How Disney Does It
My son visited the Walt Disney World complex in Florida and pointed out the methods used to spread demand temporally. Coupons for 30 percent discounts on restaurant food purchased before noon or between 3PM and 4:30PM are available. Merchandise coupons for 20 percent discounts are given for use between 9AM and noon. Both coupons are offered to shift demand rightward at non-peak times. Read More »
Breeding Killers?
A few days before Christmas, a Houston woman placed her 3-month old girl in a baby swing and momentarily left the room. In her absence, one of the family’s nine dogs – a 150-lb Rottweiler – broke through the back door of the house and attacked the infant. Out of precaution, the mother had barricaded the back door with a “washing machine and slab of marble.” It was of no use. EMS reported that the girl’s chest was covered with deep lacerations. She died an hour later. Read More »
Calling All Economists: What’s Not to Be Missed at the AEA?
I will be attending the Annual Meeting of the American Economics Association in Denver this weekend and, if all goes according to plan, live-blogging it here (as well as fishing for ideas for future writing, radio, etc). Read More »
Game Theory and Child-Rearing
A reader named Clark Case, who lives in Aurora, Ohio, and works as a product manager, writes in with a child-rearing observation. Read More »
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 