Crime rates have a large influence on the choices people make about where to live. The amazing declines in crime over the last fifteen years have been especially strong in big cities, a factor that helped fuel an urban renaissance. Ironically, however, some of the lowest murder rates are found in places where one might suspect just the opposite to . . .
The following are headlines from this week’s major newspapers following the release of official 2006 crime statistics: From the Washington Post: Violent Crime, a Sticky Issue for White House, Shows Steeper Rise From the Los Angeles Times: Violent Crime Rises Again From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Rise in Violent Crimes is Higher than Expected It is official. The next crime wave . . .
Two arrested in “money-making potion” scam. (Hat tip: Consumerist) Are economists incapable of cognitive dissonance? Meteorite crashes in Peru, causes panic. Cigarette merchants sued for selling knockoff Marlboros.
Note: There is a new research assistant here in the Freakonomics office, and his name is Ryan Hagen. He’s 24 years old, a graduate of N.Y.U. (he majored in English and American literature), and for the past two years he’s worked as a research associate for N.Y.U.’s Center for Catastrophe Preparedness & Response. We are very happy to have him . . .
Video There’s a new Freakonomics video today, the third and final installment of Levitt talking about his academic research, co-authored by John Donohue, that linked a rise in legalized abortion to a drop in crime. (You can access Parts 1 and 2 in the thumbnail images beneath the video player.) In this piece, Levitt talks about the initial, stormy reaction . . .
Let’s say you discover an old lamp and rub it, and out comes a genie offering to grant you a wish. You are greedy and devious, so you wish for the ability, whenever you play online poker, to see all the cards that the other players are holding. The genie grants your wish. What would you do next? If you . . .
Among a certain type of criminal — think mafia, think crack gang — there is no greater dishonor than to snitch. Giving information to the police is a betrayal of the worst sort, often punishable by death. Which is why this article from the British magazine New Statesman is so interesting. The article, by Martin Bright, is about the recent . . .
I just received galleys of what looks like an interesting book: The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism, by Matt Mason. I haven’t cracked it yet, but the Mason book reminded me of another recent book about piracy — the real, old-fashioned kind, with peglegs and pieces of eight — called Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate . . .
From research by economists J.J. Prescott and Jonah Rockoff, here are a few current statistics on sex offenses reported to the police: 1) 25 percent of victims are 10-14 years old; 23 percent are nine or younger. 2) 22.5 percent of the offenders are family members. Only 8 percent are strangers. 3) 25 percent of sex offenses reported to the . . .
Video In the video player on the left, you’ll find Part 2 of Levitt’s discussion of the research behind the abortion/crime link. (You can find Part 1 in the video player as well; here’s the blog post that accompanied it.) In this installment, he discusses the collage of evidence that convinced him and John Donohue of the link between legalized . . .
Political scandals are a bit like the weather: there’s always something brewing. But of all the congressmen and senators whose careers have fallen apart in recent years, few have done so as spectacularly as Randall “Duke” Cunningham, the Republican congressman from California who in 2006 was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison after F.B.I. investigators discovered that . . .
Video It’s always interesting to see where smart people get their ideas. Often, especially in the creative arts, it’s impossible to trace an idea down to its roots. But it’s easier in the social sciences. I, for one, believe that Steve Levitt has had an awful lot of good research ideas, and it’s good to hear how a particular idea . . .
Video The latest video on FREAK-TV is about a subject that sets many economists’ hearts a-flutter: externalities. It’s a multiple-choice quiz about car theft, asking what’s the best anti-theft measure to use if you want to protect not only your car but others around you. If you need a clue before making your guess, pause the video and take a . . .
The U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum in Florence, Colorado, widely known as the “Supermax” prison, houses many of the nation’s most notorious and violent criminals. But you probably haven’t read any interviews with any of those prisoners — including Sammy Gravano, John Walker Lindh, and Ramzi Yousef — in the last several years. Why not? According to this article by Alan . . .
Video We’ve written about the putative deterrent effect of capital punishment both in “Freakonomics,” and here on the blog. But none of those explanations were delivered by our International Video Woman of Mystery (known to her friends, natch, as Ivwom), whom you first encountered in a video last week about sport and violence.
August 29 is the day in 2000 when Pope John Paul II endorsed organ donation. No word on his endorsement of trading organs for shorter prison terms.
Freakonomics video introduces its mysterious new on-screen talent, who will explore the theory that playing sports may actually encourage teenage boys to commit crime, contrary to the conventional wisdom that athletics instill values and discipline.
“So You Think You Can Be President?” (Related.) From nose to wallet: sellers embrace “scent marketing.” It’s just business: new mob rises in Italy. In MA, minority teacher applicants hurt by licensing test. (Related.)
I always love it when I see a paper that only an economist could write. An ingenious new study by Stefano DellaVigna and Eliana La Ferrara definitely fits that description. The issue they tackled is detection of illegal arms trades that defy United Nations embargoes. Their idea was to use the information embedded in stock markets to tease out indirect . . .
Levitt’s take on the current crime stats for the five largest U.S. cities
Levitt discusses poverty and wage issues raised in writer-turned-New York cop Edward Conlon’s book, “Blue Blood.”
Sin in the Second City, a new book by Karen Abbott, offers an in-depth look at the prostitution trade in turn-of-the-century Chicago. In particular, Abbott focuses on the Everleigh sisters, two madams who ran a high-class brothel on South Dearborn Street that earned them extraordinary wealth and international fame. Abbott agreed to answer our questions about her book. Q: Could . . .
In today’s New York Times, Jennifer Steinhauer writes about California farmers whose irrigation systems are being stripped of their copper wiring, presumably by methamphetamine addicts who sell the metal in the recycling market: Theft of scrap metal, mostly copper, has vexed many areas of American life and industry for the last 18 months, fueled largely by record-level prices for copper . . .
Last night, Levitt posted this discovery of what seemed like a phishing expedition (and revealed to the world his late-night poker habits). As of 9:10 a.m. today, the site in question (http://www.fulltilt-cnn.com) was down. (Back when we wrote a column about Steven Peisner and identity theft, a fake Bank of America site was also summarily disabled, showing that if nothing . . .
I was playing poker at Full Tilt Poker tonight when across the chat board comes an official-looking message saying that an employee of Full Tilt was arrested for stealing $200,000. The message says for full information go to http://www.fulltilt-cnn.com. (Don’t go clicking on things there until you read further!) The URL seemed fishy. So I went to Google News and . . .
Over the weekend, the Washington Post published an article suggesting that much of the decline in crime in the 1990s may have been due to the reduction of childhood lead exposure after the removal of lead from gasoline and house paint. This is an intriguing hypothesis. There is evidence on an individual level that high exposure to lead is harmful . . .
For years, I’ve begged my wife to let me buy a gun. The only reason I want one is that, if an intruder enters my house and tries to terrorize my family, I would like to be able to defend us. The baseball bat under the bed just doesn’t seem sufficient to do the trick. Never mind that I am . . .
A landmark study has been published by Northwestern statistics professor Bruce Spencer offering statistical and empirical data on the accuracy of U.S. jury verdicts. His method involved comparing the decision of a jury with the decision of the judge hearing the case, accomplished by having the judge fill out a questionnaire during jury deliberations. The data pool consisted of 290 . . .
New York Times writer Adam Liptak reports (TimesSelect membership required) that Avvo, a user-generated online rating system that allows clients to rate lawyers like Zagats rates restaurants, is being sued by none other than a group of lawyers with low ratings. More on the politics of online dating: Slate writer Seth Stevenson analyzes an ad campaign by Chemistry.com, a dating . . .
Here’s even more support for Levitt’s theory about the frequency of criminals having the middle name “Wayne”: Australian Christopher Wayne Hudson was arrested outside Melbourne and charged with triple homicide. (Hat Tip: Caty Harris.) Via CNN: Two New Zealand parents have been forbidden by the country’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages from naming their son “4real,” under the reasoning . . .