1,721,144 research outputs found

    When to Rob a Bank : ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants

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    When Freakonomics was initially published, the authors started a blog - and they\u27ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. Now, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the landmark Freakonomics, comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the world. Why don\u27t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on Freakonomics.com. Now the very best of this writing has been carefully curated into one volume, the perfect solution for the millions of listeners who love all things Freakonomics. Discover why taller people tend to make more money; why it\u27s so hard to predict the Kentucky Derby winner; and why it might be time for a sex tax (if not a fat tax). You\u27ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner\u27s own quirks and passions. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made their books an international sensation. https://www.amazon.com/When-Rob-Bank-Suggestions-Well-Intended/dp/B00UXOBB38/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540451285&sr=8-1&keywords=when+to+rob+a+bank+by+steven+levitt%2C+stephen+j.+dubne

    Book Discussion

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    Book discussion of Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

    Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

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    Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: Freakonomics. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world. https://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Revised-Expanded-Economist-Everything/dp/0061234001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540450540&sr=8-1&keywords=freakonomic

    Steven D. Levitt (University of Chicago)

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    Catching Cheating Teachers: The Results of an Unusual Experiment in Implementing Theory

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    This paper reports on the results of a prospective implementation of methods for detecting teacher cheating. In Spring 2002, over 100 Chicago Public Schools elementary classrooms were selected for retesting based on the cheating detection algorithm. Classrooms prospectively identified as likely cheaters experienced large test score declines. In contrast, classes that had large test score gains on the original test, but were prospectively identified as being unlikely to have cheated, maintained their original gains. Randomly selected classrooms also maintained their gains. The cheating detection tools were thus demonstrated to be effective in distinguishing between classrooms that achieved large test-score gains as a consequence of cheating versus those whose gains were the result of outstanding teaching. In addition, the data generated by the implementation experiment highlight numerous ways in which the original cheating detection methods can be improved in the future.

    An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap in Mathematics

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    We document and analyze the emergence of a substantial gender gap in mathematics in the early years of schooling using a large, recent, and nationally representative panel of children in the United States. There are no mean differences between boys and girls upon entry to school, but girls lose more than two-tenths of a standard deviation relative to boys over the first six years of school. The ground lost by girls relative to boys is roughly half as large as the black-white test score gap that appears over these same ages. We document the presence of this gender math gap across every strata of society. We explore a wide range of possible explanations in the U.S. data, including less investment by girls in math, low parental expectations, and biased tests, but find little support for any of these theories. Moving to cross-country comparisons, we find that earlier results linking the gender gap in math to measures of gender equality are sensitive to the inclusion of Muslim countries, where in spite of women’s low status, there is little or no gender gap in math.

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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