…his goals. Perhaps a blog reader has an update to share? In the meantime, I guess we will have to be content with something far less lofty: Whoissick.org, which allows…
I’ve written a fair amount about organ transplantation in the past (for example, here and here). But it was only in reading SuperFreakonomics that I learned that “the Iranian government…
My colleagues Jacob Hacker and Daniel Markovits have created a cool website called?www.GiveItBackForJobs.org that not only includes a useful tool to let you calculate the size of your tax cut,…
Photo: Hemera How do people who love salty snacks like their toilet paper to hang? Are fans of carbonated beverage more likely to enjoy horror movies? A new website, www.correlated.org,…
(iStockphoto) There’s an argument going around right now that forgiving the country’s student loan debt would have a stimulative effect on the economy. This online petition by Signon.org, an offshoot…
Steve continues his conversation with his good friend, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, and fellow University of Chicago economist. Sendhil breaks down the hypothesis of his book Scarcity, explains why machines…
A special episode: Steve reports on a passion of his. Most high-school math classes are still preparing students for the Sputnik era. Steve wants to get rid of the “geometry…
“What breed is she?” Every owner of a mixed-breed dog is eventually asked this when out on a walk. But how much do dogs’ breeds — and genes — really…
Khan Academy founder Sal Khan returns to share his vision for a new way to learn — and the conversation inspires Steve to make a big announcement.
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?…
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…
John List and Uri Gneezy have appeared on our blog many times. This guest post is part a series adapted from their new book The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and…
John List and Uri Gneezy have appeared on our blog many times. This guest post is part of a series adapted from their book The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and…
A new working paper from Uri Gneezy, John List, and Michael K. Price looks at discrimination via a variety of field experiments and more than 3,000 individual transactions: In certain…
The science of what works — and doesn’t work — in fundraising.
…Uri Gneezy and George Loewenstein) arranged to send five economics graduate students from Narayanan University to local villages near Madurai in Southern India.? They asked subjects to play a series…
…paper by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini about a set of Israeli day-care centers which started fining parents who were late in picking up their kids. The problem was that…
…a rather familiar headline), citing research by the economists Suzanne B. Shu and Ayelet Gneezy. They found that if you put a tight deadline on a fun activity, people are…
…book The Economics of Food: How Feeding and Fueling the Planet Affects Food Prices. He explains the factors that lead to price increases and that may drive food prices in…
Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and other costs. Will reconciling these two forces be possible — or, even better, Impossible™?
Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and other costs. Will reconciling these two forces be possible — or, even better, Impossible™?
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the Facebook founder and C.E.O., recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.”…
Does the future of food lie in its past — or inside a tank of liquid nitrogen? Also: how anti-social can you be on a social network? This is a…
To get a lot of followers on Twitter, do you need to follow a lot of other Tweeps? And if not, why not?
Is it better to be the best player on the worst team or the worst player on the best team? How did Angela cope with her extremely impressive freshman dorm-mates?…
Broadway operates on a winner-take-most business model. A runaway hit like Stereophonic — which just won five Tony Awards — will create a few big winners. But even the stars…
What makes normal people do terrible things? Are there really bad apples — or just bad barrels? And how should you deal with a nefarious next-door neighbor?…
…I admire such focus on those numbers too. But I do not. Those numbers do not tell you what is really happening. (Hemera) For assessments of organizations, I like a…
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…
