Are prediction markets efficient? Robert Frank back on his feet after a heart attack. (Earlier) Hackers use “flirt” program to fool would-be online daters. (HT: Marginal Revolution) Malawian innovator builds windmills to provide local electricity.
Economics and rapping wouldn’t seem to be the most natural bedfellows, but they keep showing up on this blog, including here and here. But this latest instance is probably also the best.
Sometimes a good idea is so obvious that you can’t believe no one has made it happen yet. That would seem to be the case with something called the Impair Aware Alcohol Level Indication System. It’s a machine you can put in a bar or restaurant that lets you measure your blood alcohol level so you know if you’re fit . . .
Last week, we solicited your questions for Internet security guru Bruce Schneier. He responded in force, taking on nearly every question, and his answers are extraordinarily interesting, providing mandatory reading for anyone who uses a computer. He also plainly thinks like an economist: search below for “crime pays” to see his sober assessment of why it’s better to earn a . . .
Among many ingenious ideas/scenarios/scams proposed by blog readers in response to my horse betting quiz, the answer I was looking for finally appeared. Jim Vanasek is the reader who nailed it. Here is what he wrote: The scenario: You are alive in going in to the final leg of the pick six. There is going to be a payout of . . .
A few weeks back we linked to a blog post describing the optimal strategy in the game Monopoly. This fascinating article by Brian McMahon describes how the game of Monopoly was used during World War II to aid in the escape of Allied POWs. (Is it just me, or does it seem from reading the story that this was an . . .
Here is a tough little Freakonomics quiz for people who like to bet the ponies: Is there ever a situation in a parimutuel betting system in which you would want to bet on a horse to win, even though you knew for sure that the horse would lose the race? This is a hard one. Had it simply been posed . . .
A few years back, the economist David Romer wrote an academic paper suggesting that teams in the N.F.L. should punt less frequently. While the league’s coaches mostly dismissed his findings, I suspect that teams are a bit more likely to go for it on fourth down in marginal situations today than they were before he wrote the article. N.F.L. coaches . . .
I love technological innovations. In my view, we are so lucky to live today rather than 200 years ago. One area that has seen enormous innovation recently, though much of it seems to be underappreciated, is needles. I base this only on my own limited experience as a pin cushion, but I think it is true more generally. For example, . . .
Between the lawsuits against file-sharers and news of Radiohead’s digital-only album release, the digital distribution of music has become a big story. We recently hosted our own discussion on the issue here.. But for some people, this is very old news. Take the case of Peter Alexander, an economist in Washington, D.C., who has been researching and writing about the . . .
Courtesy of Marginal Revolution, take a look at this dancer. Is she spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise? For me there is no question: the answer is clockwise. For my wife, the image is without question spinning counter-clockwise. Our babysitter, April, sometimes sees her clockwise and sometimes the opposite. This little dancer offers a powerful lesson regarding how things we conceive as . . .
Courtesy of HarperCollins In 2004, Frank Warren, the owner of a medical information company in Germantown, Md., had an idea for a project. He bought 3,000 blank postcards and wrote two things on the back: his home address and an invitation to anonymously share a secret. He passed the cards out on the street, stuck them in library books, left . . .
In Freakonomics, we wrote about Paul Feldman, an economist turned bagel delivery man who began charging his customers based on the honor system. From the experiment, he found that, all in all, people were pretty honest. Now the band Radiohead is borrowing a page from Feldman’s playbook, but on a much grander scale. One of the most popular bands in . . .
Does file sharing really have no effect on record sales? (Earlier) Four men charged with selling steroids on MySpace. (Earlier) Consultants build a business around “nonverbal cue” coaching. Smaller Volvo marketed to new group of “enlightened consumers”.
I am a big fan of cheap, simple solutions to complex problems – but really, who isn’t? One example is a column we wrote a while back on incentivizing doctors to do a better job of washing their hands to fight hospital-acquired infections. Similarly, this New York Times article described a study at a V.A. hospital in Pittsburgh where “the . . .
It’s one man’s invention, called the Shovelglove. Here’s how he came upon it: It was a rainy Sunday. I hadn’t gone to the gym in over three months, and I was feeling painfully out of shape and antsy to do some kind of exercise. But I didn’t want to go out in the rain, and the prospect of subjecting myself . . .