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New York Times Blog http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:37:21 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/326667765/ Kyle Busch The Sunday after we lined up NASCAR driver Kyle Busch to do this Q&#038;A, he won his first career road-course race, the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon. We wondered if Freakonomics luck had something to do with it. Then last week, as your questions were coming in, he snagged the No. 1 spot in [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/326667765" height="1" width="1"/> Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:58:13 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/326667765/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/326034369/ Earlier this week, we ran a Q&#038;A with Julie Salamon, author of the new book Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God, and Diversity on Steroids. Given the richness of her book and the primacy of healthcare as a topic of interest, we've asked Julie to guest post here, [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/326034369" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:56:05 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/326034369/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325962570/ Cigarette advertisers generally don't mention cancer, although Silk Cut seemed to use it (in the form of an alligator) to tell smokers they're cool for tempting death. Playing up your product's risk isn't a new strategy. This whiskey ad from the 1990's, sent in by Freakonomics reader Douglas Kysar, makes vice look pretty sexy. Photo: [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/325962570" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:13:39 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325962570/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325876234/ Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own, send it along here. Thanks again to all who contributed great suggestions of TV catchphrases, U.S. and British. Now I turn to film quotes, which have probably supplanted literary quotations [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/325876234" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:03:50 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325876234/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325824774/ I am a firm believer in consumer choice - an individual's utility and society's economic welfare are maximized if people are free to buy whatever they want (so long as others are not forced to sell it to them). Nonetheless, an amazing number of egregiously nonsensical devices are marketed because people (for some reason) have preferences [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/325824774" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:14:35 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325824774/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325080428/ A few months after Freakonomics was first released I was honored to be invited to speak at my first European TED conference, held in the United Kingdom. I wasn't sure what to talk about. At my first TED appearance a couple years earlier I had given a rather edgy talk about gangs that had [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/325080428" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:06:33 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325080428/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325039743/ So where are all the bees? More ways to analyze your name. (HT: Jim Dahl) (Earlier) Can DJ's make you buy more drinks? (HT: Philip Oreopoulos) The video-game stimulus was sudden but fleeting. (Earlier)<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/325039743" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:07:11 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325039743/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325001821/ Folio reports that Time Inc. is starting a new magazine-subscription service called Maghound that sounds a bit like Netflix's movie model: Maghound.com allows consumers to choose titles from a variety of publishers for mix-and-match "subscriptions" where they pay one monthly fee and have the ability to switch titles at any time. Unlike traditional subscriptions, members aren't [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/325001821" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:40:17 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/325001821/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324963781/ The global economic slowdown has had an upside for some people. First, it was debt consolidators and private security firms. Now, necktie companies are reporting a boost in sales as the unemployment rate rises, the Telegraph reports. The (questionable) theory is that employed men want to look sharp and thereby stay employed. To think - [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324963781" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:46:16 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324963781/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324921946/ The public-goods and free-rider problems that plague many organizations are also common at universities. At the University of Texas, the co-op bookstore offers each major college $50,000 if its professors meet the co-op's deadline for book orders. My college (Liberal Arts) is the only one that can't do this, that can't manage to take [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324921946" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:45:37 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324921946/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324262070/ Scientists have genetically engineered a malaria-resistant breed of mosquito that can out-compete non-modified mosquitoes in nature, the BBC reports. Releasing the mosquitoes into the wild could be a winning and cost-effective strategy to combat a disease that kills 1 million people worldwide each year and has dire financial consequences for countries where it is endemic. [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324262070" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:35:56 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324262070/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324234504/ The NBA draft this year provides a vivid real world test of whether very simple regressions can out-predict experts on a central business decision - the NBA draft. Chris Doughty, a 2008 industrial and operations engineering graduate of the University of Michigan, pointed me to a cool regression analysis of the great John Hollinger. Using data [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324234504" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:52:58 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324234504/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324163663/ My response when Money magazine asked for the best advice I had ever received about personal finance: When I was a first-year assistant professor at the University of Chicago, my friend and department chair, Jose Scheinkman, relayed the advice Milton Friedman had given him 20 years earlier, "Don't save too much." The logic was simple: An [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324163663" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:02:25 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324163663/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324109991/ Readers of this blog might be interested in a new book on electoral politics set to arrive in bookstores at the end of summer. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State by Andrew Gelman - my colleague in Columbia University's political science department - explodes some well-trod myths about American voting behavior. Consider, for example, [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324109991" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:41:36 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324109991/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324048342/ Very few readers of this blog are strangers to political prediction markets. But if you are new to this and interested in learning more, here's some help: A podcast of a talk I gave at the recent CFA Institute annual conference in Vancouver. Or if you prefer to see the video and slides as well, [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~4/324048342" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:36:39 +0100 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/324048342/