SuperFreakonomics

by Steven D. Levitt

  DRUG DEALERS, NOT BUYERS, DO THE TIME: See Ilyana Kuziemko and Steven D. Levitt, “An Empirical Analysis of Imprisoning Drug Offenders,” Journal of Public Economics 88 (2004); also, the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s 2008 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics.

  THE STREET PROSTITUTES OF CHICAGO: This section is largely drawn from Steven D. Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, “An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution,” working paper.

  LYING TO THE OPORTUNIDADES CLERK: See César Martinelli and Susan Parker, “Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program,” Journal of European Economics Association 7, no. 4 (2009). This paper was brought to our attention by the journalist Tina Rosenberg.

  LOSING VIRGINITY TO A PROSTITUTE, THEN AND NOW: See Charles Winick and Paul M. Kinsie, The Lively Commerce: Prostitution in the United States (Quadrangle Books, 1971), citing a paper by P. H. Gebhard presented to the December 1967 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (The University of Chicago Press, 1994).

  WHY DID ORAL SEX GET SO CHEAP? See Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher, Jodi L. Cornell, Rhonda Y. Kropp, and Jeanne M. Tschann, “Oral Versus Vaginal Sex Among Adolescents: Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behavior,” Pediatrics 115 (2005); Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, “The Economy of Desire,” The New York Times Magazine, December 11, 2005; Tim Harford, “A Cock-and-Bull Story: Explaining the Huge Rise in Teen Oral Sex,” Slate, September 2, 2006. / 33 “Ease of exit” is a phrase used by Dr. Michael Rekart of the University of British Columbia in an author interview; see also Michael Rekart, “Sex-Work Harm Reduction,” Lancet 366 (2005).

  PRICE DISCRIMINATION: For more information on Dr. Leonard’s hair and pet trimmers, see Daniel Hamermesh, “To Discriminate You Need to Separate,” Freakonomics blog, The New York Times, May 8, 2008.

  HIGH AIDS RATE AMONG MALE PROSTITUTES’ CUSTOMERS: See K. W. Elifson, J. Boles, W. W. Darrow, and C. E. Sterk, “HIV Serop-revalence and Risk Factors Among Clients of Female and Male Prostitutes,” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes and Human Retrovirology 20, no. 2 (1999).

  PIMPACT > RIMPACT: See Igal Hendel, Aviv Nevo, and Francois Ortalo-Magne, “The Relative Performance of Real Estate Marketing Platforms: MLS Versus FSBOMadison.com,” American Economic Review, forthcoming; and Steven D. Levitt and Chad Syverson, “Antitrust Implications of Outcomes When Home Sellers Use Flat-Fee Real Estate Agents,” Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 2008.

  FEMINISM AND TEACHING: The occupations of women in 1910 are taken from the 1910 U.S. Census. / 43 Percentage of women as teachers: see Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko, “The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 4 (Fall 2006). Thanks to Kuziemko for additional calculations. / 43 Work opportunities multiplying: see Raymond F. Gregory, Women and Workplace Discrimination: Overcoming Barriers to Gender Equality (Rutgers University Press, 2003). / 43 Baby formula as “unsung hero”: see Stefania Albanesi and Claudia Olivetti, “Gender Roles and Technological Progress,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, June 2007. / 44 The erosion of teacher quality: see Marigee P. Bacolod, “Do Alternative Opportunities Matter? The Role of Female Labor Markets in the Decline of Teacher Supply and Teacher Quality, 1940–1990,” Review of Economics and Statistics 89, no. 4 (November 2007); Harold O. Levy, “Why the Best Don’t Teach,” The New York Times, September 9, 2000; and John H. Bishop, “Is the Test Score Decline Responsible for the Productivity Growth Decline,” American Economic Review 79, no. 1 (March 1989).

  EVEN TOP WOMEN EARN LESS: See Justin Wolfers, “Diagnosing Discrimination: Stock Returns and CEO Gender,” Journal of the European Economic Association 4, nos. 2–3 (April-May 2006); and Marianne Bertrand, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz, “Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, January 2009.

  DO MEN LOVE MONEY THE WAY WOMEN LOVE KIDS? The cash-incentive gender-gap experiment was reported in Roland G. Fryer, Steven D. Levitt, and John A. List, “Exploring the Impact of Financial Incentives on Stereotype Threat: Evidence from a Pilot Study,” AEA Papers and Proceedings 98, no. 2 (2008).

  CAN A SEX CHANGE BOOST YOUR SALARY? See Kristen Schilt and Matthew Wiswall, “Before and After: Gender Transitions, Human Capital, and Workplace Experiences,” B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 8, no. 1 (2008). Further information for this section was drawn from author interviews with Ben Barres and Deirdre McCloskey; see also Robin Wilson, “Leading Economist Stuns Field by Deciding to Become a Woman,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 16, 1996; and Shankar Vedantam, “He, Once a She, Offers Own View on Science Spat,” The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2006.

  WHY AREN’T THERE MORE WOMEN LIKE ALLIE? As detailed in this book’s explanatory note, we met Allie thanks to a mutual acquaintance. Allie is not her real name, but all other facts about her are true. Over the past few years, we have both spent a considerable amount of time with her (all fully clothed), as this section was based on extensive interviews, a review of her ledgers, and the occasional guest lectures she delivered at the University of Chicago for Levitt’s class “The Economics of Crime.” Several students said this was the single-best lecture they had in all their years at the university, which is both a firm testament to Allie’s insights and a brutal indictment of Levitt and the other professors. See also Stephen J. Dubner, “A Call Girl’s View of the Spitzer Affair,” Freakonomics blog, The New York Times, March 12, 2008.

  REALTORS FLOCK TO A REAL-ESTATE BOOM: See Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, “Endangered Species,” The New York Times Magazine, March 5, 2006.

  CHAPTER 2: WHY SHOULD SUICIDE BOMBERS BUY LIFE INSURANCE?

  RAMADAN AND OTHER BIRTH EFFECTS: The section on prenatal daytime fasting was drawn from Douglas Almond and Bhashkar Mazumder, “The Effects of Maternal Fasting During Ramadan on Birth and Adult Outcomes,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, October 2008. / 58 The natal roulette affects horses too: see Bill Mooney, “Horse Racing; A Study on the Loss of Foals,” The New York Times, May 2, 2002; and Frank Fitzpatrick, “Fate Stepped in for Smarty,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 26, 2004. / 59 The “Spanish Flu” effect: see Douglas Almond, “Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Long-Term Effects of In Utero Influenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Population,” Journal of Political Economy 114, no. 4 (2006); and Douglas Almond and Bhashkar Mazumder, “The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Subsequent Health Outcomes: An Analysis of SIPP Data,” Recent Developments in Health Economics 95, no. 2 (May 2005). / 59 Albert Aab versus Albert Zyzmor: see Liran Einav and Leeat Yariv, “What’s in a Surname? The Effects of Surname Initials on Academic Success,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 1 (2006); and C. Mirjam van Praag and Bernard M.S. van Praag, “The Benefits of Being Economics Professor A (and not Z),” Institute for the Study of Labor discussion paper, March 2007.

  THE BIRTHDATE BULGE AND THE RELATIVE-AGE EFFECT: See Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, “A Star Is Made,” The New York Times Magazine, May 7, 2006; K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, and Robert R. Hoffman, The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2006); K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (1993); Werner Helsen, Jan Van Winckel, and A. Mark Williams, “The Relative Age Effect in Youth Soccer Across Europe,” Journal of Sports Sciences 23, no. 6 (June 2005); and Greg Spira, “The Boys of Late Summer,” Slate, April 16, 2008. As explained in a footnote to this section, we originally planned to

  write a chapter in SuperFreakonomics on how talent is acquired—that is, when a person is very good at a given thing, what is it that makes him o
r her so good? But our plans changed when several books were recently published on this theme. A lot of people gave generously of their time and thoughts in our reporting on this abandoned chapter, and we remain indebted to them. Anders Ericsson was extremely helpful, as were Werner Helsen, Paula Barnsley, Gus Thompson, and many others. We are especially grateful to Takeru Kobayashi, the competitive-eating champion from Japan, for his time, insights, and willingness during a New York visit to try out a Papaya King hot dog as well as a Hebrew National, even though he’s not particularly fond of hot dogs except when he’s eating eight or ten of them per minute. It was the ultimate busman’s holiday, and Kobayashi could not have been more gracious.

  WHO BECOMES A TERRORIST? See Alan B. Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist (Princeton University Press, 2007); Claude Berrebi, “Evidence About the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism Among Palestinians,” Princeton University Industrial Relations Section working paper, 2003; and Krueger and Jita Maleckova, “Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 4 (Fall 2003). / 63 For more on terrorists’ goals, see Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God (University of California Press, 2001). / 63–64 Terrorism hard to define: see “Muslim Nations Fail to Define Terrorism,” Associated Press, April 3, 2002.

  WHY TERRORISM IS SO CHEAP AND EASY: The murder count in the Washington, D.C., metro area was provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which collects crime statistics from local police departments. The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Statistical Area includes the district itself and surrounding counties in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. For more on the impact of the Washington sniper attacks, see Jeffrey Schulden et al., “Psychological Responses to the Sniper Attacks: Washington D.C., Area, October 2002,” American Journal of Preventative Medicine 31, no. 4 (October 2006). / 65 Figures for airport security screenings come from the Federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. / 65 Financial impact of 9/11: see Dick K. Nanto, “9/11 Terrorism: Global Economic Costs,” Congressional Research Service, 2004. / 65–66 Extra driving deaths after 9/11: see Garrick Blalock, Vrinda Kadiyali, and Daniel Simon, “Driving Fatalities after 9/11: A Hidden Cost of Terrorism,” Cornell University Department of Applied Economics and Management working paper, 2005; Gerd Gigerenzer, “Dread Risk, September 11, and Fatal Traffic Accidents,” Psychological Science 15, no. 4 (2004); Michael Sivak and Michael J. Flannagan, “Consequences for Road Traffic Fatalities of the Reduction in Flying Following September 11, 2001,” Transportation Research 7, nos. 4–5 (July–September 2004); and Jenny C. Su et al., “Driving Under the Influence (of Stress): Evidence of a Regional Increase in Impaired Driving and Traffic Fatalities After the September 11 Terrorist Attacks,” Psychological Science 20, no. 1 (December 2008). / 66 Back-dated stock options: see Mark Maremont, Charles Forelle, and James Bandler, “Companies Say Backdating Used in Days After 9/11,” The Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2007. / 66 Police resources shifted to terrorism: see Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (Macmillan, 2005); Janelle Nanos, “Stiffed,” New York, November 6, 2006; Suzy Jagger, “F.B.I. Diverts Anti-Terror Agents to Bernard Madoff $50 Billion Swindle,” The Times (London), December 22, 2008; and Eric Lichtblau, “Federal Cases of Stock Fraud Drop Sharply,” The New York Times, December 24, 2008. / 66 Influenza and airline travel: see John Brownstein, Cecily Wolfe, and Kenneth Mandl, “Empirical Evidence for the Effect of Airline Travel on Interregional Influenza Spread in the United States,” PloS Medicine, October 2006. / 66 Crime drop in D.C.: see Jonathan Klick and Alexander Tabarrok, “Using Terror Alert Levels to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime,” Journal of Law and Economics 48, no. 1 (April 2005). / 66 A California pot bonanza: see “Home-Grown,” The Economist, October 18, 2007; and Jeffrey Miron, “The Budgetary Implications of Drug Prohibition,” Harvard University, December 2008.

  THE MAN WHO FIXES HOSPITALS: This section is based primarily on author interviews with Craig Feied as well as other members of his team, including Mark Smith. We also benefited substantially from Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Michelle Heskett, “Washington Hospital Center,” a four-part series in Harvard Business School, July 21, 2002, N9–303–010 through N9–303–022. / 67 Emergency medicine as a specialty: see Derek R. Smart, Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the U.S. (American Medical Association Press, 2007). / 67 E.R. statistics: see Eric W. Nawar, Richard W. Niska, and Jiamin Xu, “National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2005 Emergency Department Summary,” Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control, June 29, 2007; and information gleaned from the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), as well as these AHRQ reports: Pamela Horsleys and Anne Elixhauser, “Hospital Admissions That Began in the Emergency Department, 2003,” and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (H-CUP) Statistical Brief No. 1., February 2006. / 71 “It’s about what you do in the first sixty minutes”: drawn from Fred D. Baldwin, “It’s All About Speed,” Healthcare Informatics, November 2000. / 72 “Cognitive drift”: see R. Miller, “Response Time in Man-Computer Conversational Transactions,” Proceedings of the AFIPS Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1968; and B. Shneiderman, “Response Time and Display Rate in Human Performance with Computers,” Computing Surveys, 1984.

  WHO ARE THE BEST AND WORST DOCTORS IN THE ER?: This section is based primarily on Mark Duggan and Steven D. Levitt, “Assessing Differences in Skill Across Emergency Room Physicians,” working paper. / 74–75 The negative effect of doctor report cards: see David Dranove, Daniel Kessler, Mark McClellan, and Mark Satterthwaite, “Is More Information Better?” Journal of Political Economy 111, no. 3 (2003). / 81–82 Do doctors’ strikes save lives?: see Robert S. Mendelsohn, Confessions of a Medical Heretic (Contemporary Books, 1979); and Solveig Argeseanu Cunningham, Kristina Mitchell, K. M. Venkat Narayan, and Salim Yusuf, “Doctors’ Strikes and Mortality: A Review,” Social Science and Medicine 67, no. 11 (December 2008).

  WAYS TO POSTPONE DEATH: Win a Nobel Prize: see Matthew D. Rablen and Andrew J. Oswald, “Mortality and Immortality,” University of Warwick, January 2007; and Donald MacLeod, “Nobel Winners Live Longer, Say Researchers,” The Guardian, January 17, 2007. Make the Hall of Fame: see David J. Becker, Kenneth Y. Chay, and Shailender Swaminathan, “Mortality and the Baseball Hall of Fame: An Investigation into the Role of Status in Life Expectancy,” iHEA 2007 6th World Congress: Explorations in Health Economics paper. Buy annuities: see Thomas J. Phillipson and Gary S. Becker, “Old-Age Longevity and Mortality-Contingent Claims,” Journal of Political Economy 106, no. 3 (1998). Be religious: see Ellen L. Idler and Stanislav V. Kasl, “Religion, Disability, Depression, and the Timing of Death,” American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 4 (January 1992). Be patriotic: see David McCullough, John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Beat the estate tax: Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh, “Did the Death of Australian Inheritance Taxes Affect Deaths?” Topics in Economic Analysis and Policy (Berkeley Electronic Press, 2006).

  THE TRUTHS ABOUT CHEMOTHERAPY: This section was drawn in part from interviews with practicing oncologists and oncology researchers including Thomas J. Smith, Max Wicha, Peter D. Eisenberg, Jerome Groopman, as well as several participants at “Requirements for the Cure for Cancer,” an off-the-record 2007 conference organized by Arny Glazier and the Van Andel Research Institute. (Thanks to Rafe Furst for the invitation.) See also: Thomas G. Roberts Jr., Thomas J. Lynch Jr., Bruce A. Chabner, “Choosing Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer Based on Cost: Not Yet,” Oncologist, June 1, 2002; Scott Ramsey et al., “Economic Analysis of Vinorelbine Plus Cisplatin Versus Paclitaxel Plus Carboplatin for Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 94, no. 4 (February 20, 2002); Graeme Morgan, Robyn Wardy, and Michael Bartonz, “The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies,” Clinical Oncology 16 (2004); Guy Faguet, The War on Cancer: An Anatomy of Failure, a Blueprint for the Future (Springer Net
herlands, 2005); Neal J. Meropol and Kevin A. Schulman, “Cost of Cancer Care: Issues and Implications,” Clinical Oncology 25, no. 2 (January 2007); and Bruce Hillner and Thomas J. Smith, “Efficacy Does Not Necessarily Translate to Cost Effectiveness: A Case Study in the Challenges Associated with 21st Century Cancer Drug Pricing,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 27, no. 13 (May 2009). / 86 “The deep and abiding desire not to be dead”: Thomas Smith offered this quotation from memory, attributing it to his colleague Thomas Finucane, writing in “How Gravely Ill Becomes Dying: A Key to End-of-Life Care,” Journal of the American Medical Association 282 (1999). But Smith had, in his memory, slightly improved Finucane’s original quote, which was “the widespread and deeply held desire not to be dead.”

  LIVING LONG ENOUGH TO DIE FROM CANCER: See Bo E. Honore and Adriana Lleras-Muney, “Bounds in Competing Risks Models and the War on Cancer,” Econometrica 76, no. 6 (November 2006).

  WAR: NOT AS DANGEROUS AS YOU THINK?: Derived from “U.S. Active Duty Military Deaths 1980 through 2008 (as of April 22, 2009),” prepared by the Defense Manpower Data Center for Department of Defense; thanks to a reader named Adam Smith (seriously) for alerting us to these data.

  HOW TO CATCH A TERRORIST: This section is drawn from “Identifying Terrorists Using Banking Data,” Steven D. Levitt and A. Danger Powers, working paper; and from author interviews with Ian Horsley (a pseudonym), primarily in London. / 89 Bank fraud in the U.K.: gleaned from the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS). / 92 False positives in cancer screening: see Jennifer Miller Croswell et al., “Cumulative Incidence of False-Positive Results in Repeated, Multimodal Cancer Screening,” Annals of Family Medicine 7 (2009). / 92 Mike Lowell: see Jimmy Golen, “Lowell: Baseball Held to Higher Standard,” The Associated Press, January 18, 2008. / 92 Release of terror suspects: see Alan Travis, “Two-Thirds of U.K. Terror Suspects Released Without Charge,” The Guardian, May 12, 2009.