Ask a College Student: A Freakonomics Quorum
This is the time of year when high-school seniors receive letters, thick or thin, from college admissions departments. (I have two nieces who both just got some thick letters from…
This is the time of year when high-school seniors receive letters, thick or thin, from college admissions departments. (I have two nieces who both just got some thick letters from…
…hassles, scheduling woes, and general discontent, the industry is extraordinarily safe and, at the end of the day, a marvel. (FWIW, here is a recent draft paper, by the economists…
…easily one of the best quorums we’ve ever published here. I’d like to thank all the participants for their thoughtful, well-considered, and fascinating answers, and for taking the time to…
…investments made for that purpose. At the level of the industry or even economy as a whole, economists use the concept of “total factor productivity,” which captures a similar idea….
We’ve written before about various “beauty premiums”: the advantages gained in the marketplace by people who are better looking, taller, or have better teeth than the average person. Empiricism and…
…that the economics adviser brings to any campaign staff is a hip coolness and bling. Economists want to be valued for their minds and respected for their command of policy…
The black-white gap in U.S. education is an issue that continues to occupy the efforts of a great many scholars. Roland Fryer and Steve Levitt have poked at the issue…
In the last few years, magazine covers and newspaper front pages have often been dominated by disaster coverage: wildfires in California, hurricanes in the Gulf and elsewhere, and of course…
Two little words — “social networking” — have become a giant buzzphrase over the past couple of years, what with the worldwide march of Facebook and headline-ready stories about Web-assisted…
The headline says it all, although the unspoken question is: will globalization indeed result in the hegemony of English, as has long been promised/threatened? We gathered up some wise people…
New York magazine reports on one of the great puzzles of parenting: “Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows…
…parenting. While it has always been fun to follow Joshua’s economic musings on his blog, Core Economics, I have been having more fun following his parenting blog, Game Theorist, devoted…
…role of parents’ willpower limitations, particularly with respect to low-income parents: Good parenting requires psychic resources. Complex decisions must be made. Sacrifices must be made in the moment. This is…
The ethologist and conservationist discusses the thrill of observing chimpanzees in the wild, the value of challenging orthodoxy, and why dying is her next great adventure.
The primatologist discusses the thrill of observing chimpanzees in the wild, the value of challenging orthodoxy, and why dying is her next great adventure….
Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. Until recently, it looked as if Washington was about to change that. But then … Washington…
Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. How can that be? To find out, Stephen Dubner speaks with a Republican senator, a Democratic…
Levitt and Dubner revisited The Today Show on Thursday, June 16. Here’s a transcript: Copyright 2005 National Broadcasting Co. Inc. HEADLINE: Today’s Real Estate; Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt ANCHORS:…
There have been several requests on this blog for a transcript of the authors’ recent appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. Here it is: Copyright 2005 Fox News Network, LLC. Fox…
We assembled a panel of smart dudes—a two-time Super Bowl champ; a couple of N.F.L. linemen, including one who’s getting a math Ph.D at M.I.T., and our resident economist—to tell…
The creator of The Wire, The Deuce, and other shows is leading the Writers Guild on the picket lines. He and Steve break down the economics of TV writing, how…
For decades, the great fear was overpopulation. Now it’s the opposite. How did this happen — and what’s being done about it? (Part one of a three-part series, “Cradle to…
…what Amy Chua‘s controversial new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, refers to as?Tiger parenting. (Full disclosure: I am a friend and colleague of Amy Chua.? Her book had…
…my accounts of my “do(n’t) try this at home” parenting interventions—bribing my kids to do math, not teaching them to decode words on the page, exposing them to sewage to…
…Freakonomics Radio show called “An Economist’s Guide to Parenting.” He had a great deal to say on the topic, all of it interesting and much of it provocative. I think…
…he’ll be one of the guests in an upcoming Freakonomics Radio show tentatively titled “An Economist’s Guide to Parenting.” Kids and Costs By Bryan Caplan One day when my wife…
The end of the year is a giving season for many (I suppose a cynical economist might think tax deductions has something to do with it). Most of us like…
Also: how do you avoid screwing up your kids?
…We speak with an analytics guru, an agent, some former running backs (including LeSean McCoy), and the economist Roland Fryer (a former Pop Warner running back himself) to understand why….
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…
