Quotes from Steven D. Levitt

Among the best solutions: using disposable blood-pressure cuffs on incoming patients; infusing hospital equipment with silver ion particles to create an antimicrobial shield; and forbidding doctors to wear neckties because, as the U.K. Department of Health has noted, they "are rarely laundered," "perform no beneficial function in patient care," and "have been shown to be colonized by pathogens.

When asked to name the attributes of someone who is particularly bad at predicting, Tetlock needed just one word. "Dogmatism," he says. That is, an unshakable belief they know something to be true even when they don't.

No entanto, quando se prende um fornecedor, cria-se uma situação de escassez que, inevitavelmente, impulsiona os preços 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, não nos compradores.

life, going straight up the middle is the boldest move

The goal of the e-mail is not so much to attract viable users as to repel the non-viable ones, who greatly outnumber them.

los estados con los índices de aborto más altos en la década de los setenta experimentaron los mayores descensos del crimen en los noventa, mientras que los estados con bajos índices de abortos experimentaron descensos más leves.

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.

An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing.

To Chen's surprise, Felix and the others responded rationally. When the price of a given food rose, the monkeys bought less of it, and when the price fell, they bought more. The most basic law of economics—that the demand curve slopes downward—held for monkeys as well as humans.

Desde 1985, los estados con altos índices de aborto han experimentado una caída de aproximadamente el 30% en el crimen respecto a los estados con bajo índice de abortos.

Los sesenta y setenta fueron, en retrospectiva, una época fabulosa para ser delincuente callejero en la mayor parte de las ciudades norteamericanas. Las probabilidades de recibir un castigo eran tan bajas —fue la época de auge de un sistema judicial liberal y el movimiento a favor de los derechos del delincuente— que cometer un delito sencillamente no resultaba difícil.

In a medical study, it turned out that obstetricians in areas with declining birth rates are much more likely to perform cesarean-section deliveries than obstetricians in growing areas—suggesting that, when business is tough, doctors try to ring up more expensive procedures.

There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social, and moral. Very often a single incentive scheme will include all three varieties. Think about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack "sin tax" is a strong economic incentive

Tras los recientes acontecimientos, uno se pregunta si la macroeconomía es la especialidad de algún economista.

For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. Cheating may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less.

Doctor? ¿Es usted alguna clase de científico?". Y el doctor decía: "Señor, soy toda clase de científico". Y yo saltaba: "¡Sí! ¡Sí! ¡Eso es lo que yo quiero ser! ¡Toda clase de científico!».

They may accuse you of consorting with witches or communists or even economists.

Knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, can make a complicated world less so.

Or, as W. C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

So if sumo wrestlers, schoolteachers, and day-care parents all cheat, are we to assume

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.

Los datos no mienten: una prostituta callejera de Chicago tiene más probabilidades de practicar el sexo con un policía que de ser detenida por uno.

The second lesson to be drawn from Kobayashi's success has to do with the limits that we accept, or refuse to.

first is about problem solving generally. Kobayashi redefined the problem he was trying to solve. What question were his competitors asking? It was essentially: How do I eat more hot dogs? Kobayashi asked a different question: How do I make hot dogs easier