An Economist For President?
Yayi Boni, an economist who used to run the West African Development Bank, has been elected president of the African country of Benin. He is at least the second economist…
People who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at. We explain why firms keep producing incompetent managers — and why that’s unlikely to…
Good intentions are nice, but with so many resources poured into social programs, wouldn’t it be even nicer to know what actually works?
Yayi Boni, an economist who used to run the West African Development Bank, has been elected president of the African country of Benin. He is at least the second economist…
Millions and millions are out of work, with some jobs never coming back. We speak with four economists — and one former presidential candidate — about the best policy options…
How did a freshly looted Egyptian antiquity end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Why did it take Kim Kardashian to crack the case? And how much of what…
…so I will write about her exploits more than I write about most other economists. It just so happens that I find the woman referred to as the “hippest-economist-ever” particularly…
…might have need of a freelance economist, I can be reached at economist.freelancer@gmail.com. I’m an empirical microeconomist, so my expertise is in data analysis. I love working with data. It…
The African-born economist has written four bestselling books, including Dead Aid, which Bill Gates described as “promoting evil.” In her new book about corporate boards, Dambisa uses her experience with…
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…
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…
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…
In many ways, the gender gap is closing. In others, not so much. And that’s not always a bad thing.
In many ways, the gender gap is closing. In others, not so much. And that’s not always a bad thing.
The U.N.’s World Happiness Report — created to curtail our unhealthy obsession with G.D.P. — is dominated every year by the Nordic countries. We head to Denmark to learn the…
Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrimination is incredibly costly — to the victims, of course, but also the perpetrators. One modern…
Claudia Goldin is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Steve spoke to her in 2021 about how inflexible jobs and family responsibilities make it harder for women…
Also: Which professions have the happiest people?…
Also: which professions have the happiest people?…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March. In 2021 he talked with Steve Levitt — his friend and former business partner — about his book…
We revisit an episode from 2016 that asks: Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be taken care of?…
She’s best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, but the award-winning actress has a rich life outside of her acting career, as a teacher,…
His childhood dream of playing in the N.B.A. led him to a career as a referee. Marc is one of the league’s top performers after over 20 seasons, but he…
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,…
Kevin Kelly calls himself “the most optimistic person in the world.” And he has a lot to say about parenting, travel, A.I., being luckier — and why we should spend…
Psychologist David Yeager thinks the conventional wisdom for how to motivate young people is all wrong. His model for helping kids cope with stress is required reading at Steve’s new…
Dubner and Levitt have written quite a bit about parenting, both in Freakonomics and on this blog. In particular, they’ve focused on what parents can do to help produce “successful”…
We wrote in Freakonomics about our views on parenting. Mostly, we were skeptical of how much parents could do to improve their kids’ futures. One can clearly be a terrible…
Joshua Gans, (author of the forthcoming Parentonomics), has an interesting post on “data-driven Parenting.” Turns out that there is a cool web service: Trixie Tracker, that allows parents to record…
…their children. Fathers tend to agree with popular opinion, until, that is, they’re asked about their own parenting. Only about one-in-four adults say fathers today are doing a better job…
