Allie’s license for, 55–56
residential, 38–40
Reid, Richard, 65
rejection, and altruism, 108, 109
“relative-age effect,” 60
religion, 82–83
repugnant idea, 199–200
reputation, and baseball card experiment, 116
retirement home visits, experiment concerning, 105–6
revolutionaries, 63–64
“Rimpact,” 39, 40
Ripken, Jr., Cal, 92
Robespierre, Maximilien, 63
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 144, 157
Rosenthal, A. M., 125–27
ruminants, 166, 167–68
Sabin, Albert, 145
safety seats, child, 150–58
Salk, Jonas, 145
Salter Sink. See float, hurricane
Salter, Stephen, 178, 202
Santa Claus, 43
Santos, Laurie, 212
SAT-style math test and gender, 46
“Save the Arctic” plan, 195–96
“Save the Planet” plan, 196
Schilt, Kristen, 48
schools, as externalities, 175
Schumpeter, Joseph, 11
screen-saver solution, 206–7
scrutiny, 121–22
sea level, rising, 185–86
“seat-belt syndrome,” 155
seat belts, 148, 149–58
“Seattle Stomp,” 139
selection bias, 74, 121
self-interest, 100, 173
selfishness, and altruism, 109
selflessness, 173
sellers versus users, 25–26
Semmelweis, Ignatz, 134–38,140, 141,162, 203–4, 207
Sen, Amartya, 4
September 11, 2001,15, 63, 64, 65, 66–67, 68, 88, 90, 201
sex
casual, 30–31
oral, 33–34
premarital, 31
See also prostitutes/prostitution
sex-change operations, 47–48
sharks, 14–15
Shleifer, Andrei, 105
Silka, Paul, 205, 206
Singapore, Maintenance of Parents Act in, 106
Smile Train, 4
Smith, Adam, 212
Smith, Mark, 69, 70, 71, 72
Smith, Thomas J., 84, 85, 86
Smith, Vernon, 114, 115
smokestack plan, 200–201
smoking, 87
soccer team, birthdays of, 59–60
solar power, 187–88
“Spanish flu” epidemic, 59
St. James’s Hospital (Dublin, Ireland), 139
“Star Wars” missile-defense
system, 181
Stern, Nicholas, 169, 196
Stevenson, Betsey, 22
stock-market investors, 214
strategic cooperation, 108
stratospheric shield, 198
streetcars, 10–11
subprime mortgages, 16, 17
suicide bombers, 62–63
sulfur dioxide, 189–90, 191, 192–99, 200–201. See also Budyko’s Blanket
Summers, Lawrence, 105
surveys
fibbing on, 7
self-reported, 7
traditional, 27–28
“sustainable retreat,” and climate change, 170
talent, 60–61
Tamil Tigers, 63
taxes
and altruism, 124
and charitable giving, 124
and climate change, 172
estate, 83–84
trash/garbage, 139
and unintended consequences, 139
teachers
wages of, 44
women as, 43, 44
television
and increase in crime, 102–4
in India, 6–8, 12, 14, 16
in U.S., 16
Teller, Edward, 181
terrorism
aftereffects of, 66
and banks, 89–95
bio-, 74
costs of, 65–66, 87
definitions of, 63–64
effectiveness of, 65
prevention of, 87–92
purpose of, 64
terrorists
biographical background of, 62–63
goals of, 63–64
identification of possible, 90–95
and life insurance, 94
methods used by, 88
and profiles of, 90–95
revolutionaries as different from, 63–64
See also September 11, 2001
Thirty-Eight Witnesses (Rosenthal), 126
Thomas, Frank, 116
Time magazine, shark story in, 14
Title IX, 22
“To Err Is Human” (Institute of Medicine report), 204
“too big to fail,” 143
traffic deaths, 65–66, 87
trash-pickup fees, 139
trees, and climate, 186
trimmers, price of, 35
trophy wives, 52–53
Trotsky, Leon, 63
trust
and altruism, 116,117
and baseball card experiment, 116,117
typical behavior, 13–14,15–16
Uganda, babies in, 57–58
Ultimatum (game), 108–9, 110, 113
unintended consequences, law of, 6–8, 12, 138–41
United Kingdom
banks in, 89–95
climate change in, 166
University of Chicago
List appointment at, 118
MBA study of graduates of, 45–46
urban planning conference, and horse problem, 10
users versus sellers, 25–26
Variable X, 95
Vaux, Calvert, 42
Venkatesh, Sudhir, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32–37, 38, 40–42, 70–71
Vice Commission, Chicago, 23–24, 26
Vienna General Hospital (Austria), 137–38, 203–4
Vietnam War, 146
violence and prostitutes, 38
visas, 66
volcanic eruptions, 176–77, 188–90, 192
volunteers, in experiments, 121
Vonnegut, Bernard, 191
Vonnegut, Kurt, 191
wages
and gender issues, 21–22, 44, 45–47
as incentives, 46–47
and sex-change operations, 47–48
teachers and, 44
walking, drunk, 2–3, 12, 14, 96
“war on drugs,” 25
warm-glow altruism, 124
washing hands, 203–8, 209
Washington, D.C., shootings in, 64, 66
Washington Hospital Center
emergency medicine at, 66–73, 75, 81
and September 11, 66–67, 68
Weber, Christopher, 167
Weitzman, Martin, 11, 12, 169
welfare program, data about, 27–28
whaling, 142–43
white slavery, 23
wind farms, 187
wind-powered fiberglass boats, 202
Wiswall, Matthew, 48
women
as CEOs, 44–45
difficulties of, 20–22
discrimination against, 21–22, 45
as doctors, 80–81
as dominant in prostitution, 23–26, 40
and feminist revolution, 43–44
in India, 3–8, 14
men compared with, 20–21
as prostitutes, 54–55
shift in role of, 43–44
in sports, 22
as teachers, 43, 44
wages for, 21–22, 44, 45–46
Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), 22
Wood, Lowell, 181,182,184–85,186, 192,194,197,198–99
World Health Organization (WHO), 5
World Trade Center, 15
World War II, use of data in, 147
Yale-New Haven Hospital, monkey experiment at, 212–16
Zelizer, Viviana, 200
Zimbardo, Philip, 123
; Zyzmor, Albert, 59
About the Authors
STEVEN D. LEVITT is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the most influential economist under the age of forty.
STEPHEN J. DUBNER, a former writer and editor at The New York Times Magazine, is the author of Turbulent Souls (Choosing My Religion), Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, and the children’s book The Boy with Two Belly Buttons.
www.freakonomics.com
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ALSO BY STEVEN D. LEVITT & STEPHEN J. DUBNER
FREAKONOMICS
A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING
ALSO BY
STEPHEN J. DUBNER
TURBULENT SOULS
A CATHOLIC SON’S RETURN TO HIS JEWISH FAMILY
ALSO PUBLISHED AS
CHOOSING MY RELIGION: A MEMOIR OF A FAMILY BEYOND BELIEF
CONFESSIONS OF
A HERO-WORSHIPER
THE BOY WITH TWO
BELLY BUTTONS
Credits
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Copyright
SUPERFREAKONOMICS. Copyright © 2009 by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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* To learn about the underlying research on any given section of the book, please read the endnotes (Back Matter: Notes).
* A few years ago, we wrote a New York Times Magazine column, “A Star Is Made,” about the birthdate bulge and Ericsson’s research on talent. We planned to expand upon it for a chapter in SuperFreakonomics. Alas, we ended up discarding the chapter, half-written, for in the time between the column and finishing this book, the field became suddenly crowded with other books that highlighted Ericsson’s research, including Outliers (by Malcolm Gladwell), Talent Is Overrated (by Geoff Colvin), and The Talent Code (by Dan Coyle).
* This was in the early days of the Internet, before the advent of the Web.
* These and other death rates are risk-adjusted death rates, controlling for age, other symptoms, etc.
* This name is, for reasons that will soon become apparent, a pseudonym. All other facts about him are real.
* Lowell Wood challenged Myhrvold’s quote of Archimedes: “Actually, he asked for a sufficiently long lever.” To which Myhrvold huffed: “He needed a fulcrum too!”
SuperFreakonomics Page 28