…NAR hasn’t revealed exactly how big the revision to home sales will be, the agency’s chief economist Lawrence Yun said the decrease will be “meaningful.” … Yun said the database…
…4 of Freakonomics, pp. 130-133; a quorum on how to reduce gun deaths; and a Q&A with the photographer-author of Armed America. And we are starting to produce a podcast…
…The best answer that is left in the comments — as voted by a secret quorum of Freaks — will win you a signed copy of Think Like a Freak…
Frisco used to be just another sleepy bedroom community outside of Dallas. Now it’s got corporate headquarters, billions of investment dollars, and a bunch of Democrats in a place that…
(Stockbyte) It’s funny — when we ran a quorum recently asking what should be done about insider trading, no one mentioned cracking down on Congress. Maybe they should have? A…
It’s shaping up to be a most interesting year on the tax front. A recent Freakonomics quorum focused on potential tax-policy mistakes that might be made this year, with so…
Planet Money interviews Nassim Taleb, who recently participated in a Freakonomics quorum on financial reform, for its Deep Read series. Taleb compares the developed world’s dependence on debt to drug…
…be good for society. He predicts what would happen if gas prices rise drastically, and explains why he thinks that could actually be good for society. (Related: see this quorum…
…own risks (as ill-perceived as they may be). So which is the least bad solution? Seed magazine asked a panel of experts and came up with this interesting quorum. [%comments]…
…states like California. We held a Freakonomics quorum late last year to debate the pros and cons of legalizing the drug, and many of you weighed in. With Frank’s legalization…
…best entry, as decided by a quorum of ourselves and a batch of capuchin monkeys we keep at the ready, receives her/his choice of Freakonomics schwag. Note: The winner of…
A couple of years ago, we wrote a column about crack cocaine, which ended with a discussion of the federal sentencing guidelines for crack vs. powder cocaine: This disparity has…
…in a quorum we published here, such contaminations would probably cease. On the other hand — based on the Leipzig doctors’ observations of the lead-poisoning patients — body piercing would…
In Freakonomics, we wrote about Paul Feldman, an economist turned bagel delivery man who began charging his customers based on the honor system. From the experiment, he found that, all…
Of all the changes we’ve made to this blog in recent months, my favorites are the reader-generated Q&A’s (here’s a recent example) and our Freakonomics Quorums (the most recent of…
September 5 is the day in 1997 when Mother Teresa died at age 87. No word on what she’d have thought of our quorum on street charity….
A look at whether spite pays — and if it even exists.
A look at whether spite pays — and if it even exists.
Nearly everything that politicians say about taxes is at least half a lie. They are also dishonest when it comes to the national debt. Stephen Dubner finds one of the…
In this episode from 2013, we look at whether spite pays — and if it even exists….
In the U.S., there will soon be more people over 65 than there are under 18 — and it’s not just lifespan that’s improving, it’s “healthspan” too. Unfortunately, the American…
Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we’ve had it exactly backward?…
He argues that personal finance is so simple all you need to know can fit on an index card. How will he deal with Steve’s suggestion that Harold’s nine rules…
He’s a pioneer of using randomized control experiments in economics — studying the long-term benefits of a $1 health intervention in Africa. Steve asks Edward, a Berkeley professor, about Africa’s…
…prostitution?” Steve discusses these questions, and more, with Max, an M.I.T cosmologist, physicist, and machine-learning expert — who was once almost an economist. He also tells Steve why we should…
The “beauty premium” is real, for everyone from babies to NFL quarterbacks.
Does having more health information actually change behavior? To test this question, host Bapu Jena explores whether doctors make healthier choices than the rest of us (and he fesses up…
The incoming president argues that the economy and the environment are deeply connected. This is reflected in his choice for National Economic Council director — Brian Deese, a climate-policy wonk…
Tim Harford, who writes the Financial Times‘s “Undercover Economist” column, has appeared on our blog many times. This guest post is adapted from his new book The Undercover Economist Strikes…
As the U.S. tries to fix its messy immigration system, our neighbor to the north is scooping up more talented newcomers every year. Are the Canadians stealing America’s bacon? (Part…
