A Freakonomics Contest: The Coase Theorem Online
…is that more or less anyone can purchase any URL that they want. In that setting, you might expect chaos on the Web, with Web addresses that you would think…
…is that more or less anyone can purchase any URL that they want. In that setting, you might expect chaos on the Web, with Web addresses that you would think…
…hypothetical address. The URL’s in the endnotes are for people to further research the issues in the book. In neither case would I consider the use of the URL’s intrusive,…
…If a couple meets for dinner and a bottle of wine, and have sex, that’s a date. If they meet for dinner and a bottle of wine, and have sex,…
Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy — and frustrating — way for supply and demand to meet. Why haven’t we found a better way to get what we want?…
Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy — and frustrating — way for supply and demand to meet. Why haven’t we found a better way to get what we want?…
We are constantly wowed by new technologies and policies meant to make childbirth better. But beware the unintended consequences.
On the Internet, people say all kinds of things they’d never say aloud — about sex and race, about their true wants and fears. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has spent years parsing…
…at least): in “Binge Drinking & Sex in High School” (abstract here; PDF here), Jeffrey S. DeSimone argues that “binge drinking significantly increases participation in sex, promiscuity, and the failure…
Cat Bohannon’s new book puts female anatomy at the center of human evolution. She tells Steve why it takes us so long to give birth, what breast milk is really…
…Sex is Safer Sex is that some of those disconnects between private and public interests are surprising and counterintuitive. Casual sex is one of those examples. If you are a…
In a special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to Cat Bohannon about her new book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human…
…a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships.) Although there has long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex…
…laws on voluntary sex work and sex trafficking. The central message of the paper is a new policy proposal (see Q6 below). Here are some of the questions we ask…
In a podcast called “Misadventures in Baby-Making,” we explored China’s one-child policy as a cause of sex-selective abortion and, therefore, skewed male-female sex rations. A new working paper (abstract; PDF)…
President Obama’s personal evolution toward accepting same-sex marriage has certainly made plenty of headlines. But perhaps the bigger—and untold story—is the evolution of marriage itself, and how the generational shift…
…Sex with strangers squicks them out? I’ve noticed a tendency in some of my female friends to rationalize sex decisions they make — a hookup or one-night stand. If they…
…found for men in the single-sex groups. In other words, after eight weeks, the women in the single-sex classes were no more risk averse than men. The authors say their…
…among other things, that the Internet had not driven up child sex crime rates (in fact, sexual assaults on teenagers fell 52 percent from 1993 to 2005), and that the…
…Rise in Premarital Sex and its De-Stigmatization” (summary here; PDF here). From the abstract: Societies socialize children about many things, including sex. Socialization is costly. It uses scarce resources, such…
…answers, covering everything from sex to divorce to … gulp … apology. Thanks to all who participated, especially Paula and Jenny. Q. How do you weigh the value of physical…
…Let me explain: The first graph I looked at showed the number of daily unique visitors (excluding feed readers) on Monday and Tuesday of this week. It was on Tuesday…
Levitt rarely interviews advocates, but the founder of the Good Food Institute is different. Once an outspoken — and sometimes outlandish — animal-rights activist, Bruce has come to believe that…
A new study from sociologists Constance Gager and Scott Yabiku shows that household labor and sexual frequency are not inversely related — a welcome contradiction to the common “more work…
A new study (summarized here) casts doubt on the popular notion that exposure to sex in the media is linked to earlier sexual activity. “There is a common problem in…
…if California legalizes same-sex marriage. But my coauthor Jennifer Gerard Brown beat him to the punch. In “Competitive Federalism and the Legislative Incentives to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage” 68 S. CAL….
Dubner’s childhood home goes from sacred to profane — and then back again.
Those letters at the end of web addresses can mean big bucks — and, for some small countries, a substantial part of the national budget. Zachary Crockett follows the links….
Remember our contest on the Coase Theorem? It asked for good examples of the Coase Theorem failing in regard to URLs — i.e., instances in which a company that is…
…to the right of their pictures, the billboard will display the program’s live Twitter feed, nicely linking the broadcasters to the events they’re covering. One problem: apparently no one thought…
Gun control, abortion rights, drug legalization — it seems like every argument these days claims that if X happens, then Y will follow, and we’ll all be doomed to Z….
