Australia's Rising Political Star Is an Award-Winning Economist
My good friend Andrew Leigh is the winner of the Young Economist Award, granted every two years to the best Australian-based economist under the age of forty. It’s really a…
Kate Marvel spends her days playing with climate models, which she says are “like a very expensive version of The Sims.” As a physicist she gets tired of being asked…
So you want to help people? That’s great — but beware the law of unintended consequences. Three stories from the modern workplace….
Corporate Social Responsibility programs can attract better job applicants who’ll work for less money. But they also encourage employees to misbehave. Don’t laugh — you too probably engage in “moral…
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…
My good friend Andrew Leigh is the winner of the Young Economist Award, granted every two years to the best Australian-based economist under the age of forty. It’s really a…
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…
The racial wealth gap in the U.S. is massive. We explore the causes, consequences and potential solutions. Also: another story of discrimination and economic disparity, this one perpetrated by an…
Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we’ve had it exactly backward?
Steve Levitt talks about why the center cannot hold in penalty kicks, why a running track hurts home-field advantage, and why the World Cup is an economist’s dream.
…to other interesting things for economists to do with their free time: Pro Bono Economics and Kaggle (both of which I need to check out more). Thanks Again, Freelance Economist…
Andrew Zimbalist Andrew Zimbalist is the Robert A. Woods professor of economics at Smith College and one of the most prominent sports economists in the land. (Yes, this is a…
The science of what works — and doesn’t work — in fundraising
The science of what works — and doesn’t work — in fundraising.
Also: is it better to be right or “not wrong”?…
Why do so many promising solutions — in education, medicine, criminal justice, etc. — fail to scale up into great policy? And can a new breed of “implementation scientists” crack…
Every December, a British man named Tom Whitwell publishes a list of 52 things he’s learned that year. These fascinating facts reveal the spectrum of human behavior, from fraud and…
He’s been an engineer, a surgeon, a management consultant, and even a boxer. Now he’s a physician focused on the science of longevity. Peter Attia talks with Steve Levitt about…
The thrill of customization, via Pandora, and a radical new teaching method.
Even American parents have a strong “son preference” — which means that a newborn daughter can be bad news for a marriage.
Jane McGonigal designed a game to help herself recover from a traumatic brain injury — and she thinks playing games can help us all lead our best lives….
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.
Are fantasies helpful or harmful? How is daydreaming like a drug? And what did Angela fantasize about during ninth-grade English class?…
…deer) can be transformed from highway pulp into soil amendment. The leading authority on the subject, the Cornell Waste Management Institute, has published and distributed detailed guides intended to guide…
…we have doubled them since 1960. That means we can feed more people (9.3 billion versus 6.7 billion) in 2050 from a much smaller acreage than we do today. That…
…are in, I simply ignore these numbers. There are many reasons why. To touch on one: they are really easy to manipulate. Just Google “Feed the Children” and see the…
In this episode of No Stupid Questions — a Freakonomics Radio Network show launched earlier this year — Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth debate why we watch, read and eat…
Steve Levitt is obsessed with golf — and he’s pretty good at it too. As a thinly-veiled ploy to improve his own game, Steve talks to two titans of the…
Steve loved Michael Lewis’s latest, The Premonition, but has one critique: Why aren’t there even more villains? Also, why the author of best-sellers Moneyball and The Big Short can barely…
