Freakonomics

142–43 Body-part price list: Drawn from the state of Co

5. WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PARENT?

THE EVER CHANGING WISDOM OF PARENTING EXPERTS: A

A GUN OR A SWIMMING POOL? See Steven Levitt, “Pools More Dangerous than Guns,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 28, 2001.

PETER SANDMAN ON MAD-COW DISEASE AND OTHER RISKS: See Amanda Hesser, “Squeaky Clean? Not Even Close,” New York Times, January 28, 2004; and “The Peter Sandman Risk Communication Web Site” at http:// www.psandman.com/index.htm.

HOW MUCH DO PARENTS REALLY MATTER? See Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (New York: Free Press, 1998); for a Harris profile that also provides an excellent review of the nature-nurture debate, see Malcolm Gladwell, “Do Parents Matter?” The New Yorker, August 17, 1998; and Carol Tavris, “Peer Pressure,” New York Times Book Review, September 13, 1998. / 155 “‘Here we go again’”: See Tavris, New York Times. / 155 Pinker called Harris’s views “mind-boggling”: Steven Pinker, “Sibling Rivalry: Why the Nature/Nurture Debate Won’t Go Away,” Boston Globe, October 13, 2002, adapted from Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2002).

SCHOOL CHOICE IN CHICAGO: This material is drawn from Julie Berry Cullen, Brian Jacob, and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of School Choice on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Chicago Public Schools,” Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming; and Julie Berry Cullen, Brian Jacob, and Steven D. Levitt, “The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2003.

STUDENTS WHO ARRIVE AT HIGH SCHOOL NOT PREPARED TO DO HIGH SCHOOL WORK: See Tamar Lewin, “More Students Passing Regents, but Achievement Gap Persists,” New York Times, March 18, 2004.

THE BLACK-WHITE INCOME GAP TRACED TO EIGHTH-GRADE TEST SCORE GAP: See Derek Neal and William R. Johnson, “The Role of Pre-Market Factors in Black-White Wage Differences,” Journal of Political Economy 104 (1996), pp. 869–95; and June O’Neill, “The Role of Human Capital in Earnings Differences Between Black and White Men,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 4, no. 4 (1990), pp. 25–46. / 160 “Reducing the black-white test score gap”: See Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, “America’s Next Achievement Test: Closing the Black-White Test Score Gap,” American Prospect 40 (September– October 1998), pp. 44–53.

160 “ACTING WHITE”: See David Austen-Smith and Roland G. Fryer Jr., “The Economics of ‘Acting White,’” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2003. / 160 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Peter Knobler, Giant Steps (New York: Bantam, 1983), p. 16.

THE BLACK-WHITE TEST SCORE GAP AND THE ECLS: This material was drawn from Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt, “Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School,” The Review of Economics and Statistics 86, no. 2 (2004), pp. 447–464. While this paper contains little discussion of the correlation between test scores and home-based factors (television viewing, spanking, etc.), a regression of those data is included in the paper’s appendix. Regarding the ECLS study itself: as of this writing, an overview of the study was posted at nces.ed.gov/ecls/.

ADOPTIVE PARENTS WITH HIGHER IQS THAN BIRTH MOTHER: See Bruce Sacerdote, “The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes,” National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2000.

FINNISH LITERACY: See Lizette Alvarez, “Educators Flocking to Finland, Land of Literate Children,” New York Times, April 9, 2004.

A BOOK FOR EVERY TOT: See John Keilman, “Governor Wants Books for Tots; Kids Would Get 60 by Age 5 in Effort to Boost Literacy,” Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2004.

THE INFLUENCE OF ADOPTIVE PARENTS: See Sacerdote, “The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes.”

6. PERFECT PARENTING, PART II; OR: WOULD A ROSHANDA BY ANY OTHER NAME SMELL AS SWEET?

THE STORY OF LOSER LANE: Drawn from author interviews and from Sean Gardiner, “Wi

THE JUDGE AND THE TEMPTRESS: Based on author interviews.

ROLAND G. FRYER AND THE STUDY OF BLACK UNDERACHIEVEMENT: Drawn from author interviews.

THE BLACK-WHITE CIGARETTE GAP: See Lloyd Johnston, Patrick O’Malley, Jerald Bachman, and John Schulenberg, “Cigarette Brand Preferences Among Adolescents,” Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 45, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1999.

BLACK NAMES (AND OTHER BLACK-WHITE CULTURE GAPS): See Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt, “The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 3 (August 2004), pp. 767– 805.

“WHITE” RÈSUMÈS BEATING OUT “BLACK” RÈSUMÈS: The most recent audit study to reach such a conclusion is Maria

YO XING HEYNO AUGUSTUS EISNER ALEXANDER WEISER KNUCKLES JEREMIJENKO-CONLEY: See Tara Bahrampour, “A Boy Named Yo, Etc.: Name Changes, Both Practical and Fanciful, Are on the Rise,” New York Times, September 25, 2003.

MICHAEL GOLDBERG, INDIAN-BORN SIKH: See Robert F. Worth, “Livery Driver Is Wounded in a Shooting,” New York Times, February 9, 2004.

WILLIAM MORRIS, NÈ ZELMAN MOSES: Author interview with Alan Ka

BRAND NAMES AS FIRST NAMES: Drawn from California birth-certificate data and also discussed in Stephanie Kang, “Naming the Baby: Parents Brand Their Tot with What’s Hot,” Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2003.

A GIRL NAMED SHITHEAD: The woman who called the radio show to tell Roland Fryer about her niece Shithead might have been misinformed, of course, or even outright lying. Regardless, she was hardly alone in her feeling that black names sometimes go too far. Bill Cosby, during a speech in May 2004 at the NAACP’s Brown v. Board of Education fiftieth-a