“Football Freakonomics”: Controversy
In this segment of “Football Freakonomics,” Dubner looks at how players perform after returning from controversial suspensions and jail-time. Read More »
The Academic Origins of China’s One Child Policy
In our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast, “Misadventures in Baby-Making,” we describe an academic paper by a Dutch mathematics professor that might have been one of the inspirations of the controversial One Child Policy in China.
Here’s the story: in the early 1970s, Geert Jan Olsder co-authored the paper “Population Planning; a Distributed Time Optimal Control Problem.” He saw population as a mathematical constraint problem, where an optimal birth rate could be found:
“Given a certain initial age profile the population must be “steered” as quickly as possible to another, prescribed, final age profile by means of a suitable chosen birth rate.”
The model considered the natural birth rate and mortality rate, an economic constraint, and time. And like any good empirical scientist, Olsder makes this warning in his paper:
Read More »“This paper is not concerned with the social and political problems involved in establishing the best mechanism for a program of population management….The optimal birth rate may unbalance the age distribution during the time interval concerned, which could give rise to economic and social problems.”
Bleg: Most Notable Quote of 2011
I’m starting to think about my annual list, run by the Associated Press, of the top 10 most notable quotations of the year. By “notable” I mean “important” or “famous” or “particularly revealing of the spirit of our times” rather than necessarily being eloquent or admirable. Last year’s winners were a tie between Tony Hayward‘s “I’d like my life back” and Christine O’Donnell‘s “I’m not a witch.”
I would welcome suggestions of notable quotations from 2011, particularly ones from politics or popular culture or entertainment or sports or business or technology.
If You’re Looking for a Deal on Tuition…
In stark contrast to the rest of its peers, the University of Charleston, a private university in West Virginia, recently announced a 22 percent tuition cut for new students for the fall 2012 semester. From a recent press release:
Read More »The university is guaranteeing that no undergraduate student will pay more than $19,500 for tuition next year. This is a reduction of $5,500 or 22% from 2011-12 tuition of $25,000. Tuition for new freshmen and undergraduate transfer students will be $19,500. Tuition for returning undergraduates next year will be $25,500, with a guarantee of at least $6,000 in university aid, ensuring that no student will pay more than $19,500 in tuition.
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 