Washoe County Library System

Whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically, Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling to show how people respond to incentives.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog--and they've kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. Now they've gone through and picked the best of the best. Here, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why...

"Every day we make choices--about food and other purchases, financial investments, our children's health and education, even the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nudge shows how sensible "choice architecture" can help us to overcome the biases that lead to bad decisions and nudge us toward the best decisions for...

'Paris Review contributor Katy Kelleher explores our obsession with gorgeous things, unveiling the fraught histories of makeup, flowers, perfume, silk, and other beautiful objects. April recommended reading by the New York Times Book Review, Vanity Fair, Goodreads, Jezebel, and Next Big Idea Club One of Curbed’s best architecture, design, and urbanism books of the spring A most anticipated book of 2023 by The Millions Katy Kelleher has spent much...

An economics professor and author describes how the World Wide Web is changing the way our minds work, and provides a guide to the coming world of Web 3.0, where social networking and "Tweeting" will improve education and enrich lives.

Can economics be passionate?... Can it center on people and what really matters to them day-in and day-out... And help us understand their hidden motives for why they do what they do in everyday life? Uri Gneezy and John List are revolutionaries. Their ideas and methods for revealing what really works in addressing big social, business, and economic problems gives us new understanding of the motives underlying human behavior. We can then structure...

Whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically, Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling to show how people respond to incentives.

How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people...

The part-owner of StickK.com uses research into incentives and punishments to introduce the concept of "commitment contracts," an easy strategy for setting and achieving goals that is already in use by successful companies and individuals across America.