Hamermesh on The Daily Show: Ugly People
Our friend and contributor Dan Hamermesh was featured on The Daily Show last night, in a piece about ugly people. Hamermesh has done extensive research on the economic disadvantages of being unattractive. His most recent book, Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, shows how all kinds of economic benefits flow toward physical beauty, from higher salaries, to better loan rates, to attractive, educated spouses.
In the bit, Hamermesh and Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones have some fun discussing whether “uglo-Americans” should be given special legal protection. Read More »
Ed Rendell on the Rules of Booing
In our most recent Freakonomics Radio podcast, “Boo…Who?”, we talk to former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell about Philadelphia’s reputation as the city with the meanest sports fans. Philadelphians are passionate, Rendell argues, but they don’t make exceptions for poor performance, not even for Santa Claus.
Still, sometimes things can go too far, which is why Rendell came up with his rules for booing. Sort of an Emily Post handbook for rowdy sports fans. Since Rendell’s rules are aimed mostly at the sports crowd, we decided to expand and ask him a few some non-sports booing questions. He has replied with direct answers. Read More »
Lawn Mowing Economics
As a teen Max had a great business mowing lawns. He used his hand-pushed power mower to build up a large clientele in a radius of his family’s house. When his friend and neighbor Charlie entered the business, ending Max’s local monopoly, Max didn’t have to cut his price—Charlie just expanded the radius of the client area.
Max knew he had problems, however, when he saw Charlie drive out of his garage on a riding mower. Charlie could now do four times as many lawns/day as Max. Max started losing customers when Charlie cut prices, as he could afford to (because his average cost/lawn was lower than Max’s and had a minimum with a higher output.) Not wanting to compete on price, and unable to get his parents to buy a riding mower, Max decided his opportunity cost was above his now lower lawn-mowing wage, and he quit the business to open a lemonade stand. (HT to MF)
Electric Cars Moving in the Wrong Direction?
A small (?) bad-news item about electric cars:
Electric cars face new scrutiny after a fire in a Chevrolet Volt prompted a federal investigation into lithium ion batteries, even after U.S. regulators said their own crash test likely led to the blaze.
And a big bad-news item about electric cars:
Accounting for more than half of the about 216,000 new cars sold sales in Israel by leasing to corporations, rental agencies are balking [at buying electric vehicles] because of uncertainty regarding the cars’ resale value. Mr. Bar said that he fears vehicles with switchable batteries might lose as much as 70% of their original value in four years instead of the typical 40% loss by gasoline-powered vehicles over the same period.
“It’s going to be a nice niche, a gimmick, for people who are environmentalists, and corporations who want to show they are saving the environment, but I don’t see a savings in costs,” Mr. Bar said.
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 