Subscribe to this blog

Stats

Puzzler on Prom Dresses and Textbooks

posted to Freakonomics on Thu 9th Sep 10

Why can buying a prom dress be legally similar to buying a textbook?
The Magic Income Number

posted to Freakonomics on Thu 9th Sep 10

What's the magic income number? According to Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, it's about $75,000, at least when it comes to day-to-day happiness.
Horse Manure: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

posted to Freakonomics on Wed 8th Sep 10

A story told on pp. 8-11 of SuperFreakonomics - about the plague of horse manure, the introduction of the automobile (an "environmental savior"), and the resulting carbon emissions -- has been turned into (of all things) a Mercedes-Benz commercial.

Global Warming in SuperFreakonomics: The Anatomy of a Smear

posted to Freakonomics on Sun 18th Oct 09

Our critics accuse us of manipulation and cherry-picking and misrepresenting a variety of arguments about climate change and energy production. If everything they said was actually true, it would indeed be a damning indictment. But it's not.
What This Year's Nobel Prize in Economics Says About the Nobel Prize in Economics

posted to Freakonomics on Mon 12th Oct 09

The reaction of the economics community to Elinor Ostrom's prize will likely be quite different. The reason? If you had done a poll of academic economists yesterday and asked who Elinor Ostrom was, or what she worked on, I doubt that more than one in five economists
The Economics of Happiness, Part 1: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox

posted to Freakonomics on Wed 16th Apr 08

Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson will be on CNBC today at 2:15 discussing their happiness research. Arguably the most important finding from the emerging economics of happiness has been the Easterlin Paradox. What is this paradox? It is the juxtaposition

Links 9/7/10

posted to naked capitalism on Tue 7th Sep 10

Study examines association between urban living and psychotic disorders PhysOrgFreakonomics: The Movie Out Today on iTunes Only FreakonomicsMoney Can Buy Happiness, Study Finds — But Only Up To $75,000 Associated Press. Even though the Nobel Prize winner
Not the time for rate hikes

posted to Free exchange on Wed 25th Aug 10

EARLIER this week I briefly mentioned Raghuram Rajan's odd suggestion that the Fed should, sometime soon, raise its benchmark interest rate by up to two percentage points. This declaration led to many raised eyebrows, prompting Mr Rajan to explain his view
Unemployment Vs. Global Warming - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

posted to Environmental Economics on Tue 24th Aug 10

Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahn!Is thinking green an economic luxury? Intuition implies that it may be, but so far theres been little empirical evidence on the subject. Two economists recently changed that: using data from Google keyword searches between 2004