Freakonomics

Of God and Money

By FREAKONOMICS — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:29:01 PST

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into an economics lab. Which one is most likely to increase contributions to the public good?

A Few Questions for Belle de Jour, Call Girl and Scientist

By RYAN HAGEN — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:30:34 PST

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.

Why Do We Hate?

By FREAKONOMICS — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:21:23 PST

"What makes hate tick? How can we stop it?" These are the questions that Jim Mohr, director of Gonzaga University's Institute for Action Against Hate, asks himself every day as he develops a new field of study around hate. Mohr believes that despite all the devastating examples of hate in the world, no one really understands why one person hates another.

Introducing "Applied Freakonomics"

By STEVEN D. LEVITT — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:50:40 PST

When blog reader Kyle contacted us with his story of how thinking "freakonomically" first netted - then lost - him significant amounts of incremental income, we had what we'd call an "aha moment," if Oprah hadn't apparently patented that phrase. Here's Kyle's story - and if you have a tale of "applied Freakonomics," we'd love to hear it, too, and possibly feature it on the blog.

When Football Violence Turns Real

By FREAKONOMICS — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:42:43 PST

It's well-established that domestic violence is bad for the children directly exposed to it (and possibly their classmates as well) but experts still debate the drivers of family violence. Economists have traditionally characterized violence as a signal to outside parties or as part of an incentive contract between family members.

Quotes Uncovered: Who First Said "If You Can't Beat Em ... "

By FRED SHAPIRO — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:19 PST

Each week, I've been inviting readers to submit quotations for which they want me to try to trace the origin, using The Yale Book of Quotations and my own research. Here is the latest round:

Nathan Myhrvold, Mad Chef

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:26:50 PST

Nathan Myhrvold is the Intellectual Ventures chieftain we wrote about in SuperFreakonomics; I.V. has plans to thwart, inter alia, hurricanes, malaria, and global warming. (He has also written for this blog occasionally.) Now he has let The N.Y. Times into his kitchen. It is not like any other kitchen you've ever seen; nor is the cookbook he is producing like any other that's been published:

Improving Well-Being in the Classroom

By DANIEL HAMERMESH — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:20 PST

Four of the 26 students in my Economics of Life class proposed delaying submitting their draft term project reports by one week. I emailed the whole class and gave them one day to let me know if they disapproved of this postponement. The question was how heavily to weight the negatives -- those who disapproved -- compared to those who wanted to postpone.

What Are the Coming Decade's Most Overblown Fears?

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:10:34 PST

Newsweek is running an online retrospective of the new millennium's first decade. My favorite section to date is the "Overblown Fears" list. Here they are, in order: 1. Y2K 2. Shoe Bombs 3. Vaccines Cause Autism 4. Immigrants 5. Bloggers 6. SARS, Mad Cow, Bird Flu 7. Web Predators 8. Teen Oral Sex Epidemic 9. Anthrax 10. Globalization

The Latest in Naked Self-Promotion

By FREAKONOMICS — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:35:34 PST

If you missed Levitt and Dubner on their U.K. SuperFreakonomics tour, a podcast of their lecture at the London School of Economics is now online. So are their interviews with Reuters TV, Channel 4, and Telegraph TV, as is the BBC's piece on how SuperFreakonomics fits into the David Cameron book club. Some U.S. tour appearances are available online as well, from the Commonwealth Club, the Motley Fool, and the Philadelphia Free Library.

SuperFreakonomics Book Club: Ask Sudhir Venkatesh About Street Prostitution

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:37:05 PST

In the first installment of our virtual book club, Emily Oster answered your questions about her research (co-authored with Rob Jensen) which argues that the lives of rural women in India improved on several dimensions thanks to the widespread adoption of television. That story appeared in our book's introduction. Now we're moving on to Chapter One. We will probably feature a few Q&A's with the subjects and researchers featured in this chapter, which is described in the Table of Contents like this:

A New Solution to Unemployment?

By FREAKONOMICS — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:53:41 PST

We've blogged extensively about the serious organ-doner shortage in the U.S. and the debate over establishing a market for organs. Now it seems the recession has uncovered some unexpected potential participants in the organ market: unemployed white collar Americans.

"Just Compensation" Can Lead to More Government Takings

By IAN AYRES — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:11:34 PST

We are trapped in a world with far too few IRS audits. Law abiding tax payers hate being audited and their representatives in Congress have heard the message loud and clear - strangling the ability of the IRS to conduct field examinations. The problem with the current state of affairs is that non-law-abiding tax payers find it far too easy to avoid paying their fair share.

King Condom

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:02:38 PST

Police in Hunan province, China, raided a workshop said to be producing counterfeit condoms. According to the (U.K.) Times:

Bare-chested employees were found using vegetable oil to lubricate the condoms to make them smooth and shiny before placing them directly in fiber bags without bothering with sterilization.

Birds Like You've Never Seen Them

By FREAKONOMICS — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:55:03 PST

Worker productivity is up dramatically, despite the release of photographer Andrew Zuckerman's mind-blowing book - and totally engrossing website - Bird.