It's been a week since Venkatesh's most recent book, Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets was published, and the critical response is unanimous: OMG! What a total badass! more ›

Freakonomics author and University of Chicago Economics Professor Steven Levitt and sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh presented a draft of their paper, “An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution” last week at an economics conference in New Orleans. The paper examines the business of sex work on the streets of Chicago, a draft of which is available on the Web with the disclaimer “extremely preliminary and incomplete.” more ›

University of Chicago econ professor Roger Myerson won the Nobel Prize in economics today for "[laying] the foundations of mechanism design theory." Myerson is the latest in a long line of U of C laureates. more ›

It’s always hard to come back after a three-day weekend and be hopeful. But here are a few things that let us know the world is going to be okay: more ›

Well, we were all ready to sit down and get started on our new book. We had our pens and paper, character studies, research all done, we even picked out special “book writing music”, and then we thought, eh … no, we might get sued. more ›

Chicago has three new certified geniuses. Field Museum naturalist Steven Goodman, University of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy, and U of C oncologist Funmi Olopade received so-called "genius grants" from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation. Each of them was named a MacArthur Fellow, the coveted prize that nets them $500,000 over the next five years, "no strings attached," to continue their work. No word as to whether the prizes will be awarded by Ed McMahon in the form of giant cardboard checks. more ›