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501d734
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Few people think more than two or three times a year," Shaw reportedly said."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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1b51db7
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The fact is that solving problem is hard. If a given problem still exists, you can bet that a lot of people have already come along and failed to solve it. Easy problems evaporate; it is the hard ones that linger. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to track down, organize, and analyze the data to answer one small question well.
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problems
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Steven D. Levitt |
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8cc256b
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Remember those British schoolchildren who made up answers about Mary's trip to the seashore? The researchers who ran that experiment did a follow-up study, called "Helping Children Correctly Say 'I Don't Know' to Unanswerable Questions." Once again, the children were asked a series of questions; but in this case, they were explicitly told to say "I don't know" if a question was unanswerable. The happy news is that the children were wildly s..
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Steven D. Levitt |
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815616c
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Digamos, contudo, que fosse possivel desenvolver um algoritmo bancario 99% exato. Vamos assumir que o Reino Unido tenha 500 terroristas. O algoritmo identificaria corretamente 495 deles, ou 99%. No entanto, como ha aproximadamente 50 milhoes de adultos no Reino Unido que nao tem nada a ver com terrorismo, o algoritmo tambem identificaria erroneamente 1% deles como terroristas, ou 500.000 pessoas. No fim das contas, esse algoritmo maravilhos..
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Steven D. Levitt |
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49e6569
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Los sesenta y setenta fueron, en retrospectiva, una epoca fabulosa para ser delincuente callejero en la mayor parte de las ciudades norteamericanas. Las probabilidades de recibir un castigo eran tan bajas --fue la epoca de auge de un sistema judicial liberal y el movimiento a favor de los derechos del delincuente-- que cometer un delito sencillamente no resultaba dificil.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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ae41bf3
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How selfish soever man may be supposed," Smith wrote, "there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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69754b6
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Nor should failure be considered a total loss.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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518cf85
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When someone is heavily invested in his or her opinion, it is inevitably hard to change the person's mind.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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49aa4f6
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Daniel Kahneman has written: "[W]e can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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9a2b02e
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Por cada persona inteligente que se molesta en crear un esquema de incentivos, existe un ejercito de gente, inteligente o no, que inevitablemente invertira incluso mas tiempo en tratar de burlarlos.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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1bba154
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cuando existe una gran cantidad de gente dispuesta a realizar un trabajo y capaz de hacerlo, por lo general este no esta bien remunerado. Ese es uno de los cuatro factores significativos que determinan un salario. Los otros tres son los conocimientos especializados que requiere un trabajo, lo desagradable que sea y la demanda de servicios que satisface.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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fc71180
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All of us face barriers--physical, financial, temporal--every day. Some are unquestionably real. But others are plainly artificial--expectations about how well a given system can function, or how much change is too much, or what kinds of behaviors are acceptable. The next time you encounter such a barrier, imposed by people who lack your imagination and drive and creativity, think hard about ignoring it. Solving a problem is hard enough; it..
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Steven D. Levitt |
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d3a73ea
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Tetlock's words, even when their predictions prove.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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ae4352f
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How can this type of data be made to tell a reliable story? By subjecting it to the economist's favorite trick: regression analysis. No, regression analysis is not some forgotten form of psychiatric treatment. It is a powerful--if limited--tool that uses statistical techniques to identify otherwise elusive correlations.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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dd4ed51
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Young women in Cameroon have their breasts "ironed"--beaten or massaged by a wooden pestle or a heated coconut shell--to make them less sexually tempting."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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ba149b5
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Sometimes in life, going straight up the middle is the boldest move of all.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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9fca04e
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The same thing happens if health care is distributed in a similar fashion: people consume more of it than if they were charged the sticker price. This means the "worried well" crowd out the truly sick, wait times increase for everyone, and a massive share of the costs go to the final months of elderly patients' lives, often without much real advantage."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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51b0819
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Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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8d8d6aa
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The future is far less knowable than you think.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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556202a
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Mullaney often took the subway to visit the client. His ride sometimes coincided with the end of the school day;
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Steven D. Levitt |
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66759b1
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The probability that an average American will die in a given year from a terrorist attack is roughly 1 in 5 million; he is 575 times more likely to commit suicide.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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1639708
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They may accuse you of consorting with witches or communists or even economists.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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626638a
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An opponent who feels his argument is ignored isn't likely to engage with you at all.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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7db1e18
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It is understandable, therefore, that the movement to stop global warming has taken on the feel of a religion. The core belief is that humankind inherited a pristine Eden, has sinned greatly by polluting it, and must now suffer lest we all perish in a fiery apocalypse.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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77c078a
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Would a diet high in omega-3 lead to world peace?
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Steven D. Levitt |
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6c62485
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What if, for instance, every Briton were also entitled to a free, unlimited, lifetime supply of transportation? That is, what if everyone were allowed to go down to the car dealership whenever they wanted and pick out any new model, free of charge, and drive it home?
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Steven D. Levitt |
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63da1a8
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Enviros
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Steven D. Levitt |
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dcff7c3
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Gun murders are down? Well, you figure, that must be from all those tough new gun laws--until you examine the data and find that most people who commit crimes with guns are almost entirely unaffected by current gun laws.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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3e4b663
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One teenage boy, Amcher, had been named for the first thing his parents saw upon reaching the hospital: the sign for Albany Medical Center Hospital Emergency Room.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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e57ccfe
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If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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b39dd81
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And there are few incentives more powerful than the fear of random violence - which, in essence, is why terrorism is so effective.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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aa5623c
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I hope when my kids have kids, there are still books around, and I don't really care if mine are around, but I hope there are books around because I love the idea of that. I love doing this. I love doing a podcast, but to me, a book is a thing that has no equal.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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11c19a3
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An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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6c24400
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Ante cualquier incentivo, cualquier situacion, la gente deshonesta tratara de obtener un beneficio sin importar los medios a emplear.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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a70bc46
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But if you want to think like a Freak, you must learn to be a master of incentives--the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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3101655
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El enfoque economico no pretende describir el mundo como cualquiera de nosotros quisiera que fuera, o teme que sea, o reza por que llegue a ser, sino mas bien explicar lo que hay en la realidad. La mayoria de nosotros querria arreglar o cambiar el mundo de alguna manera. Pero para cambiar el mundo, primero hay que comprenderlo.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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c054637
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Muchos de nuestros descubrimientos pueden no ser de mucha utilidad, incluso puede que no sean concluyentes. Pero eso esta bien. Lo que intentamos es iniciar una conversacion, no tener la ultima palabra. Y eso significa que en las paginas que siguen puede encontrar unas cuantas cosas de las que discrepe. De hecho, nos decepcionaria que no las encontrara.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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0b4a8ad
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Children read books, not reviews," he wrote. "They don't give a hoot about the critics." And: "When a book is boring, they yawn openly, without any shame or fear of authority." Best of all--and to the relief of authors everywhere--children "don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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116d3ad
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Si se suman, por ejemplo, todos los hombres y mujeres del planeta, se comprobara que, por termino medio, el humano adulto medio tiene una mama y un testiculo...
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Steven D. Levitt |
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d8950f1
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No entanto, quando se prende um fornecedor, cria-se uma situacao de escassez que, inevitavelmente, impulsiona os precos para cima, o que atrai ainda mais fornecedores para o mercado. A "guerra contra drogas" movida pelos Estados Unidos tem sido relativamente ineficaz exatamente por concentrar-se nos vendedores, nao nos compradores."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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069841a
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Tras los recientes acontecimientos, uno se pregunta si la macroeconomia es la especialidad de algun economista.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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1ae4405
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The next time you run into a question that you can only pretend to answer, go ahead and say "I don't know"--and then follow up, certainly, with "but maybe I can find out." And work as hard as you can to do that."
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Steven D. Levitt |
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761013e
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Every time we pretend to know something, we are doing the same: protecting our own reputation rather than promoting the collective good.
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Steven D. Levitt |
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fdc6dca
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The absurdly talented George Bernard Shaw--a world-class writer and a founder of the London School of Economics--noted this thought deficit many years ago. "Few people think more than two or three times a year," Shaw reportedly said. "I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week." We too try to think once."
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Steven D. Levitt |