One More Time: Most Notable Quote of 2011
Since my last posting elicited many helpful comments, let me repeat it this week in hope of getting even more input:
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.
Paying People to Quit: What Law Schools Can Learn From Zappos
My favorite incentives book tells the story of how after a week of training, Zappos offers new employees a one-time, one-day offer of a cash bonus if they will quit (As noted in the Freakonomics Radio hour, “The Upside of Quitting”). I describe this as an anti-incentive because even though the Zappos offer on its face gives employees an additional reason to quit, in practice it keeps employees on the job longer.
The vast majority of trainees turn down the offer during training – resisting the temptation to take the money and run. Then almost no one quits in the initial months after training because they’d feel like fools to quit for nothing when they could have quit for money. The cognitive dissonance would be too great. This is the power of resisted temptation.
But in a recent Slate piece, Akhil Amar and I deploy the Zappos idea for a different purpose – to reduce the concern that law schools are admitting students who are unlikely to pass the bar. Read More »
Turkey Sex: The Way It’s Done Now
Our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast, “Unnatural Turkeys,” looks at the origins of all those 40 million turkeys that Americans are going to eat this Thanksgiving. We’ve talked about why this happens; now we bring you the details of how it happens. USDA researcher Julie Long walks us through the process of what a day inseminating turkeys looks like. It’s an act that is almost unchanged since turkey insemination became the industry standard in the 1960s.
When you get down to it, artificially inseminating a turkey is a pretty labor-intensive, hands-on process. First, you have to get the “contribution” (semen) from the male. That means that each breeder male, which will weigh between 50 and 70 pounds, gets picked up and placed on the handler’s lap.Then another person helps get him ready to make his contribution to the artificial insemination process. Read More »
Utility vs. Price: Southern France or Jersey Shore?
I got an invitation to give a keynote address at a conference in southern France next June. A great conference, but I had to decline, since we’ve planned a week with the extended family on the New Jersey Shore (the only week we are all available). The man who invited me said,“… southern France would not have been a bad place to spend this holiday….”
Even though we love the Jersey Shore, he’s right—the relative utility from the French week would be higher; and if the relative price were one, we’d be off to France. However, the prices aren’t equal—it would cost over $1000 extra for each of 12 people to do the French week. Too bad—we’ll stick with the New Jersey week, a sensible and still very enjoyable economic decision in the face of income, price and time-constrained optimization.
(HT to NG)
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 