In The Tall Book, Arianne Cohen relies on insights from her own life (including a brief stint as one half of the world’s tallest couple), and research from economists and scientists to shed light on the pros and cons of life as a really tall person.
In the SuperFreakonomics Virtual Book Club, we invite readers to ask questions of some of the researchers and other characters in our new book. Last week we opened up the questioning for Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, labor economists and experts on the male-female wage gap.
Many of us who try to live an examined life find something lacking, though usually nothing so serious that it requires professional help. This has given rise to an entire genre of books aimed at indulging our urge to open up our own psyches and tinker with the wiring. But the genre’s lack of scientific rigor drives University of Hertfordshire psychologist Richard Wiseman to distraction.
In recent months, the U.S. government has taken on a challenging and controversial new role: private sector investor. This development has raised a host of questions about the government’s role in the economy and a new book by Josh Lerner, Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed – and What to Do About It, is required reading for anyone hoping to understand the issues.
Ralph Keeney, a decision analyst at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, uses decision sciences to give “practical and usable advice” to help people make decisions, from lifestyle choices to management strategies.
We recently solicited your questions for George Atallah, the assistant executive director of external affairs for the N.F.L. Players Association. Atallah responded in a fashion that I believe is unique among all previous participants in our reader-generated Q&A’s: he answered every question you asked. If thoroughness counts for anything – not to mention candor and the willingness to engage sticky subjects – then the players would seem to have strong advocates in Atallah and his boss DeMaurice Smith.
Last week we opened up the questioning for Sudhir Venkatesh, the sociologist whose fieldwork on street prostitutes in Chicago is the foundation of a long section of our first chapter. Here are his replies. Thanks to Sudhir and all of you for participating.
Bring your questions for George Atallah, and follow him on Twitter at @gatallah.
In 2003, a young American woman in London studying for her PhD. ran into money trouble. To support herself while writing her thesis, she joined an escort service. Under the assumed name Belle de Jour, she started to blog her experiences. That blog led to a series of successful, jaunty memoirs beginning with 2005’s The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl. The books were adapted for television in the U.K. (where she is portrayed by Billie Piper) and later in the U.S.
Welcome to the first installment of the SuperFreakonomics Book Club. We know you’re all busy, and scattered around the globe too. So it wouldn’t be convenient for all of us to regularly gather in someone’s living room and talk about the book while sharing bean dip. So let’s harness this Internet thingy and try something different.
The idea is simple. We’ll start at the beginning of the book and work our way to the end, each week giving you a chance to ask questions or leave comments for some of the researchers and other people we write about in SuperFreakonomics.
Weak institutions and bad rules are some of the most significant obstacles to economic growth in developing countries. Paul Romer, an economist known for his work on economic growth, has a plan to change that and recently resigned his tenured teaching position at Stanford to devote his full energies to the challenge.
I would recommend introducing your wife to the theory of real option valuation. Point out that the option to marry her was likely to remain open for many years after you originally met. By exercising the option so early, you showed your bride that the net present value of your relationship was large and positive and your uncertainty about the decision was very low.
If the financial crisis has proven anything, it’s that you should ignore the advice of most economists.
Most economists, that is.
Last week, we solicited your questions for former astronaut and second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin, and we asked him a few of our own:
The paperback edition of Freakonomics goes on sale today. As with the Revised and Expanded hardcover (which, we are told, will stay in print), it includes several of our New York Times Magazine columns; it doesn’t, however, include a chapter of blog excerpts.
Aldrin has agreed to take your questions — about NASA, walking on the moon, the value to society of space exploration, or anything else you can conjure — so ask away in the comments section below. As with all Q&A’s, we will post his answers here in a few days.
Last week we solicited your questions for Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of the “personal genetics” company 23andMe. Among your interesting questions: are 23andMe’s genetic results taken seriously by doctors? Should children have the procedure done? Will insurance companies engage in genetic profiling?
Thanks for the good questions and to Wojcicki for the compelling answers.
A while back, we began soliciting reader questions for Captain Steve
Anne Wojcicki, a biotech analyst and biologist, is co-founder of the “personal genetics” company 23andMe — which, for $1,000, will take a bit of your spit and map out your DNA to learn genealogical details as well as your risk factors for certain diseases. Clients can also join the company’s gene-themed social networks and share their genetic info with others. Sort of like Facebook for your innards.
It’s notoriously hard to predict gas prices. Who would have thought in 2006 that we’d be paying $4 a gallon in 2008? Or, as prices peaked last year, that we’d be filling up for $2.50 a gallon this summer?
That said, civil engineer and Forbes reporter Chris Steiner argues that prices will rise precipitously over the next few decades. (It would probably make as much sense to argue that electric cars will take over and gas prices will fall, but that’s another argument for another day.)
Last week we solicited your questions for ESPN baseball reporter and analyst Buster Olney. There were a lot of really interesting questions, and I think Buster chose well; moreover, his answers are excellent — especially, in my view, his last one. Along the way, he addresses the Steroid Era, budgetary and expansion issues, and how he came to be called Buster. Thanks to all for participating.
If you care about baseball, you should care about Buster Olney. He is the ESPN baseball reporter who seems to know everything about everything, on the field and in the general managers’ offices, and presents it with a calm authority.
Two weeks ago, we solicited your questions for White House economist Austan Goolsbee. You will find his answers below. Among the highlights: no, the Obama administration is not socialist; and no, Goolsbee will not be trapped into telling you whether he’d buy an American car. Thanks for the good questions and thanks especially to Goolsbee for the interesting answers.
Many readers of this blog are well familiar with Austan Goolsbee, a colleague of Levitt’s at the University of Chicago who is currently serving in Washington on the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economist for the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He is (in no particular order): brainy, talkative, excitable, and fully engaged in just about any modern economic issue worth considering, including the budget, the tax code, the auto industry, the bailouts, and on and on.
These debates notwithstanding, Wikipedia’s popularity continues to make standard encyclopedias look as hip as buggy whips.
Wikipedia editor/administrator Andrew Lih, author of the book Wikipedia Revolution, has agreed to answer our questions about Wikipedia and what it means to society.
Last week we solicited your questions for Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. In the interim, Twitter has announced it will begin verifying some high-profile accounts to make sure the Tweeters aren’t impersonators. What was most interesting to me about your questions was that so many of them were skeptical of Twitter’s underlying value.
Surely by now you have some questions about Twitter, no?
Few other phenomena have entered the public consciousness so quickly and brashly, to be so rabidly embraced and so grievously disparaged at the same time….
Yesterday we solicited your questions for an author Q&A that will go in the paperback edition of Freakonomics. Your response has been phenomenal! Great questions, covering the gamut, suitably irreverent, and far better than anything we could have made up ourselves. So … thank you.
Last week we solicited your questions for New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. Here are his answers to a selection of them. Thanks to all.
In the comments below, please pose some questions that you would like to see answered in the paperback Q&A. They can concern anything you’d like: material in the book, modes of collaboration, the price of tea in China, material in the upcoming SuperFreakonomics, etc. We will probably use 8 or 10 or 15, but the more we have to choose from, the better off we’ll be.