Freakonomics Radio - 111. Introducing “Freakonomics Experiments”

Episode Date: January 23, 2013

Steve Levitt has a novel idea for helping people make tough decisions

From APM, American Public Media, and WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace. Here's the host of Marketplace, Kai Risdahl. Time now for a little Freakonomics Radio. It's that moment every couple of weeks we talk to the co-authors of the book and the blog of the same name. It is the hidden side of everything, of course. And today it is the brains, if you will, of the operation. Stephen Levitt, professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Good to talk to you again. Thanks, Guy. Great to be here.

So listen, usually when we have you on and Dubner's out doing whatever it is that he does, it's because you have some new research you want to share, some big project you're working on. But yet this time it's different. It is. Now we're trying to get you in on the ground floor. And here's the question we're thinking about. All right. Periodically, everyone faces really difficult, important questions in life. Should you move to a new city or quit smoking or maybe what cause to attend or, I don't know, should I get a tattoo?

And there are pros and cons to any of those. Do you have a tattoo? You don't have a tattoo, do you? I have no tattoos. All right, just checking. Anyway, go ahead. I'm not a big believer in tattoos. Pros and cons. There are pros and cons to any of those choices. And what you know is that your life will be different if you move to a new city, but you don't know if it'll be better or worse. And often people get tied up in knots and essentially become paralyzed. They can't make those big decisions. And our new project tied up in knots and essentially become paralyzed. They can't make those big decisions. And our new project is all about helping people to make those big

decisions. All right. How are you going to do it? Help me out. We have a website, FreakonomicsExperiments.com. All right. And if you are having a tough time with a big decision, we want you to come there and we're going to help you in two ways. First, we're going to give you a questionnaire and hopefully ask you some questions which will help you to think differently about that problem. It might help break that gridlock that you're having and trying to decide. But if all else fails, what we are going to do is provide you an enormous service, which is we are going to flip a coin for you. And if it comes up heads, we're going to tell you to make the change. And if it comes up tails, we're going to say, keep on doing what you're doing.

And that's economics right there. You just flip a coin, and you're all set. It's a new breed of economics. What does this tell us, though? What will be added to the field of economic knowledge of how we make decisions to begin with, right? Because I assume there's some higher purpose here. Well, there certainly is. You know where the Freakonomics does. We're not just trying to help people. We're trying to get something for ourselves as well. We know a lot, the psychologists and the economists, about how people make little decisions and how easily influenced going to learn, does life turn out better for the people who make the change or turn out worse for the people who make the change? And we want to use that information to really help people in the future make wise choices on these many dimensions. All right.

Well, so two things. One is your Nobel Prize is in the mail. But number two is what you're doing here. This is going to cost me my Nobel Prize. Look, if I ever was going to win a Nobel Prize, this is the end of it. So that's how much I care about the answers to these questions. I'm willing to risk my entire academic reputation to find out the answer on this website. But what you're doing here is you're turning people's lives into experiments, right? I mean, you know. I would look at it very differently. I would say people have to make decisions, okay? And they're essentially indifferent from one path to another. They don't know what to do.

Why not make yourself part of the Freakonomics research team? Okay, not only will we help you answer your decision, so we get you out of that jam, but now you actually have an inspiration, right? You have a reason to follow through on the decision because you're part of the team. The team relies on you for science to make this work. So I don't know. I think that once you're at the point where you just don't know what to do and you're essentially tossing a coin anyway, why not actually toss the coin and make the world a better place in the future? Steven Leavitt from the University of Chicago. Freakonomicsexperiments.com is the new website.

See you. Thank you, Kai. It's always a pleasure. Hey, podcast listeners. this is Stephen Dubner. In next week's episode, Levitt and I go much more in-depth about the new Freakonomics experiment project you just heard about. Yeah, I think I'm more excited for this podcast than for any of the 100 plus that we've ever done. Which isn't saying much. You've never been very excited, have you? I know. This time I'm really excited.

That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.