Paul Collier Paul Collier, an award-winning Oxford University economist, is a self-described Africanist who researches the effects of civil war, aid, and the “problems of democracy” in societies that have…
Jens Ludwig has an idea for how to fix America’s gun violence problem — and it starts by rejecting conventional wisdom from both sides of the political aisle.
Paul Collier Last week, we solicited your questions for award-winning Oxford University economist Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and the just-published Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous…
…potentially life-saving healthcare device? Americans aren’t used to rationing in medicine, but it’s time to think about it. We consult a lung specialist, a bioethicist, and (of course) an economist….
We recently solicited your questions for Cornell economist Robert Frank, whose new book, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good, argues (among other things) that competition has made…
What does it mean to pursue something that everyone else thinks is nuts? And what does it take to succeed?
Back in 2007, we had a lively debate around a series of excerpts that Cornell economist Robert Frank contributed to the Freakonomics blog. We’re hoping an excerpt from his latest…
…Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economist for the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He is (in no particular order): brainy, talkative, excitable, and fully engaged in just about…
College tends to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier. But how?
In policing, as in most vocations, the best employees are often promoted into leadership without much training. One economist thinks he can address this problem — and, with it, America’s…
Here’s an interesting article by a man who says he has slept with over 1,300 prostitutes. If he were an economist, he would have kept track of the data and…
Tim Harford, a.k.a. the Undercover Economist (also a Financial Times columnist) has a new radio series on the BBC called Pop-Up Economics: The show is all about storytelling – and…
Yale’s business school just published an interesting interview with Betsey Stevenson-my favorite economist. And yes, the usual disclosure applies: this is partly because she’s an interesting coauthor and colleague, but…
In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the economist Amy Finkelstein explains why insurance markets are broken and how to fix them. Also: why can’t you buy divorce…
…nonetheless as a prelude to Frank’s book, which I’m eager to read. So here’s our SuperFreakonomics outtake on Darwin-as-economist. On May 24, 1859, the noted English zoologist, surgeon, and author…
Christina Romer was a top White House economist during the Great Recession. As a researcher, she specializes in the Great Depression. She tells us what those disasters can (and can’t)…
I love Google. But it’s not a very good economist. Type “unemployment rate,” and here’s what it yields: The first of these links is from Google, and it tells…
…on New York City’s public high-school matching process and his revolutionary “matched pairs” kidney-donor program. Elsewhere, Alex Tabarrok calls Roth “the most influential economist working today.” (Would that it were…
More well-deserved attention for University of Chicago economist John List, whose research is the star of Chapter 3 of SuperFreakonomics and also featured in the last segment of the Freakonomics…
In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But for every winner, he came to realize, there are thousands upon thousands of losers — a “war…
New research finds that bosses who went to business school pay their workers less. So what are M.B.A. programs teaching — and should they stop?…
Artist Wendy MacNaughton knows the difficulty of sitting in silence and the power of having fun. She explains to Steve the lessons she’s gleaned from drawing hospice residents, working in…
Who better than an economist to help with your shopping list?
Last week, I learned two important things. They both happened as the result of a post I wrote about various errors, typographical and otherwise. I noted that the excellent Economist…
What “Sleep No More” and the Stanford Prison Experiment tell us about who we really are.
Why does listening to No Stupid Questions feel like you’re hanging out with your best friends? Why did the whole world take it personally when Princess Diana died? And how…
…historian Niall Ferguson interprets this as indicating that the bond market is worried about the U.S. deficit and the prospect of inflation. Princeton economist Paul Krugman thinks it indicates that…
…may well arise at some point. If this happens, the policy “mistake” of interest rates being too low in 2010 could be easily undone by higher interest rates in 2011….
The Pittsburgh Steelers played in this year’s Super Bowl, but did not win it. Which means that, sitting in a warehouse somewhere, are lots of preprinted “Pittsburgh Steelers 2011 Super…
