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Posts Tagged ‘survey’

Who Listens to Freakonomics Radio? Here Are the Survey Results

Last week we posted a survey for Freakonomics Radio listeners. Your response was fantastic — nearly 2,000 listeners — and very helpful. In return, we thought it’d be nice to share some of the data with you. As a big believer in negative feedback, I have just one regret: that we didn’t ask you to tell us what you don’t like about the podcast. Maybe next time.

WHO YOU ARE: 

Our listeners are, in a nutshell: rather male (77%); relatively young (45% are 25-35 years old, another 24% are 35-44); well-educated (38% have a graduate degree; another 43% have a bachelor’s degree); and — according to the survey data at least — pretty well-off (17% earn more than $150,000 and another 23% earn between $100,000 and $150,000; then there are the 14% who earn between $0 and $30,000, most of whom are likely students).

WHAT YOU DO:

Here is a look at top occupations:


Who Is Listening to Freakonomics Radio?

We’ve now been making Freakonomics Radio for three years. (Here is a complete archive; you can also subscribe at iTunes or get an RSS feed.)

We have a good sense of the number of listeners (we do roughly 3 million downloads a month) but when it comes to who those listeners are, we don’t know very much. So we’ve put together a listener survey, below. If you have five spare minutes, please fill it in. What can we give you in return? If all goes well, more free podcasts!

Thanks.


Lying to Ourselves (Ep. 97)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast is called “Lying to Ourselves.” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player in the post.) 

The episode was inspired by a recent poll I saw on Yahoo! Finance (at left).

Does anyone believe for a minute that this many people would actually leave the U.S. if taxes (whatever that means, exactly) were to rise to 40 percent or even 70 percent?


The Secret Consensus Among Economists

If you follow the economic policy debate in the popular press, you would be excused for missing one of our best-kept secrets: There’s remarkable agreement among economists on most policy questions.  Unfortunately, this consensus remains obscured by the two laws of punditry: First, for any issue, there’s always at least one idiot willing to claim the spotlight to argue for it; and second, that idiot may sound more respectable if he calls himself an economist. 

How then can the quiet consensus compete with these squawking heads?  A wonderful innovation run by Brian Barry and Anil Kashyap at the University of Chicago’s Booth School Initial on Global Markets provides one answer: Data.  Their “Economic Experts Panel” involves 40 of the leading economists across the US who have agreed to respond on the economic policy question du jour.  The panel involves a geographically and ideologically diverse array of leading economists working across different fields.  The main thing that unites them is that they are outstanding economists who care about public policy.  The most striking result is just how often even this very diverse group of economists agree, even when there’s stark disagreement in Washington. 

That observation is the starting point for my latest column with Betsey Stevenson: 


One Less Reader

A reader writes:

You should do an article about how pop-ups drive people away from websites, even after the viewer opts out.  You can start with me and how I won’t be returning to your site, or reading your next book, or promoting it by word-of-mouth, because of your annoying “recommended for you” pop-up.

Do not respond to this email.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX


“AI: Adventures in Ideas”: Getting to “Yes (I’ll Participate in Your Survey)”

Freakonomics readers may know that I’m not the most qualified person to talk about using surveys. My first attempt — asking street gang members “How does it feel to be black and poor? Very bad, bad, good, …” — was met with laughter, disbelief and, scorn. (I suppose it was all uphill from that point!)

A basic question social scientists confront is: Why would you want to participate in our survey? Interviews can be long and boring; who wants to sit on the phone or stand on a streetcorner answering questions? A few bucks may not be worth the time. In fact, you have likely already perfected methods of avoiding telemarketers and sidewalk interviewers. From a data standpoint, your skilled avoidance is our problem: the views of respondents can differ from non-participants. From political races to consumer habits to opinion polls … we love numbers, and we need participation to get an accurate reading.


A Hidden Side of Domestic Violence

In a recent podcast called “Save Me From Myself,” which is about the use of commitment devices, we discussed one such measure that’s intended to protect victims of domestic violence. It featured an interview with Brown economist Anna Aizer, co-author of this paper on the topic. A listener named Jay Turley wrote in:

This episode was very interesting, as usual. But the whole “domestic violence” section really irritated me.

As a male victim of domestic violence from a woman, I found it surprising that people such as yourselves completely bought into and promoted the now-disproved tenet that domestic violence equals male-on-female violence.


Abortion Is Legal, but What Percentage of Ob-gyns Will Provide One?

A new study released by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, from main author Debra Stulberg, surveys 1,144 ob-gyns (1,800 were initially approached) to see how many provide abortion services. Though legal, abortion is much harder to come by than one might expect: while 97% of ob-gyns reported having encountered women seeking an abortion, only 14% said they were willing to perform the service.
The authors further break down willing abortion providers based on gender, location, and religious affiliation. Here’s the abstract: