So let me just ask you, do you think that hospitalizations for hyperglycemia go up among children

with diabetes after Halloween?

Yes.

Yes.

No, they don't.

Really?

Because if they did, I wouldn't have been in the paper by the way.

That's me talking to two economists whom I mostly admire.

Steve Levitt, University of Chicago professor and co-author of Freakonomics, and Emily

Oster, Brown University professor and author of parenting books like The Family Firm.

You've probably read or heard about lots of their studies, but I asked them to sit down

with me because I wanted to know about the studies you haven't heard about.

You see, the nature of research is to come up with ideas, to ask questions.

And if you're one of the lucky ones, you get to ask really creative, important questions,

and then design studies to answer them.

But coming up with a good idea, designing a good study and coming up with a good answer

is a lot like playing the lottery.

Sometimes you strike big as Steve and Emily have done a lot of times.

But most of the time you lose, and just like in the lottery, the news doesn't feature

the losers.

In fact, most of our ideas end up in what we call the proverbial file drawer.

That's a term that was coined in the 1970s by the psychologist Robert Rosenthal.

...