California Gets a "Green" Light
As you may have read, the Obama administration is moving toward giving California approval to cut greenhouse gas emissions by mandating better fuel economy. The California regulations should mean 40…
How psychologist Dan Gilbert went from high school dropout to Harvard professor, found the secret of joy, and inspired Steve Levitt’s divorce….
The mathematician and author sees mathematical patterns everywhere — from DNA to fireflies to social connections….
What happens to your reputation when you’re no longer around to defend it?
What happens to your reputation when you’re no longer around to defend it?
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…
Our take: maybe the steps aren’t so easy, but a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had great success in turning around kids who were headed for…
As you may have read, the Obama administration is moving toward giving California approval to cut greenhouse gas emissions by mandating better fuel economy. The California regulations should mean 40…
…years (1930’s and 1940’s). Between 1957 and 1985, 29 states adopted legislation mandating some form of “consumer” education in secondary schools. Fourteen states specifically required coverage of topics relevant to…
…to go to defend the rights of rich celebrities to become richer. Perhaps against this backdrop, a law mandating a 5 percent slice of any profits from artworks seemed reasonable….
…simpler to just build the stadium with a roof. But mandating that the Chinese people cease and desist may prove an easier task for the Chinese government than telling Mother…
…price-fixing. Word spread of an “egg trust.” Several states passed laws mandating labeling and time limits on cold-stored foods. A similar bill reached the U.S. Senate. In the winters of…
What should be done about the quality and quantity of standardized testing in U.S. schools? We touched on the subject in Freakonomics, but only insofar as the introduction of high-stakes…
…ways and start driving drunk again as if they never had the device. Does this mean we might consider mandating IID use permanently, as least for the most serious repeat…
…be a role for government in mandating standardized reporting so that comparisons can be more easily made; but I think it’s more likely that mortgage buyers simply underestimated the likelihood…
…elicit little private participation. The public-private partnership does not absolve the government of assessing, pricing, and sharing the risk in these assets, and there is far too little clarity on…
…issue has been mentioned and analyzed in various economic studies, including old ones about the effects of mandating car seat-belt use on automobile accidents, and about the impact of sex…
O.K., maybe the steps aren’t so easy. But a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had great success in turning around kids who were headed for trouble.
Each year, millions of people get sick or die from diseases caused by their own unhealthy behavior. Getting people to change their bad habits – to quit smoking, eat better,…
To feed 7 billion people while protecting the environment, it would seem that going local is a no-brainer — until you start looking at the numbers.
Also: Do you spend more time thinking about the past, the present, or the future?
Trump says it would destroy us. Sanders says it will save us. The majority of millennials would like it to replace capitalism. But what is “it”? We bring in the…
For soccer fans, it’s easy. For the rest of us? Not so much, especially since the U.S. team didn’t qualify. So here’s what to watch for even if you have…
Kenji Lopez-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way that everyday cooks can appreciate. Then he dared to start his…
Kenji López-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way that everyday cooks can appreciate. Then he dared to start his…
Google researcher Blaise Agüera y Arcas spends his work days developing artificial intelligence models and his free time conducting surveys for fun. He tells Steve how he designed an algorithm…
The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate…
By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. How can that be? And what’s to be done? Our third and final episode in this…
Thanks to daily Covid testing and regimented protocols, the new football season is underway. Meanwhile, most teachers, students and parents are essentially waiting for the storm to pass. And school…
In this interview, first heard on Freakonomics Radio last year, Steve talks with the former top adviser to presidents Clinton and Obama, about his record — and his reputation. And…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman is also a friend and former business partner of Steve’s. In discussing Danny’s new book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment,…
