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Go Ahead and Get Mad: Why Anger Spurs Creativity (But Not for Long)
(Polka Dot) A series of studies by Dutch researchers examines the effect anger has on people’s problem solving skills, and finds that angry people produce a higher volume of ideas, as well as more...
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Are We Really Losing 1% of GDP Due to Poor Health? Also, a Poll on Polling
(Digital Vision) We’ve been writing a lot about obesity recently. First, it was this study about projected future obesity rates, then we covered Denmark’s saturated fat tax, which Steve Sexton then...
View ArticleAt Least One Labor Measure Was Up During the Recession
Productivity, that is. One factor was the trimming of deadwood; the other seems to be old-fashioned harder work. From a new working paper by Casey Mulligan (emphasis added): During the recession of...
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Pedaling and Charging
People multitask (in economists’ language, “engage in joint production”) in a surprising variety of ways. A neat example appeared in Brussels Airport, with a sign saying “charge your phone and...
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There’s Cake in the Breakroom! A New Marketplace Podcast
If you work in an office, do you ever find yourself thinking that you could get more work done at home? That’s the question we address in our latest podcast, “There’s Cake in the Breakroom!” You can...
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How Much Does a Good Boss Really Matter? A New Marketplace Podcast
(Photo: Ben Dalton, Creative Commons ) Our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast is called “How Much Does a Good Boss Really Matter?” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS...
View ArticleDo Recessions Increase Productivity?
During recent recessions, worker productivity has actually risen — but economists have been unsure if the result is driven by a changing workforce composition (i.e. more productive workers retaining...
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Religion, Labor Supply, and Happiness
(Photo: Guillaume Paumier) SuperFreakonomics looked at research by Douglas Almond and Bhashkar Mazumder on the birth effects of prenatal exposure to Ramadan. A new paper by Filipe Campante and David...
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The Inefficiency of Long Hours
(Photo: Pithawat Vachiramon) Writing for The New Yorker, James Surowiecki explores the downside of working long hours: The perplexing thing about the cult of overwork is that, as we’ve known for a...
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How Does Pollution Affect Productivity?
(Photo: Cristi B) A new NBER working paper (abstract; PDF) by Tom Chang, Joshua Graff Zivin, Tal Gross, and Matthew Neidell looks at how outdoor air pollution affects the productivity of indoor...
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