Taiwan’s major newspapers charge a higher advertising rate on days when Yankees right-hander and Taiwan native Chien-Ming Wang pitches, Sports Illustrated reports. Computer maker Acer claims Wang’s name increased its product sales by 10 percent, and the Taiwanese business journal Money Weekly attributed a 25 percent rise in the Taiwan Stock Exchange to Wang’s strong performance last June and July. . . .
Say you’re a talented young athlete. Would you rather be a doctor, a lawyer, or a Malaysian soccer star? Chances are, once you realize how little Malaysians pay their professional soccer players, you’d probably choose one of the first two. And maybe that’s part of the reason Malaysia’s two national squads were both defeated by Singapore in the A.F.C. Cup . . .
When Anders Ericsson and his colleagues in the “expert performance” movement — we’ve written about them before, and we’ll write about them again — try to explain what it is that makes someone very good at what he or she does, they focus on “deliberate practice.” This means that, your level of natural talent notwithstanding, excellence is accomplished mainly through . . .
Last week I posed what I thought would be a very hard question asking which player Roy Williams called the best 3-point shooter he had ever coached. I even did some Google searches to make sure that the answer wasn’t out there. I suppose I should have assumed that something that gets announced over the loudspeakers at a Celtics game . . .
Can learning about the arts make you smarter? Are animals next in the sports doping craze? (Second item) (Earlier) Is economics “played out”? The rise of “freeconomics.”
Professional golfer Tripp Isenhour is learning this subtle distinction the hard way.
Here is a hard quiz for you. Very hard. Even if you are both knowledgeable about college basketball and clever, I doubt you will answer this quiz correctly. It is a two part question: I heard Roy Williams speak recently. (1) Who did Williams describe as “the best 3-point shooter he ever coached?” (2) On what basis did he make . . .
Player similarities in the NBA: a network diagram. A “Who’s Who” of modern physicists. How accurate are most psychology experiments?. Military experts fear “robotic terrorism.”
Is Wikipedia more accurate than we think? (Earlier) Parentonomics to be published in Australia. Olympic athletes permitted to blog at the 2008 games. Does working in solitude lead to greater productivity?
That was the question I found myself asking while reading through the Times sports section in recent days. I understand that we are sort of between seasons here. The Super Bowl is over, baseball has yet to begin, the N.B.A. is slogging through its long wintry slog, and the N.H.L. — well, I’m afraid I just don’t pay attention, as . . .
Last week, Justin Wolfers offered an insightful analysis of Roger Clemens‘s career statistics and what those statistics imply about the likelihood that Clemens used steroids. The latest contribution to this debate is by sabermetric legend Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus. Using only data through 1997, Nate generates a projection of what Clemens‘s stats should have looked like from 1998-2001, the . . .
Yesterday, I posted about the conclusions that Eric Bradlow, Shane Jensen, Adi Wyner, and I drew from analyzing Roger Clemens‘s career statistics. I thought that it might be useful to show how we got from the findings in the Clemens Report (exonerating him), to our somewhat opposite conclusions. So for budding forensic economists, here is a step-by-step guide, with pictures. . . .
Sports fans will probably be aware that Roger Clemens is currently before Congress, arguing that the Mitchell Report wrongly tagged him as having used performance-enhancing drugs. And last week, his agents released the “Clemens Report,” arguing that his career statistics somehow exonerate him. The full marketing spin is available here. I was interested in understanding how they could “prove” his . . .
A fun game to watch yesterday, with the Giants winning 17-14 over the Pats. More to the point, a clear victory for Steve Levitt, whose advice to punters was to take the “under.” A total of 31 points were scored, well below the 54.5 point “line” in Vegas. Congrats to all who followed Steve’s Freako-tip. Ian Ayres‘ successful tip was . . .
The Patriots are playing the Giants in Sunday’s Super Bowl. I thought it would be fun to put together a short Super Bowl preview. I’ll go first (Justin Wolfers): Cheering for: The Patriots. My first four years in the U.S. were spent in Boston, and that’s where I learned to love the sport that you guys call football. If it . . .
Levitt blogged the other day about Yale Law student Aaron Zelinsky‘s proposal for ending steroid use in Major League Baseball. Now here’s an anti-doping counter-proposal from Joe Lindsey, a sports writer and blogger/contributor at Bicycling magazine. You may remember Joe from another guest post, in which he also countered an earlier Freakonomics doping post. So this is getting to be . . .
Vermont may drop D.M.V. fee for organ donors (Earlier) Friends of nuclear power (Earlier) (Earlier) How do food stamps affect obesity? (Earlier) Economists predict where top recruits will play
Aaron Zelinsky, a student at Yale Law School, recently proposed an interesting three-prong anti-steroid strategy for Major League Baseball: 1) An independent laboratory stores urine and blood samples for all players, and tests these blood samples 10 years, 20 years, and 30 years later using the most up-to-date technology available. 2) Player salaries are paid over a 30-year interval. 3) . . .
A few days ago, Levitt blogged about an interesting study finding that violent movies reduce crime (at least in the short run). The reason, according to the study’s authors, Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna, is simply that more violent movies means fewer drunken louts on the streets. It is simply an incapacitation effect. One way of testing this hypothesis would . . .
There’s been some strange activity lately on this blog. It concerns a post that was written more than a year ago, on Dec. 8, 2006. In the three days after the post was published, it received 32 reader comments, which is pretty typical. Then the comments ceased. This, too, is typical: people generally no longer comment on a post that’s . . .
E.P.A. denies states’ requests to set their own emissions standards. (Earlier) Study indicates that insured cancer patients have better chance of survival. The one place where the Patriots lose: the point spread. Sellers offered extra incentives to buy in stagnating home market.
… to support my alma mater, Appalachian State University, in its quest for a third consecutive national football championship at the FCS (formerly Div. I-AA) level. But I won’t be, so I will cheer them on in absentia. These are the guys, remember, who beat (presumably) mighty Michigan at the start of the season, so hopefully they can handle the . . .
National cholesterol levels fall to “ideal” range. (Earlier) A survey on the ethics of book reviewing. (Earlier) Hedge fund buys professional soccer team. (Earlier) Corporate battle underway over rest stop naming rights.
Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell today released his long-anticipated report on steroid use in baseball. It charges many star players with having used steroids, including Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGwire. Here’s one thing about the report that really jumped out at me, as portrayed by Michael Schmidt and Duff Wilson in the Times‘s lead story: [Mitchell] did say . . .
How is baseball signaling like financial markets? Steve Pinker to speak in New Jersey. (Earlier) Airlines offering better meals, albeit for a price. (Earlier) Chinese cremator leaves corpses half burned to save on fuel costs.
Here’s the latest guest post from Yale economist and law professor Ian Ayres. His past posts can be found here and here. In a recent post, I mentioned that when playing poker, I use my watch as a crude random number generator to tell me when to bluff. While there are lots of sports in which it’s best to play . . .
I love the title of Ian Ayres‘ latest op-ed in The Economists’ Voice: “Give Freakonomics a Chance” In the piece, Ian pleads with the N.B.A. to hand over its referee data so that economists can look for evidence of cheating.
I am wondering if perhaps we should try to enlist John McEnroe to write with us in the future, although I’m sure we couldn’t afford his fee. In this interesting (London) Telegraph article on the reported rise in fixed tennis matches, McEnroe nicely parses the incentives at play for top-ranked players versus lower-ranked players. While lower-ranked players may be willing . . .
Riskometer helps put health warnings in perspective. The wildest contract perks that MLB players have demanded, and gotten. (Earlier) Game theory expert confesses to wife’s murder. New study links entrepreneurs and dyslexia.
Terminally ill professor to write a book based on his final lecture. (Earlier) Climate change scientists bet on disappearance of Arctic ice. (Earlier) Should NFL teams go for it on fourth down? A debate. (Earlier) Airports now offering flu shots to travelers. (Earlier)