vice, David Bienenstock argues that NFL players might benefit…
Astronomer Jill Tarter spent her career searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. She explains what civilizations from other planets could teach us about our own future….
How did love stories about vampires, cowboys, and wealthy dukes become the highest-grossing fiction genre in the world? Zachary Crockett gets swept away….
…“Substitution and Stigma: Evidence on Religious Competition from the Catholic Sex-Abuse Scandal,” by Notre Dame economist Daniel Hungerman, looks at whether other religious faiths gained from the Catholic Church sex…
Patrons at Cecil’s Jazz Club in West Orange, N.J., savored one of the last nights for smoking in bars and restaurants. (Photo: Marko Georgiev/The New York Times) A journalist writing…
How do you deal with a close talker? Is Angela drinking too much water? And why can’t Mike keep his phone out of his bedroom?
Why is it separate from medical insurance? And is it really insurance at all? Zachary Crockett goes in for a cleaning….
…But that was my experience this morning upon reading this Times feature by Daniel J. Wakin about an 18-year-old Palestinian whose dream is to be a world-class violin repairman. It…
…while. 3. Daniel The “Big Dig” — the megaproject to reroute Interstate 93, the chief highway through the city of Boston, into a 3.5-mile tunnel under the city — has…
The financial crisis is getting all the headlines and, so it is claimed, occupying all the attention of at least one presidential candidate. Yet a bigger economic issue is hardly…
Kevin Kelly believes A.I. will create more problems for humanity — and help us solve them. He talks to Steve about embracing complexity, staying enthusiastic, and taking the 10,000-year view….
…to bottom and only use minor manipulations ( something like inside info on an injury). The question implies the use of intuition compared to the model. Daniel Kahneman refers to…
…and Daniel Reeves — and turned it into something real that’s fast, fun, pretty, and easy to use. Read more here.) Why do we need or want combinatorial markets? Simply…
…produces only 191 horsepower (but gets 41/36 mpg). Why is this troubling? Nicholas Lutsey and Daniel Sperling have written on historical trends in energy efficiency, vehicle size, pickup and fuel…
How pharma greed, government subsidies, and a push to make pain the “fifth vital sign” kicked off a crisis that costs $80 billion a year and has killed hundreds of…
Economist Daron Acemoglu likes to tackle big questions. He tells Steve how colonialism still affects us today, who benefits from new technology, and why democracy wasn’t always a sure thing….
David Autor took his first economics class at 29 years old. Now he’s one of the central academics studying the labor market. The M.I.T. economist and Steve dissect the impact…
Price discrimination — charging different prices for the same product or service — requires preventing people who pay a high price for an item from being able to buy it…
…how in general, would the brothel know who is rich?). The environmental argument gives the brothel cover for doing what it always wanted to do anyway. (Hat tip: Daniel Lippman)…
…linked to health). So if you’re blessed or burdened with a short, broad face and a strong jawline, you might want to think about moving to Argentina. (HT: Daniel Lippman)[%comments]…
Are you a problem solver or an opportunity seeker? Why is it so hard to find a good leader these days? And could you be Angela’s next boss?…
Good intentions are nice, but with so many resources poured into social programs, wouldn’t it be even nicer to know what actually works?
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?…
Photo: Cliff In celebration of its 100-year anniversary, the American Economic Review asked six “eminent economists” (Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M….
…started showing the photos one at a time, reports the Associated Press. This small change, according to the AP, can lower misidentification rates by 39 percent. (HT: Daniel Lippman) [%comments]…
In the first of two episodes, Zachary Crockett digs into the strange and discomfiting history of cadavers, and the industry that has emerged around them.
Picture day is an annual tradition for American families — and, for the companies that take the photos, a lucrative one. Zachary Crockett smiles for the camera….
