Thaler on Soccer
My colleague Richard Thaler writes about his recent experience at economics conferences: Over the last month, one question seemed to be on everyone’s mind at the economic conferences I attended…
One Yale economist certainly thinks so. But even if he’s right, are economists any better?…
Must one always strive for excellence? Is perfectionism a good thing? And can Mike have two bad days in a row?
My colleague Richard Thaler writes about his recent experience at economics conferences: Over the last month, one question seemed to be on everyone’s mind at the economic conferences I attended…
Do more expensive wines taste better? And: what does one little rodent in a salad say about a restaurant’s future? This is a “mashupdate” of “Do More Expensive Wines Taste…
How is “negative reinforcement” different from punishment? Could positive reinforcement encourage prosocial behavior on a national scale? And what’s the deal with Taiwan’s dog-poop lottery?…
The gist: the Nobel selection process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off, at least a little bit.
The process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off at least a little bit.
(Stockbyte) Last spring, we posted on Phil Tetlock’s massive prediction tournament: Good Judgment. You might remember Tetlock from our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast, “The Folly of Prediction.” (You can download/subscribe…
…to make it easier for researchers to create them. While the statement argues the merits of prediction markets extremely cogently, and while I’m completely in favor of prediction markets and…
In a short piece in the latest Science journal, about the Promise of Prediction Markets, we provide a short review of the literature on prediction markets — how and why…
Artificial intelligence, we’ve been told, will destroy humankind. No, wait — it will usher in a new age of human flourishing! Guest host Adam Davidson (co-founder of Planet Money) sorts…
Starting in the late 1960s, the Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Danny Kahneman began to redefine how the human mind actually works. Michael Lewis’s new book The Undoing Project explains…
In my last post, I promised to say a bit more about prediction markets at Google. Google has been running internal prediction markets for a couple of years, and Eric…
One of the real barriers to widespread adoption of prediction markets by U.S. corporations has been a murky legal environment. Are prediction markets legitimate business tools, an alternative set of…
(Photo: League of Women Voters of California) For years, I have argued that the best way to track what really matters through election season is to follow the political prediction…
Dubner and his Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt answer your questions about crime, traffic, real-estate agents, the Ph.D. glut, and how to not get eaten by a bear.
Steve usually asks his guests for advice, whether they’re magicians or Nobel laureates. After nearly 60 episodes, is any of it worth following — or should we just ask listeners…
Do highway warnings save lives or cost lives? How do you keep men from peeing on the floor? And what’s Angela’s plan to get more people washing their hands?…
How can we distinguish between laziness and patience? Why do people do crossword puzzles? And how is Angie like a combination of a quantum computer and a Sherman tank? Take…
Photo: Spike Mafford You may remember Phil Tetlock from our Freakonomics Radio hour-long episode “The Folly of Prediction.” He’s a psychologist at Penn and author of the deservedly well-regarded book…
They are the most-trusted profession in America (and with good reason). They are critical to patient outcomes (especially in primary care). Could the growing army of nurse practitioners be an…
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…
How do courts interpret those little icons on your phone? Zachary Crockett brings down the hammer….
…but I find it interesting that the prediction it yields matches almost perfectly with the market prediction at Intrade.com.? As I write this, the market thinks there is a 47…
…faces all around for the political prognosticators: Judging by the pre-vote polls and prediction markets, the Democratic primary in New Hampshire created one of the most surprising upsets in U.S….
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman — a Nobel laureate and the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow — recently died at age 90. Along with his collaborator Amos Tversky, he changed…
…Sunday, that prediction came true. Okay, that wasn’t much of a prediction (did anyone predict that wouldn’t happen?). And despite the lack of challenge with respect to this prediction, I…
