What’s the Impact of Viagra’s Patent Extension?
Last summer, a court ruled in favor of Pfizer’s patent on Viagra, extending its monopoly on the product through 2019. Many jokes were made when Viagra was first marketed, with Jay Leno remarking that it would keep comedians in business for years. With the patent extension, the price of Viagra will remain high for another 8 years.
There are many implications of this, but my question is the narrow one: What related markets will be affected by the absence of a generic equivalent of Viagra and the product’s continuing high price, and how?
Introducing “Football Freakonomics” on the NFL Network
As readers of this blog know, I like the NFL quite a bit (although not, for whatever reason, college football). I have written about players from the past like John Unitas and Franco Harris; I also love to follow the modern NFL and all its tricky issues.
So I’m thrilled to be hosting a new segment on the NFL Network called “Football Freakonomics.” We did a short program together for the NFL Draft, called “The Quarterback Quandary,” and now we’re partnering up for an ongoing set of segments. The first Football Freakonomics feature will air this Sunday on the network’s “NFL GameDay Morning.” We’ll explore all kinds of issues — winning/losing, performance, salaries, etc. — and we’ll lean on original research as well as the insights of many brilliant people from sport, academia, and beyond.
The first segment is titled “Is Momentum a Myth?” (If you’ve read the fine book Scorecasting, you may know where we’re headed with this one.) I haven’t seen it yet but all the NFL folks I’ve been working with in production are absolutely top-notch, so I’m sure they’ve come up with something great.
Dogs and Cigars
I’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent researches.
Sarah C. asked:
“When and where did the term ‘doggie bag’ (as in bringing home leftovers from a restaurant) originate?”
It is fascinating that you ask this, since I have long used “doggie bag” as my example of how historical dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary can shed light on the history of things as well as the history of words. The OED cites the following as its first two illustrations of “doggie bag” and related terminology:
“It’s a pleasure to hand this beautiful Doggie Pak to your patrons To Take Home Bones For Their dog… Printed in three colors… It’s class.”
-American Restaurant, Sept. 1952
“More and more restaurant meals are going to the dogs, if stepped-up demand for the ‘Doggy Bag’ is any indication.”
Huronite & Daily Plainsman (Huron, South Dakota), July 7, 1957 Read More »
The Downside of Research: How Small Uncertainties Can Lead to Big Differences
Contrary to popular perception, most research yields very few conclusions with 100 percent certainty. That’s why you’ll often hear economists state their conclusions with “95 percent certainty.” It means they’re pretty sure, but there’s still a small margin for error. The science of climate change is no different, and, according to a Washington Post blog post, scientists are currently struggling with how to explain that uncertainty to the public. “What do you do when there’s a small but real chance that global warming could lead to a catastrophe?” asks Brad Plumer. “How do you talk about that in a way that’s useful to policymakers?” 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 