Tim Harford Archives

September 2020 Friday’s e-links: Two Podcasts, a Book, and a Film

Through a CNN RBG documentary, a thought-provoking book, “More or Less,” and a theater’s podcast, September was a strong month for e-links.

e-links

September 2020 Friday’s e-links: A Pandemic Performance, More or Less, and Our Meritocracy

This month, I’ve enjoyed pondering a podcast about a pandemic play, Tim Harford’s More or Less series, and Michael Sandel’s new book.

e-links

September 2020 Friday’s e-links: The More or Less Podcast and a Pandemic Performance

For our first two September e-links, I recommend a podcast about a theater group’s pandemic response and a “More or Less” subscription.

Weekly Economic New Roundup and preventing accidents

Economic Ideas

What Iowa Could Have Learned From La La Land

Seemingly different, for the same reasons, we’ve had partial nuclear plant meltdowns, financial meltdowns, and a meltdown in Iowa during their caucus.

Weekly Economic News Roundup and generational entitlements

Economic Thinkers

Which Generation Should Get More From Everyone Else?

Deciding which groups should give which should receive, government redistribution policies could be based on a generational lens.

weekly roundup and Incentives Wells Fargo stagecoach

Money and Banking

Incentives That Have Unexpected Results

From the Wells Fargo scandal to the British National Health Service and Chilean bus drivers, sometimes incentives can have unintended consequences.

Microeconomics

Misleading Gender Discrimination Statistics

Using statistics to identify gender discrimination accurately, we should look at the components of summary results to avoid Simpson’s paradox.

Business

Great Britain’s Sugary Drink Tax

While the UK’s sugary drink tax targets childhood obesity, it could also be creating a host of demand related incentives with unintended consequences.

Economic Geography British Coastline Mandelbrot

Economic History

One Reason That Geography Matters

Have you ever looked closely at Japan and the United Kingdom? Described by geographer Jared Diamond in a fascinating podcast, they look remarkably similar. Today Japan and the British Isles are modern industrial societies. Both are north/south archipelagos located in…

Economic Ideas

Benford’s Law and Greece

Does it matter that low first digits occur more frequently? First some history. During the 1920s, Frank Benford, a physicist at GE, noticed that “one” appeared more frequently as the first digit of a number. To test his thesis, he…