Freakonomics Radio

Thu, 5 Dec 2024

John J. Sullivan, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador, says yes: “Our politicia...

Thu, 28 Nov 2024

Macy’s wants to recapture its glorious past. The author of the Wimpy Kid books wants to rebuild hi...

Thu, 21 Nov 2024

The 166-year-old chain, which is fighting extinction, calls the parade its “gift to the nation.”...

Mon, 18 Nov 2024

It’s true that robots (and other smart technologies) will kill many jobs. It may also be true that...

Thu, 14 Nov 2024

After a dramatic election, Donald Trump has returned from exile. We hear what to expect at home and ...

Thu, 7 Nov 2024

Some people want the new cannabis economy to look like the craft-beer movement. Others are hoping to...

Thu, 31 Oct 2024

Chris Weld worked for years in emergency rooms, then ditched that career and bought an old farm in M...

Mon, 28 Oct 2024

With abortion on the Nov. 5 ballot, we look back at Steve Levitt’s controversial research about an...

Thu, 24 Oct 2024

There are a lot of reasons, including heavy regulations, high taxes, and competition from illegal we...

Thu, 17 Oct 2024

We have always been a nation of drinkers — but now there are more daily users of cannabis than al...

Fri, 11 Oct 2024

Are betting markets more accurate than polls? What kind of chaos would a second Trump term bring? An...

Thu, 10 Oct 2024

Sure, we all pay lip service to the Madisonian system of checks and balances. But presidents have be...

Thu, 3 Oct 2024

Sixty percent of the jobs that Americans do today didn’t exist in 1940. What happens as our labor ...

Mon, 30 Sep 2024

His research on police brutality and school incentives won him acclaim, but also enemies. He was sus...

Thu, 26 Sep 2024

What happened when the Rooney Rule made its way from pro football to corporate America? Some progres...

Thu, 19 Sep 2024

The biggest sports league in history had a problem: While most of its players were Black, almost non...

Mon, 16 Sep 2024

We revisit an episode from 2016 that asks: Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to n...

Thu, 12 Sep 2024

Young people have been reporting a sharp rise in anxiety and depression. This maps neatly onto the g...

Thu, 5 Sep 2024

Only a tiny number of “supertaskers” are capable of doing two things at once. The rest of us are...

Thu, 29 Aug 2024

Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially fo...

Mon, 26 Aug 2024

Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of...

Thu, 22 Aug 2024

America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply? (Part 2 of o...

Thu, 15 Aug 2024

We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges a...

Mon, 12 Aug 2024

There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics co...

Thu, 8 Aug 2024

Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and now the president of Fordham University, thinks the mo...

Thu, 1 Aug 2024

It’s not oil or water or plutonium — it’s human hours. We've got an idea for putting them to u...

Mon, 29 Jul 2024

A new proposal from the Biden administration calls for a nationwide cap on rent increases. Economist...

Thu, 25 Jul 2024

That’s the worry. Even the humble eyeglass industry is dominated by a single firm. We look into t...

Thu, 18 Jul 2024

A single company, EssilorLuxottica, owns so much of the eyewear industry that it’s hard to escape ...

Mon, 15 Jul 2024

You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational dec...

Thu, 11 Jul 2024

Daniel Kahneman left his mark on academia (and the real world) in countless ways. A group of his fri...

Thu, 4 Jul 2024

American politics is trapped in a duopoly, with two all-powerful parties colluding to stifle competi...

Thu, 27 Jun 2024

It’s hard to know whether the benefits of hiring a celebrity are worth the risk. We dig into one g...

Thu, 20 Jun 2024

Broadway operates on a winner-take-most business model. A runaway hit like Stereophonic — which ju...

Mon, 17 Jun 2024

The Berlin dance mecca Berghain is known for its eight-hour line and inscrutable door policy. PJ Vog...

Thu, 13 Jun 2024

Hit by Covid, runaway costs, and a zillion streams of competition, serious theater is in serious tro...

Thu, 6 Jun 2024

Every December, a British man named Tom Whitwell publishes a list of 52 things he’s learned that y...

Mon, 3 Jun 2024

An update of our 2020 series, in which we spoke with physicians, researchers, and addicts about the ...

Thu, 30 May 2024

Thanks to legal settlements with drug makers and distributors, states have plenty of money to boost ...

Thu, 23 May 2024

Most epidemics flare up, do their damage, and fade away. This one has been raging for almost 30 year...

Mon, 20 May 2024

Presenting two stories from The Economics of Everyday Things: Why does it seem like every car is bla...

Thu, 16 May 2024

The economist and social critic Glenn Loury has led a remarkably turbulent life, both professionally...

Thu, 9 May 2024

The employee ownership movement is growing, and one of its biggest champions is also a private equit...

Thu, 2 May 2024

From politics and economics to psychology and the arts, many of the modern ideas we take for granted...

Mon, 29 Apr 2024

Five years ago, we published an episode about the boom in home DNA testing kits, focusing on the hig...

Thu, 25 Apr 2024

Justin Trudeau, facing record-low approval numbers, is doubling down on his progressive agenda. But ...

Thu, 18 Apr 2024

So you want to help people? That’s great — but beware the law of unintended consequences. Three ...

Sun, 14 Apr 2024

The psychologist Daniel Kahneman — a Nobel laureate and the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow — ...

Thu, 11 Apr 2024

People who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at. We expla...

Thu, 4 Apr 2024

Fareed Zakaria says yes. But it’s not just political revolution — it’s economic, technological...

Mon, 1 Apr 2024

The political debates over immigration can generate a lot of fuzzy facts. We wanted to test American...

Thu, 28 Mar 2024

As the U.S. tries to fix its messy immigration system, our neighbor to the north is scooping up more...

Thu, 21 Mar 2024

The U.S. immigration system is a massively complicated machine, with a lot of worn-out parts. How to...

Mon, 18 Mar 2024

She arrived in the U.S. as an 11-year-old refugee, then rose to become Secretary of State. Her views...

Thu, 14 Mar 2024

How did a nation of immigrants come to hate immigration? We start at the beginning, sort through the...

Thu, 7 Mar 2024

Economists have discovered an odd phenomenon: many people who use social media (even you, maybe?) wi...

Mon, 4 Mar 2024

In ancient Rome, it was bread and circuses. Today, it’s a World Cup, an Olympics, and a new Saudi-...

Thu, 29 Feb 2024

What surprises lurk in our sewage? How did racist city planners end up saving Black lives? Why does ...

Thu, 22 Feb 2024

It used to feel like magic. Now it can feel like a set of cheap tricks. Is the problem with Google —...

Mon, 19 Feb 2024

A wide-open conversation with three women who guided Richard Feynman through some big adventures at ...

Thu, 15 Feb 2024

In his final years, Richard Feynman's curiosity took him to some surprising places. We hear from his...

Thu, 8 Feb 2024

What happens when an existentially depressed and recently widowed young physicist from Queens gets a...

Mon, 5 Feb 2024

They’re heading to the Super Bowl for the second time in five years. But back in 2018, they were c...

Thu, 1 Feb 2024

From the Manhattan Project to the Challenger investigation, the physicist Richard Feynman loved to s...

Thu, 25 Jan 2024

Michael Roth of Wesleyan University doesn’t hang out with other university presidents. He also thi...

Mon, 22 Jan 2024

We all like to throw around terms that describe human behavior — “bystander apathy” and “ste...

Thu, 18 Jan 2024

Probably not — the incentives are too strong. Scholarly publishing is a $28 billion global industr...

Thu, 11 Jan 2024

Some of the biggest names in behavioral science stand accused of faking their results. Last year, an...

Thu, 4 Jan 2024

In a special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things, host Zachary Crockett explains what millen...

Thu, 28 Dec 2023

In a special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to Cat Bohannon about her new b...

Thu, 21 Dec 2023

In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan talk about unfinished...

Thu, 14 Dec 2023

Lewis got incredible access to Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire behind the spectacular FTX fraud. ...

Thu, 7 Dec 2023

In policing, as in most vocations, the best employees are often promoted into leadership without muc...

Thu, 30 Nov 2023

It boosts economic opportunity and social mobility. It’s good for the environment. So why do we ch...

Thu, 23 Nov 2023

Most industries have become more productive over time. But not construction! We identify the causes ...

Sun, 19 Nov 2023

Pro footballer and star podcaster Jason Kelce is ubiquitous right now (almost as ubiquitous as his b...

Thu, 16 Nov 2023

They say they make companies more efficient through savvy management. Critics say they bend the rule...

Thu, 9 Nov 2023

Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940’s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrim...

Thu, 2 Nov 2023

Everyone makes mistakes. How do you learn from them? Lessons from the classroom, the Air Force, and ...

Thu, 26 Oct 2023

Giving up can be painful. That's why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, le...

Thu, 19 Oct 2023

In medicine, failure can be catastrophic. It can also produce discoveries that save millions of live...

Thu, 12 Oct 2023

We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad de...

Tue, 10 Oct 2023

Claudia Goldin is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. We spoke with her in 2016 about...

Thu, 5 Oct 2023

John Ray is an emergency C.E.O., a bankruptcy expert who takes over companies that have succumbed to...

Thu, 28 Sep 2023

If two parents can run a family, why shouldn’t two executives run a company? We dig into the resea...

Thu, 21 Sep 2023

In her new book The Two-Parent Privilege, the economist Melissa Kearney says it’s time for liberal...

Thu, 14 Sep 2023

The union that represents N.F.L. players conducted their first-ever survey of workplace conditions, ...

Thu, 7 Sep 2023

For all the speculation about the future, A.I. tools can be useful right now. Adam Davidson discover...

Thu, 31 Aug 2023

Guest host Adam Davidson looks at what might happen to your job in a world of human-level artificial...

Thu, 24 Aug 2023

Artificial intelligence, we’ve been told, will destroy humankind. No, wait — it will usher in a ...

Thu, 17 Aug 2023

The famously profane politician and operative is now U.S. ambassador to Japan, where he’s trying t...

Thu, 10 Aug 2023

Americans are so accustomed to the standard intersection that we rarely consider how dangerous it ca...

Sun, 6 Aug 2023

Bjorn Andersen killed 111 minke whales this season. He tells us how he does it, why he does it, and ...

Thu, 3 Aug 2023

In three stories from our newest podcast, host Zachary Crockett digs into sports mascots, cashmere s...

Thu, 27 Jul 2023

In the final episode of our whale series, we learn about fecal plumes, shipping noise, and why "Moby...

Thu, 20 Jul 2023

For years, whale oil was used as lighting fuel, industrial lubricant, and the main ingredient in (yu...

Thu, 13 Jul 2023

Whaling was, in the words of one scholar, “early capitalism unleashed on the high seas.” How did...

Thu, 6 Jul 2023

Actually, the reasons are pretty clear. The harder question is: Will we ever care enough to stop?

Thu, 29 Jun 2023

Sure, you were “in love.” But economists — using evidence from Bridgerton to Tinder — point ...

Thu, 22 Jun 2023

But as C.E.O. of the resurgent Microsoft, he is firmly at the center of the A.I. revolution. We spea...

Thu, 15 Jun 2023

Probably not. The economist Kelly Shue argues that E.S.G. investing just gives more money to firms t...

Thu, 8 Jun 2023

Gun control, abortion rights, drug legalization — it seems like every argument these days claims t...

Thu, 1 Jun 2023

He turned a small Hollywood talent agency into a massive sports-and-entertainment empire. In a freew...

Thu, 25 May 2023

Sure, markets work well in general. But for some transactions — like school admissions and organ t...

Thu, 18 May 2023

Museums are purging their collections of looted treasures. Can they also get something in return? An...

Thu, 11 May 2023

The world’s great museums are full of art and artifacts that were plundered during an era when plu...

Thu, 4 May 2023

How did a freshly looted Egyptian antiquity end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Why did it tak...

Thu, 27 Apr 2023

Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take w...

Thu, 20 Apr 2023

Every language has its taboo words (which many people use all the time). But the list of forbidden w...

Thu, 13 Apr 2023

Delaware is beloved by corporations, bankruptcy lawyers, tax avoiders, and money launderers. Critics...

Thu, 6 Apr 2023

Many companies say they want to create more opportunities for Black Americans. One company is doing ...

Thu, 30 Mar 2023

Every year, Americans short the I.R.S. nearly half a trillion dollars. Most ideas to increase compli...

Thu, 23 Mar 2023

In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the economist Amy Finkelstein explains why ...

Thu, 16 Mar 2023

People who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at. We expla...

Thu, 9 Mar 2023

Most travelers want the cheapest flight they can find. Airlines, meanwhile, need to manage volatile ...

Thu, 2 Mar 2023

Thanks to decades of work by airlines and regulators, plane crashes are nearly a thing of the past. ...

Thu, 23 Feb 2023

It’s an unnatural activity that has become normal. You’re stuck in a metal tube with hundreds of...

Thu, 16 Feb 2023

Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. In the N.F.L., the long sna...

Mon, 13 Feb 2023

Hotel guests adore those cute little soaps, but is it just a one-night stand? In our fourth episode ...

Thu, 9 Feb 2023

For decades, the U.S. let globalization run its course and hoped China would be an ally. Now the Bid...

Mon, 6 Feb 2023

Can a hit single from four decades ago still pay the bills? Zachary Crockett f-f-f-finds out in the ...

Thu, 2 Feb 2023

The economist Kate Raworth says the aggressive pursuit of G.D.P. is trashing the planet and shortcha...

Mon, 30 Jan 2023

How does America's cutest sales force get billions of Thin Mints, Samoas, and Tagalongs into our han...

Thu, 26 Jan 2023

When small businesses get bought by big investors, the name may stay the same — but customers and ...

Mon, 23 Jan 2023

A new podcast hosted by Zachary Crockett. In the first episode: Gas stations. When gas prices skyroc...

Thu, 19 Jan 2023

Big investors are buying up local veterinary practices (and pretty much everything else). What does ...

Mon, 16 Jan 2023

And with her book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat," she succeeded. Now she's not so sure how to feel about al...

Thu, 12 Jan 2023

We tend to look down on artists who can't match their breakthrough success. Should we be celebrating...

Thu, 5 Jan 2023

In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss classroom d...

Thu, 29 Dec 2022

In this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to the best-selling author o...

Thu, 22 Dec 2022

Labor exploitation! Corporate profiteering! Government corruption! The 21st century can look a lot l...

Thu, 15 Dec 2022

Economists and politicians have turned him into a mascot for free-market ideology. Some on the left ...

Mon, 12 Dec 2022

A sneak peek at an upcoming series — and a call for would-be radio reporters.

Thu, 8 Dec 2022

How did an affable 18th-century “moral philosopher” become the patron saint of cutthroat capital...

Thu, 1 Dec 2022

In this special episode of Freakonomics, M.D., host Bapu Jena looks at a clever new study that could...

Thu, 24 Nov 2022

No — but he does have a knack for stumbling into the perfect moment, including the recent FTX deba...

Thu, 17 Nov 2022

It used to feel like magic. Now it can feel like a set of cheap tricks. Is the problem with Google —...

Thu, 10 Nov 2022

The banana, once a luxury good, rose to become America’s favorite fruit. Now a deadly fungus threa...

Thu, 3 Nov 2022

It’s fun to obsess over pop stars and racecar drivers — but is fandom making our politics even m...

Thu, 27 Oct 2022

The last two years have radically changed the way we work — producing winners, losers, and a lot o...

Thu, 20 Oct 2022

It was supposed to boost prosperity and democracy at the same time. What really happened? According ...

Thu, 13 Oct 2022

One Yale economist certainly thinks so. But even if he’s right, are economists any better?

Thu, 6 Oct 2022

New research finds that bosses who went to business school pay their workers less. So what are M.B.A...

Thu, 29 Sep 2022

The pandemic provided city dwellers with a break from the din of the modern world. Now the noise is ...

Thu, 22 Sep 2022

Liberals endorse harm reduction when it comes to the opioid epidemic. Are they ready to take the sam...

Mon, 19 Sep 2022

The documentary filmmaker, known for The Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball, turns his attention to the H...

Thu, 15 Sep 2022

The pandemic moved a lot of religious activity onto the internet. With faith-based apps, Silicon Val...

Thu, 8 Sep 2022

As the Biden administration rushes to address climate change, Stephen Dubner looks at another, hidde...

Thu, 1 Sep 2022

The controversial Harvard economist, recently back from a suspension, “broke a lot of glass early ...

Thu, 25 Aug 2022

It boosts economic opportunity and social mobility. It’s good for the environment. So why do we ch...

Thu, 18 Aug 2022

Breaking news! Sources say American journalism exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits, and...

Thu, 11 Aug 2022

According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country ...

Thu, 4 Aug 2022

We often look to other countries for smart policies on education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. B...

Thu, 28 Jul 2022

It used to be at the center of our conversations about politics and society. Scott Hershovitz (autho...

Thu, 21 Jul 2022

Sure, you were “in love.” But economists — using evidence from Bridgerton to Tinder — point ...

Thu, 14 Jul 2022

In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes, we asked a bunch of economists with young kids h...

Thu, 7 Jul 2022

Boosters say blockchain technology will usher in a brave new era of decentralization. Are they right...

Thu, 30 Jun 2022

Some of them are. With others, it’s more complicated (and more promising). We try to get past the ...

Thu, 23 Jun 2022

No. But now is a good time to sort out the potential from the hype. Whether you’re bullish, bearis...

Thu, 16 Jun 2022

Kevin Kelly calls himself “the most optimistic person in the world.” And he has a lot to say abo...

Thu, 9 Jun 2022

In ancient Rome, it was bread and circuses. Today, it’s a World Cup, an Olympics, and a new Saudi-...

Thu, 2 Jun 2022

When the world went into lockdown, experts predicted a rise in intimate-partner assaults. What actua...

Thu, 26 May 2022

In this new podcast from the Freakonomics Radio Network, dog-cognition expert and bestselling author...

Thu, 19 May 2022

Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially fo...

Thu, 12 May 2022

As the Supreme Court considers overturning Roe v. Wade, we look back at Steve Levitt’s controversi...

Thu, 5 May 2022

Enrollment is down for the first time in memory, and critics complain college is too expensive, too ...

Thu, 28 Apr 2022

America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply? (Part 2 of “...

Thu, 21 Apr 2022

We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges a...

Thu, 14 Apr 2022

The political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang argues that different forms of government create different sty...

Thu, 7 Apr 2022

The British art superstar Flora Yukhnovich, the Freakonomist Steve Levitt, and the upstart American ...

Thu, 31 Mar 2022

After a huge false start, electric cars are finally about to flourish. We speak with a technology hi...

Thu, 24 Mar 2022

Every year, there are more than a million collisions in the U.S. between drivers and deer. The resul...

Thu, 17 Mar 2022

There are a lot of barriers to changing your mind: ego, overconfidence, inertia — and cost. Politi...

Thu, 10 Mar 2022

Organized labor hasn’t had this much public support in 50 years, and yet the percentage of America...

Thu, 3 Mar 2022

People who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at. We expla...

Thu, 24 Feb 2022

In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized ...

Thu, 17 Feb 2022

Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. Until recently, it l...

Thu, 10 Feb 2022

Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. In the N.F.L., the long sna...

Thu, 3 Feb 2022

Behavioral scientists have been exploring if — and when — a psychological reset can lead to last...

Thu, 27 Jan 2022

Frisco used to be just another sleepy bedroom community outside of Dallas. Now it’s got corporate ...

Thu, 20 Jan 2022

When Stephen Dubner learned that Dallas–Fort Worth will soon overtake Chicago as the third-biggest...

Thu, 13 Jan 2022

Curses and other superstitions may have no basis in reality, but that doesn’t stop us from believi...

Thu, 6 Jan 2022

 In this special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss the co...

Thu, 30 Dec 2021

In this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt speaks with the palliative physici...

Thu, 23 Dec 2021

In this special episode of Freakonomics, M.D., host Bapu Jena looks at data from birthday parties, M...

Thu, 16 Dec 2021

Is art really meant to be an “asset class”? Will the digital revolution finally democratize a ma...

Thu, 9 Dec 2021

The more successful an artist is, the more likely their work will later be resold at auction for a h...

Thu, 2 Dec 2021

The art market is so opaque and illiquid that it barely functions like a market at all. A handful of...

Thu, 25 Nov 2021

Patients in the U.S. healthcare system often feel they’re treated with a lack of empathy. Doctors ...

Thu, 18 Nov 2021

You know the saying: “There are no shortcuts in life.” What if that saying is just wrong? In his...

Thu, 11 Nov 2021

The U.S. is home to seven of the world’s 10 biggest companies. How did that happen? The answer may...

Thu, 4 Nov 2021

A new book by an unorthodox political scientist argues that the two rivals have more in common than ...

Thu, 28 Oct 2021

Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940’s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrim...

Thu, 21 Oct 2021

 In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes (No. 39!), we asked a bunch of economists with ...

Thu, 14 Oct 2021

Arthur Brooks is an economist who for 10 years ran the American Enterprise Institute, one of the mos...

Thu, 7 Oct 2021

Breaking news! Sources say American journalism exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits, and...

Thu, 30 Sep 2021

Verbal tic or strategic rejoinder? Whatever the case: it’s rare to come across an interview these ...

Mon, 27 Sep 2021

The N.B.A. superstar Chris Bosh was still competing at the highest level when a blood clot abruptly ...

Thu, 23 Sep 2021

The U.S. is an outlier when it comes to policing, as evidenced by more than 1,000 fatal shootings by...

Thu, 16 Sep 2021

Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. How can that be? To ...

Thu, 9 Sep 2021

When Richard Thaler published Nudge in 2008 (with co-author Cass Sunstein), the world was just start...

Thu, 2 Sep 2021

That’s what some health officials are saying, but the data aren’t so clear. We look into what’...

Thu, 26 Aug 2021

In a conversation fresh from the Freakonomics Radio Network’s podcast laboratory, Michèle Flourno...

Thu, 19 Aug 2021

Humans have a built-in “negativity bias,” which means we give bad news much more power than good...

Thu, 12 Aug 2021

Air pollution is estimated to cause 7 million deaths a year and cost the global economy nearly $3 tr...

Thu, 5 Aug 2021

While other countries seem to build spectacular bridges, dams, and even entire cities with ease, the...

Thu, 29 Jul 2021

The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technolog...

Thu, 22 Jul 2021

According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country ...

Thu, 15 Jul 2021

We often look to other countries for smart policies on education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. B...

Thu, 8 Jul 2021

The benefits of sleep are by now well established, and yet many people don’t get enough. A new stu...

Thu, 1 Jul 2021

Nearly two percent of America is grassy green. Sure, lawns are beautiful and useful and they smell g...

Thu, 24 Jun 2021

Bren Smith, who grew up fishing and fighting, is now part of a movement that seeks to feed the plane...

Thu, 17 Jun 2021

Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, is as cold-blooded as any ...

Thu, 10 Jun 2021

Bapu Jena was already a double threat: a doctor who’s also an economist. Now he’s a podcast host...

Thu, 3 Jun 2021

The pandemic may be winding down, but that doesn’t mean we’ll return to full-time commuting and ...

Thu, 27 May 2021

The social psychologist Robert Cialdini is a pioneer in the science of persuasion. His 1984 book Inf...

Thu, 20 May 2021

The human foot is an evolutionary masterpiece, far more functional than we give it credit for. So wh...

Thu, 13 May 2021

The man who wants America to “think harder” has parlayed his quixotic presidential campaign into...

Thu, 6 May 2021

It’s true that robots (and other smart technologies) will kill many jobs. It may also be true that...

Thu, 29 Apr 2021

Backers of a $15 federal wage say it’s a no-brainer if you want to fight poverty. Critics say it’...

Thu, 22 Apr 2021

The state-by-state rollout of legalized weed has given economists a perfect natural experiment to me...

Thu, 15 Apr 2021

In this special crossover episode, People I (Mostly) Admire host Steve Levitt admits to No Stupid Qu...

Thu, 8 Apr 2021

Kidney failure is such a catastrophic (and expensive) disease that Medicare covers treatment for any...

Thu, 1 Apr 2021

Medicine has evolved from a calling into an industry, adept at dispensing procedures and pills (and ...

Thu, 25 Mar 2021

Why do so many promising solutions — in education, medicine, criminal justice, etc. — fail to sc...

Sun, 21 Mar 2021

In a word: networks. Once it embraced information as its main currency, New York was able to climb o...

Thu, 18 Mar 2021

Behavioral scientists have been exploring if — and when — a psychological reset can lead to last...

Thu, 11 Mar 2021

Americans are so accustomed to the standard intersection that we rarely consider how dangerous it ca...

Thu, 4 Mar 2021

New York Times columnist Charles Blow argues that white supremacy in America will never fully recede...

Thu, 25 Feb 2021

Researchers are trying to figure out who gets bored — and why — and what it means for ourselves ...

Thu, 18 Feb 2021

Not so long ago, G.E. was the most valuable company in the world, a conglomerate that included every...

Thu, 11 Feb 2021

Most of us are are afraid to ask sensitive questions about money, sex, politics, etc. New research s...

Thu, 4 Feb 2021

Caitlin Doughty is a mortician who would like to put herself out of business. Our corporate funeral ...

Thu, 28 Jan 2021

For all the progress made in fighting cancer, it still kills 10 million people a year, and some type...

Thu, 21 Jan 2021

It’s a powerful biological response that has preserved our species for millennia. But now it may b...

Thu, 14 Jan 2021

They can’t vote or hire lobbyists. The policies we create to help them aren’t always so helpful....

Thu, 7 Jan 2021

We’ve collected some of our favorite moments from People I (Mostly) Admire, the latest show from t...

Thu, 31 Dec 2020

Societies where people trust one another are healthier and wealthier. In the U.S. (and the U.K. and ...

Thu, 24 Dec 2020

In this episode of No Stupid Questions — a Freakonomics Radio Network show launched earlier this y...

Thu, 17 Dec 2020

Patients in the U.S. healthcare system often feel they’re treated with a lack of empathy. Doctors ...

Thu, 10 Dec 2020

The incoming president argues that the economy and the environment are deeply connected. This is ref...

Sun, 6 Dec 2020

Tony Hsieh, the longtime C.E.O. of Zappos, was an iconoclast and a dreamer. Five years ago, we sat d...

Thu, 3 Dec 2020

G.M. produces more than 20 times as many cars as Tesla, but Tesla is worth nearly 10 times as much. ...

Thu, 26 Nov 2020

Google and Facebook are worth a combined $2 trillion, with the vast majority of their revenue coming...

Thu, 19 Nov 2020

Companies around the world spend more than half-a-trillion dollars each year on ads. The ad industry...

Thu, 12 Nov 2020

The modern world overwhelms us with sounds we didn’t ask for, like car alarms and cell-phone “ha...

Thu, 5 Nov 2020

John Mackey, the C.E.O. of Whole Foods, has learned the perils of speaking his mind. But he still sa...

Sat, 31 Oct 2020

The sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh spent years studying crack dealers, sex workers, and the offspring ...

Thu, 29 Oct 2020

A fine reading of most policies for “business interruption” reveals that viral outbreaks aren’...

Thu, 22 Oct 2020

As beloved and familiar as they are, we rarely stop to consider life from the dog’s point of view....

Thu, 15 Oct 2020

It isn’t just supply and demand. We look at the complicated history and skewed incentives that ma...

Thu, 8 Oct 2020

The pandemic has hit America's biggest city particularly hard. Amidst a deep fiscal hole, rising hom...

Sat, 3 Oct 2020

It was only in his late twenties that America’s favorite brainiac began to seriously embrace his l...

Thu, 1 Oct 2020

Three leading researchers from the Mount Sinai Health System discuss how ketamine, cannabis, and ecs...

Thu, 24 Sep 2020

The families of U.S. troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan are suing several companies that did r...

Sat, 19 Sep 2020

The dean of Yale’s School of Management grew up in a small village in Guyana. During his unlikely ...

Thu, 17 Sep 2020

Trump says it would destroy us. Biden needs the voters who support it (especially the Bernie voters)...

Sat, 12 Sep 2020

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings came to believe that corporate rules can kill creativity and innova...

Thu, 10 Sep 2020

Thanks to daily Covid testing and regimented protocols, the new football season is underway. Meanwhi...

Sat, 5 Sep 2020

She’s best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, but the awar...

Thu, 3 Sep 2020

We all know our political system is “broken” — but what if that’s not true? Some say the Rep...

Thu, 27 Aug 2020

We explore the science, scalability, and (of course) economics surrounding the global vaccine race. ...

Sat, 22 Aug 2020

A new interview show with host Steve Levitt. Today he speaks with the Harvard psychologist and lingu...

Thu, 20 Aug 2020

What happens when tens of millions of fantasy-sports players are suddenly able to bet real money on ...

Thu, 13 Aug 2020

The endless pursuit of G.D.P., argues the economist Kate Raworth, shortchanges too many people and a...

Thu, 6 Aug 2020

Aisle upon aisle of fresh produce, cheap meat, and sugary cereal — a delicious embodiment of free-...

Thu, 30 Jul 2020

Everyone agrees that massive deforestation is an environmental disaster. But most of the standard so...

Thu, 23 Jul 2020

Most Americans agree that racial discrimination has been, and remains, a big problem. But that is wh...

Thu, 16 Jul 2020

The racial wealth gap in the U.S. is massive. We explore the causes, consequences, and potential sol...

Thu, 9 Jul 2020

Christina Romer was a top White House economist during the Great Recession. As a researcher, she spe...

Thu, 2 Jul 2020

Before she decided to become a poker pro, Maria Konnikova didn’t know how many cards are in a deck...

Thu, 25 Jun 2020

Thanks to the pandemic, the telehealth revolution we’ve been promised for decades has finally arri...

Thu, 18 Jun 2020

In this new addition to the Freakonomics Radio Network, co-hosts Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth...

Thu, 11 Jun 2020

Millions and millions are out of work, with some jobs never coming back. We speak with four economis...

Thu, 4 Jun 2020

Covid-19 is the biggest job killer in a century. As the lockdown eases, what does re-employment look...

Thu, 28 May 2020

In the U.S. alone, we hold 55 million meetings a day. Most of them are woefully unproductive, and ty...

Thu, 21 May 2020

The accidental futurist Kevin Kelly on why enthusiasm beats intelligence, how to really listen, and ...

Thu, 14 May 2020

Three university presidents try to answer our listeners’ questions. The result? Not much pomp and ...

Thu, 7 May 2020

Humans have a built-in “negativity bias,” which means we give bad news much more power than good...

Thu, 30 Apr 2020

We speak with a governor, a former C.D.C. director, a pandemic forecaster, a hard-charging pharmacis...

Mon, 27 Apr 2020

As a former top adviser to presidents Clinton and Obama, he believes in the power of the federal gov...

Thu, 23 Apr 2020

The U.S. spent the past few decades waiting for China to act like the global citizen it said it want...

Thu, 16 Apr 2020

Should a nurse or doctor who gets sick treating Covid-19 patients have priority access to a potentia...

Thu, 9 Apr 2020

Covid-19 has shocked our food-supply system like nothing in modern history. We examine the winners, ...

Thu, 2 Apr 2020

Congress just passed the biggest aid package in modern history. We ask six former White House econom...

Thu, 26 Mar 2020

There are a lot of upsides to urban density — but viral contagion is not one of them. Also: a nati...

Thu, 19 Mar 2020

In just a few weeks, the novel coronavirus has undone a century’s worth of our economic and social...

Thu, 12 Mar 2020

As cities become ever-more expensive, politicians and housing advocates keep calling for rent contro...

Thu, 5 Mar 2020

Trump says it would destroy us. Sanders says it will save us. The majority of millennials would like...

Thu, 27 Feb 2020

That’s what some health officials are saying, but the data aren’t so clear. We look into what’...

Thu, 20 Feb 2020

When he became chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai announced that he was goi...

Thu, 13 Feb 2020

Why do so many promising solutions — in education, medicine, criminal justice, etc. — fail to sc...

Thu, 6 Feb 2020

We asked this same question nearly a decade ago. The answer then: probably not. But a lot has change...

Thu, 30 Jan 2020

One of the most storied (and valuable) sports franchises in the world had fallen far. So they decide...

Thu, 23 Jan 2020

One prescription drug is keeping some addicts from dying. So why isn’t it more widespread? A story...

Thu, 16 Jan 2020

How pharma greed, government subsidies, and a push to make pain the “fifth vital sign” kicked of...

Thu, 9 Jan 2020

We all like to throw around terms that describe human behavior — “bystander apathy” and “ste...

Thu, 2 Jan 2020

There is strong evidence that exercise is wildly beneficial. There is even stronger evidence that mo...

Thu, 26 Dec 2019

In a special holiday episode, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth take turns asking each other quest...

Thu, 19 Dec 2019

A year ago, nobody was taking Andrew Yang very seriously. Now he is America’s favorite entrepre-ne...

Thu, 12 Dec 2019

Every year, Americans short the I.R.S. nearly half a trillion dollars. Most ideas to increase compli...

Thu, 5 Dec 2019

Innovation experts have long overlooked where a lot of innovation actually happens. The personal com...

Thu, 28 Nov 2019

There are a lot of barriers to changing your mind: ego, overconfidence, inertia — and cost. Politi...

Thu, 21 Nov 2019

A recent outbreak of illness and death has gotten everyone’s attention — including late-to-the-g...

Thu, 14 Nov 2019

For nearly a decade, governments have been using behavioral nudges to solve problems — and the str...

Thu, 7 Nov 2019

It’s an acutely haphazard way of paying workers, and yet it keeps expanding. We dig into the data ...

Thu, 31 Oct 2019

Do economic sanctions work? Are big democracies any good at spreading democracy? What is the root ca...

Thu, 24 Oct 2019

For decades, there’s been a huge gender disparity both on-screen and behind the scenes. But it see...

Thu, 17 Oct 2019

It used to be a global capital of innovation, invention, and exploration. Now it’s best known for ...

Thu, 10 Oct 2019

In 2016, David Cameron held a referendum on whether the U.K. should stay in the European Union. A lo...

Thu, 3 Oct 2019

Most high-school math classes are still preparing students for the Sputnik era. Steve Levitt wants t...

Thu, 26 Sep 2019

Mary Daly rose from high-school dropout to president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. S...

Thu, 19 Sep 2019

In the U.S. alone, we hold 55 million meetings a day. Most of them are woefully unproductive, and ty...

Thu, 12 Sep 2019

It began as a post-war dream for a more collaborative and egalitarian workplace. It has evolved into...

Thu, 5 Sep 2019

What happens when tens of millions of fantasy-sports players are suddenly able to bet real money on ...

Thu, 29 Aug 2019

Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and ...

Thu, 22 Aug 2019

The quirky little grocery chain with California roots and German ownership has a lot to teach all of...

Thu, 15 Aug 2019

Research shows that having a distinctively black name doesn’t affect your economic future. But wha...

Thu, 8 Aug 2019

A kid’s name can tell us something about his parents — their race, social standing, even their p...

Thu, 1 Aug 2019

Aisle upon aisle of fresh produce, cheap meat, and sugary cereal — a delicious embodiment of free-...

Thu, 25 Jul 2019

We all know our political system is “broken” — but what if that’s not true? Some say the Rep...

Thu, 18 Jul 2019

They — along with a great many other high-achieving women — were all once Girl Scouts. So was Sy...

Thu, 11 Jul 2019

The controversial theory linking Roe v. Wade to a massive crime drop is back in the spotlight as sev...

Thu, 4 Jul 2019

Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from ...

Thu, 27 Jun 2019

There is strong evidence that exercise is wildly beneficial. There is even stronger evidence that mo...

Thu, 20 Jun 2019

An all-star team of behavioral scientists discovers that humans are stubborn (and lazy, and sometime...

Thu, 13 Jun 2019

Recorded live in San Francisco. Guests include the keeper of a 10,000-year clock, the co-founder of ...

Thu, 6 Jun 2019

Recorded live in Los Angeles. Guests include Mayor Eric Garcetti, the “Earthquake Lady,” the hea...

Thu, 30 May 2019

There are a lot of barriers to changing your mind: ego, overconfidence, inertia — and cost. Politi...

Thu, 23 May 2019

Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take w...

Thu, 16 May 2019

The revolution in home DNA testing is giving consumers important, possibly life-changing information...

Thu, 9 May 2019

As the cost of college skyrocketed, it created a debt burden that’s putting a drag on the economy....

Thu, 2 May 2019

Humans have been having kids forever, so why are modern parents so bewildered? The economist Emily O...

Thu, 25 Apr 2019

Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we...

Thu, 18 Apr 2019

The banana used to be a luxury good. Now it’s the most popular fruit in the U.S. and elsewhere. Bu...

Thu, 11 Apr 2019

Daniel Ek, a 23-year-old Swede who grew up on pirated music, made the record labels an offer they co...

Thu, 4 Apr 2019

As cities become ever-more expensive, politicians and housing advocates keep calling for rent contro...

Thu, 28 Mar 2019

What your disgust level says about your politics, how Napoleon influenced opera, why New York City’...

Thu, 21 Mar 2019

Kenji Lopez-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way t...

Thu, 14 Mar 2019

For years, Gary Cohn thought he’d be the next C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs. Instead, he became the “a...

Thu, 7 Mar 2019

The road to success is paved with failure, so you might as well learn to do it right. (Ep. 5 of the ...

Thu, 28 Feb 2019

Whether you’re building a business or a cathedral, execution is everything. We ask artists, scient...

Thu, 21 Feb 2019

Whether you’re mapping the universe, hosting a late-night talk show, or running a meeting, there a...

Thu, 14 Feb 2019

Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and ...

Thu, 7 Feb 2019

In 2005, Raghuram Rajan said the financial system was at risk “of a catastrophic meltdown.” Afte...

Sat, 2 Feb 2019

Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the former N.F.L. player, union official, and all-around sports...

Thu, 31 Jan 2019

If you think talent and hard work give top athletes all the leverage to succeed, think again. As emp...

Sat, 26 Jan 2019

A conversation with the Shark Tank star, entrepreneur, and Dallas Mavericks owner recorded for the F...

Thu, 24 Jan 2019

For most of us, the athletes are what make sports interesting. But if you own the team or run the le...

Sat, 19 Jan 2019

A conversation with former Major League Baseball player and current ESPN analyst Mark Teixeira, reco...

Thu, 17 Jan 2019

Great athletes aren’t just great at the physical stuff. They’ve also learned how to handle press...

Sat, 12 Jan 2019

Jim Yong Kim has an unorthodox background for a World Bank president — and his reign has been just...

Thu, 10 Jan 2019

In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But for every winner, he cam...

Thu, 3 Jan 2019

The U.N.’s World Happiness Report — created to curtail our unhealthy obsession with G.D.P. — i...

Thu, 27 Dec 2018

Games are as old as civilization itself, and some people think they have huge social value regardles...

Thu, 20 Dec 2018

You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational dec...

Sat, 15 Dec 2018

Our co-host is comedian Christian Finnegan, and we learn: the difference between danger and fear; th...

Thu, 13 Dec 2018

Our co-host is Grit author Angela Duckworth, and we learn fascinating, Freakonomical facts from a pa...

Thu, 6 Dec 2018

In the early 20th century, Max Weber argued that Protestantism created wealth. Finally, there are da...

Thu, 29 Nov 2018

The quirky little grocery chain with California roots and German ownership has a lot to teach all of...

Thu, 22 Nov 2018

Some people argue that sugar should be regulated, like alcohol and tobacco, on the grounds that it’...

Thu, 15 Nov 2018

It began as a post-war dream for a more collaborative and egalitarian workplace. It has evolved into...

Thu, 8 Nov 2018

The Ford Motor Company is ditching its legacy sedans, doubling down on trucks, and trying to steer i...

Thu, 1 Nov 2018

We all know our political system is “broken” — but what if that’s not true? Some say the Rep...

Sat, 27 Oct 2018

A conversation with the iconic singer-songwriter, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “How ...

Thu, 25 Oct 2018

Family environments and “diversifying experiences” (including the early death of a parent); intr...

Sat, 20 Oct 2018

A conversation with veteran NBA point guard Jeremy Lin, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “...

Thu, 18 Oct 2018

There are thousands of books on the subject, but what do we actually know about creativity? In this ...

Thu, 11 Oct 2018

You said, “I’m sorry,” but somehow you haven’t been forgiven. Why? Because you’re doing it...

Thu, 4 Oct 2018

The World Trade Organization is the referee for 164 trading partners, each with their own political ...

Mon, 1 Oct 2018

A conversation with 2008 Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio se...

Thu, 27 Sep 2018

There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. A variety of Olymp...

Sun, 23 Sep 2018

Stephen Dubner’s conversations with members of the San Francisco 49ers offense, recorded for Freak...

Thu, 20 Sep 2018

The San Francisco 49ers, one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, also used to be on...

Thu, 13 Sep 2018

Dollar-wise, the sports industry is surprisingly small, about the same size as the cardboard-box ind...

Thu, 6 Sep 2018

We all know the standard story: our economy would be more dynamic if only the government would get o...

Thu, 30 Aug 2018

Kenji Lopez-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way t...

Thu, 23 Aug 2018

The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technolog...

Thu, 16 Aug 2018

The U.N.’s World Happiness Report — created to curtail our unhealthy obsession with G.D.P. — i...

Thu, 9 Aug 2018

After every mass shooting or terrorist attack, victims and survivors receive a huge outpouring of su...

Tue, 7 Aug 2018

One of the world’s biggest and best-known companies just announced that its C.E.O. would be steppi...

Thu, 2 Aug 2018

In this live episode of “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” we learn why New York has skinny sky...

Thu, 26 Jul 2018

He was once the most lionized athlete on the planet, with seven straight Tour de France wins and a v...

Thu, 19 Jul 2018

It happens to just about everyone, whether you’re going for Olympic gold or giving a wedding toast...

Thu, 12 Jul 2018

You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational dec...

Tue, 3 Jul 2018

After 8 years and more than 300 episodes, it was time to either 1) quit, or 2) make the show bigger ...

Thu, 28 Jun 2018

What do Renaissance painting, civil-rights movements, and Olympic cycling have in common? In each ca...

Thu, 21 Jun 2018

Has our culture's obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be t...

Thu, 14 Jun 2018

For soccer fans, it's easy. For the rest of us? Not so much, especially since the U.S. team didn't q...

Thu, 7 Jun 2018

We are in the midst of a historic (and wholly unpredicted) rise in urbanization. But it's hard to re...

Thu, 31 May 2018

Nearly two percent of America is grassy green. Sure, lawns are beautiful and useful and they smell g...

Thu, 24 May 2018

Pharmaceutical firms donate an enormous amount of their products (and some cash too). But it doesn't...

Thu, 17 May 2018

Corporate Social Responsibility programs can attract better job applicants who'll work for less mone...

Thu, 10 May 2018

We all like to throw around terms that describe human behavior — “bystander apathy” and “ste...

Thu, 3 May 2018

A breakthrough in genetic technology has given humans more power than ever to change nature. It coul...

Thu, 26 Apr 2018

Sure, medical progress has been astounding. But today the U.S. spends more on healthcare than any ot...

Thu, 19 Apr 2018

Three former White House economists weigh in on the new tax bill. A sample: "The overwhelming e...

Thu, 12 Apr 2018

Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains the thinking behind the contro...

Mon, 9 Apr 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the founder and longtime C.E.O. of Bridgewater Associates, record...

Thu, 5 Apr 2018

Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we...

Mon, 2 Apr 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the Facebook founder and C.E.O., recorded for the Freakonomics Ra...

Thu, 29 Mar 2018

The bad news: roughly 70 percent of Americans are financially illiterate. The good news: all the imp...

Mon, 26 Mar 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the former C.E.O. of Yahoo, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio s...

Thu, 22 Mar 2018

It's hard enough to save for a house, tuition, or retirement. So why are we willing to pay big fees ...

Mon, 19 Mar 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the former longtime C.E.O. of General Electric, recorded for the ...

Thu, 15 Mar 2018

Every 12 years, there's a spike in births among certain communities across the globe, including the ...

Mon, 12 Mar 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the C.E.O. of Microsoft, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio seri...

Thu, 8 Mar 2018

Whether it's a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it'll inevitably take way t...

Mon, 5 Mar 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the co-founder and longtime co-C.E.O. of the Carlyle Group, recor...

Thu, 1 Mar 2018

In our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of wh...

Mon, 26 Feb 2018

Stephen Dubner's conversation with the Virgin Group founder, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio ser...

Thu, 22 Feb 2018

If you're a C.E.O., there are a lot of ways to leave your job, from abrupt firing to carefully plann...

Thu, 15 Feb 2018

Only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. Why? Research shows that female executives...

Thu, 8 Feb 2018

No, it's not your fault the economy crashed. Or that consumer preferences changed. Or that new techn...

Tue, 6 Feb 2018

The gig economy offers the ultimate flexibility to set your own hours. That's why economists thought...

Sat, 3 Feb 2018

We assembled a panel of smart dudes -- a two-time Super Bowl champ; a couple of N.F.L. linemen, incl...

Thu, 1 Feb 2018

Indra Nooyi became C.E.O. of PepsiCo just in time for a global financial meltdown. She also had a po...

Thu, 25 Jan 2018

Mark Zuckerberg's dentist dad was an early adopter of digital x-rays. Jack Welch blew the roof off a...

Thu, 18 Jan 2018

They're paid a fortune — but for what, exactly? What makes a good C.E.O. — and how can you even ...

Thu, 11 Jan 2018

Gina Raimondo, the governor of tiny Rhode Island, has taken on unions, boosted big business, and mad...

Thu, 4 Jan 2018

Most of us feel we face more headwinds and obstacles than everyone else — which breeds resentment....

Thu, 28 Dec 2017

Societies where people trust one another are healthier and wealthier. In the U.S. (and the U.K. and ...

Thu, 21 Dec 2017

Sure, markets generally work well. But for some transactions — like school admissions and organ tr...

Thu, 14 Dec 2017

The International Monetary Fund has long been the "lender of last resort" for economies in crisis. C...

Thu, 7 Dec 2017

The public has almost no chance to buy good tickets to the best events. Ticket brokers, meanwhile, m...

Thu, 30 Nov 2017

Economists have a hard time explaining why productivity growth has been shrinking. One theory: true ...

Thu, 23 Nov 2017

Most people don't enjoy the simple, boring act of putting money in a savings account. But we do love...

Thu, 16 Nov 2017

They are the most-trusted profession in America (and with good reason). They are critical to patient...

Thu, 9 Nov 2017

Dubner and his Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt answer your questions about crime, traffic, real-...

Tue, 7 Nov 2017

In this live episode of "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," you'll learn about carcass balan...

Thu, 2 Nov 2017

Corporations and rich people donate billions to their favorite think tanks and foundations. Should w...

Thu, 26 Oct 2017

Academic studies are nice, and so are Nobel Prizes. But to truly prove the value of a new idea, you ...

Thu, 19 Oct 2017

Celiac disease is thought to affect roughly one percent of the population. The good news: it can be ...

Thu, 12 Oct 2017

Smart government policies, good industrial relations, and high-end products have helped German manuf...

Sun, 1 Oct 2017

Stephen J. Dubner hosts an episode full of the world's most renowned behavior change experts, includ...

Thu, 28 Sep 2017

He's been U.S. Treasury Secretary, a chief economist for the Obama White House and the World Bank, a...

Tue, 26 Sep 2017

A language invented in the 19th century, and meant to be universal, it never really caught on. So wh...

Thu, 21 Sep 2017

We explore votes for English, Indonesian, and … Esperanto! The search for a common language goes b...

Thu, 14 Sep 2017

There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day...

Thu, 7 Sep 2017

John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But aft...

Thu, 31 Aug 2017

By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. How can that be? An...

Thu, 24 Aug 2017

How do so many ineffective and even dangerous drugs make it to market? One reason is that clinical t...

Thu, 17 Aug 2017

We tend to think of medicine as a science, but for most of human history it has been scientific-ish ...

Thu, 10 Aug 2017

Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy — and frustrating — way for supply and demand ...

Thu, 3 Aug 2017

The bad news: roughly 70 percent of Americans are financially illiterate. The good news: all the imp...

Thu, 27 Jul 2017

It's hard enough to save for a house, tuition, or retirement. So why are we willing to pay big fees ...

Thu, 20 Jul 2017

The human foot is an evolutionary masterpiece, far more functional than we give it credit for. So wh...

Thu, 13 Jul 2017

Good intentions are nice, but with so many resources poured into social programs, wouldn't it be eve...

Thu, 6 Jul 2017

Over 40 percent of U.S. births are to unmarried mothers, and the numbers are especially high among t...

Thu, 29 Jun 2017

How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the worl...

Fri, 23 Jun 2017

Charles Koch, the mega-billionaire CEO of Koch Industries and half of the infamous political machine...

Thu, 22 Jun 2017

Charles Koch, the mega-billionaire CEO of Koch Industries and half of the infamous political machine...

Tue, 20 Jun 2017

Steve Levitt, Scott Turow and Bridget Gainer are panelists. For the "Freakonomics" co-auth...

Thu, 15 Jun 2017

A breakthrough in genetic technology has given humans more power than ever to change nature. It coul...

Thu, 8 Jun 2017

Steve Hilton was the man behind David Cameron's push to remake British politics. Things didn't work ...

Thu, 1 Jun 2017

Nearly two percent of America is grassy green. Sure, lawns are beautiful and useful and they smell g...

Thu, 25 May 2017

A series of academic studies suggest that the wealthy are, to put it bluntly, selfish jerks. It's an...

Thu, 18 May 2017

As CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer was famous for over-the-top enthusiasm. Now he's brought that sam...

Thu, 11 May 2017

On the Internet, people say all kinds of things they'd never say aloud -- about sex and race, about ...

Thu, 4 May 2017

A kitchen wizard and a nutrition detective talk about the perfect hamburger, getting the most out of...

Thu, 27 Apr 2017

Some people argue that sugar should be regulated, like alcohol and tobacco, on the grounds that it's...

Thu, 20 Apr 2017

In pursuit of a more perfect economy, we discuss the future of work; the toxic remnants of colonizat...

Thu, 13 Apr 2017

If we could reboot the planet and create new systems and institutions from scratch, would they be an...

Thu, 6 Apr 2017

The biggest problem with humanity is humans themselves. Too often, we make choices — what we eat, ...

Thu, 30 Mar 2017

By day, two leaders of Britain's famous Nudge Unit use behavioral tricks to make better government p...

Tue, 28 Mar 2017

Hear live journalism wrapped in a game show package and hosted by Stephen J. Dubner. In this episode...

Thu, 23 Mar 2017

Economists preach the gospel of "creative destruction," whereby new industries -- and jobs...

Thu, 16 Mar 2017

Most of us feel we face more headwinds and obstacles than everyone else — which breeds resentment....

Thu, 9 Mar 2017

The pizza-and-gaming emporium prides itself on affordability, which means its arcade games are reall...

Thu, 2 Mar 2017

The serial entrepreneur Miki Agrawal loves to talk about the bodily functions that make most people ...

Thu, 23 Feb 2017

In their chase for a global audience, American movie studios spend billions to make their films look...

Thu, 16 Feb 2017

What happens when a public-health researcher deep in coal country argues that mountaintop mining end...

Thu, 9 Feb 2017

The psychologist Angela Duckworth argues that a person's level of stick-to-itiveness is directly rel...

Thu, 2 Feb 2017

We assembled a panel of smart dudes -- a two-time Super Bowl champ; a couple of NFL linemen, includi...

Thu, 26 Jan 2017

For years, economists promised that global free trade would be mostly win-win. Now they admit the pa...

Thu, 19 Jan 2017

Just a few decades ago, more than 90 percent of 30-year-olds earned more than their parents had earn...

Thu, 12 Jan 2017

The Daily Show host grew up as a poor, mixed-race South African kid going to three churches every Su...

Thu, 5 Jan 2017

Starting in the late 1960s, the Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Danny Kahneman began to redef...

Thu, 29 Dec 2016

What if the thing we call "talent" is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practi...

Thu, 22 Dec 2016

In this busy time of year, we could all use some tips on how to get more done in less time. First, h...

Thu, 15 Dec 2016

By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. How can that be? An...

Thu, 8 Dec 2016

How do so many ineffective and even dangerous drugs make it to market? One reason is that clinical t...

Thu, 1 Dec 2016

We tend to think of medicine as a science, but for most of human history it has been scientific-ish ...

Thu, 24 Nov 2016

The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are p...

Thu, 17 Nov 2016

Some of our most important decisions are shaped by something as random as the order in which we make...

Tue, 15 Nov 2016

"Tell Me Something I Don't Know" is a live game show hosted by Stephen J. Dubner of "...

Thu, 10 Nov 2016

Societies where people trust one another are healthier and wealthier. In the U.S. (and the U.K. and ...

Wed, 9 Nov 2016

The U.S. president is often called the "leader of free world." But if you ask an economist...

Thu, 3 Nov 2016

A tiny behavioral-sciences startup is trying to improve the way federal agencies do their work. Cons...

Thu, 27 Oct 2016

What do Renaissance painting, civil-rights movements, and Olympic cycling have in common? In each ca...

Thu, 20 Oct 2016

Has our culture's obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be t...

Thu, 13 Oct 2016

Neuroscientists still have a great deal to learn about the human brain. One recent MRI study sheds s...

Thu, 6 Oct 2016

The process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off at least a litt...

Thu, 29 Sep 2016

It facilitates crime, bribery, and tax evasion -- and yet some governments (including ours) are prin...

Thu, 22 Sep 2016

Sure, we all pay lip service to the Madisonian system of checks and balances. But as one legal schol...

Thu, 15 Sep 2016

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, likes to say that most Americans are l...

Thu, 8 Sep 2016

To you, it's just a ride-sharing app that gets you where you're going. But to an economist, Uber is ...

Thu, 1 Sep 2016

Internet pioneer Kevin Kelly tries to predict the future by identifying what's truly inevitable. How...

Thu, 25 Aug 2016

The gist: we spend billions on end-of-life healthcare that doesn’t do much good. So what if a pati...

Thu, 18 Aug 2016

The comedian, actor -- and now, author -- answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.

Thu, 11 Aug 2016

Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy - and frustrating - way for supply and demand to m...

Thu, 4 Aug 2016

We seem to have decided that ethnic food tastes better when it's served by people of that ethnicity ...

Thu, 28 Jul 2016

We Americans may love our democracy -- at least in theory -- but at the moment our feelings toward t...

Thu, 21 Jul 2016

Overt discrimination in the labor markets may be on the wane, but women are still subtly penalized b...

Thu, 14 Jul 2016

It's a remarkable ecosystem that allows each of us to exercise control over our lives. But how much ...

Thu, 7 Jul 2016

Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, has big ambitions but knows he must first master the small ...

Thu, 30 Jun 2016

There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scr...

Thu, 23 Jun 2016

The U.S. president is often called the "leader of free world." But if you ask an economist...

Thu, 16 Jun 2016

There are all kinds of civics-class answers to that question. But how true are they? Could it be tha...

Thu, 9 Jun 2016

Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?

Thu, 2 Jun 2016

Patrick Smith, the author of Cockpit Confidential, answers every question we can throw at him about ...

Thu, 26 May 2016

When the uncelebrated Leicester City Football Club won the English Premier League, it wasn't just th...

Thu, 19 May 2016

Our Self-Improvement Month concludes with a man whose entire life and career are one big pile of sel...

Thu, 12 May 2016

Games are as old as civilization itself, and some people think they have huge social value regardles...

Thu, 5 May 2016

The psychologist Angela Duckworth argues that a person's level of stick-to-itiveness is directly rel...

Mon, 2 May 2016

"Books are a pain in the ass," says Gladwell, who has written some of the most popular, in...

Thu, 28 Apr 2016

What if the thing we call "talent" is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the ...

Thu, 21 Apr 2016

It's Self-Improvement Month at Freakonomics Radio. We begin with a topic that seems to be on everyon...

Thu, 14 Apr 2016

A lot of full-time jobs in the modern economy simply don't pay a living wage. And even those jobs ma...

Thu, 7 Apr 2016

Critics -- including President Obama -- say short-term, high-interest loans are predatory, trapping ...

Thu, 31 Mar 2016

People who sleep better earn more money. Now all we have to do is teach everyone to sleep better.

Thu, 24 Mar 2016

Could a lack of sleep help explain why some people get much sicker than others?

Thu, 17 Mar 2016

As sexy as the digital revolution may be, it can't compare to the Second Industrial Revolution (elec...

Fri, 11 Mar 2016

The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are p...

Thu, 3 Mar 2016

The junior U.S. Senator from New Jersey thinks bipartisanship is right around the corner. Is he just...

Thu, 25 Feb 2016

Now and again, Freakonomics Radio puts hat in hand and asks listeners to donate to the public-radio ...

Thu, 18 Feb 2016

A famous economics essay features a pencil (yes, a pencil) arguing that “not a single person on th...

Thu, 11 Feb 2016

The digital age is making pen and paper seem obsolete. But what are we giving up if we give up on ha...

Thu, 4 Feb 2016

Okay, maybe the steps aren't so easy. But a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had gre...

Thu, 28 Jan 2016

If U.S. schoolteachers are indeed "just a little bit below average," it's not really their...

Thu, 21 Jan 2016

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the South African divestment campaign, Chick-fil-A! Almost anyone can la...

Thu, 14 Jan 2016

Experts and pundits are notoriously bad at forecasting, in part because they aren't punished for bad...

Thu, 7 Jan 2016

Discrimination can't explain why women earn so much less than men. If only it were that easy.

Thu, 31 Dec 2015

Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn't always work out. That's where &quo...

Thu, 24 Dec 2015

A team of economists has been running the numbers on the U.N.'s development goals. They have a diffe...

Thu, 17 Dec 2015

The argument for open borders is compelling -- and deeply problematic.

Thu, 10 Dec 2015

One woman's quest to find the best burger in town can teach all of us to eat smarter.

Thu, 3 Dec 2015

He was handed the keys to the global economy just as it started heading off a cliff. Fortunately, he...

Thu, 26 Nov 2015

Even a brutal natural disaster doesn't diminish our appetite for procreating. This surely means we'r...

Thu, 19 Nov 2015

In our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of wh...

Thu, 12 Nov 2015

Lessons from Tom Petty's rise and another rocker's fall.

Thu, 5 Nov 2015

A kitchen wizard and a nutrition detective talk about the perfect hamburger, getting the most out of...

Thu, 29 Oct 2015

Researchers are trying to figure out who gets bored - and why - and what it means for ourselves and ...

Thu, 22 Oct 2015

Doctors, chefs, and other experts are much more likely than the rest of us to buy store-brand produc...

Thu, 15 Oct 2015

The process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off at least a litt...

Thu, 8 Oct 2015

When one athlete turned pro, his mom asked him for $1 million. Our modern sensibilities tell us she ...

Thu, 1 Oct 2015

Anne-Marie Slaughter was best known for her adamant views on Syria when she accidentally became a po...

Thu, 24 Sep 2015

Suspenders may work better, but the dork factor is too high. How did an organ-squeezing belly tourni...

Thu, 17 Sep 2015

From domestic abusers to former child soldiers, there is increasing evidence that behavioral therapy...

Thu, 10 Sep 2015

Conventional programs tend to be expensive, onerous, and ineffective. Could something as simple (and...

Thu, 3 Sep 2015

How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the worl...

Thu, 27 Aug 2015

We spend billions on end-of-life healthcare that doesn't do much good. So what if a patient could fo...

Thu, 20 Aug 2015

Step 1: Hire a Harvard psych professor as the pitchman. Step 2: Have him help write the script ...

Thu, 13 Aug 2015

What do NASCAR drivers, Glenn Beck and the hit men of the NFL have in common?

Thu, 6 Aug 2015

There are all kinds of civics-class answers to that question. But how true are they? Could it be tha...

Thu, 30 Jul 2015

Why is soccer the best sport? How has Harlan Coben sold 70 million books? And why does "Apollo ...

Thu, 23 Jul 2015

The comedian, actor -- and now, author -- answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions

Thu, 16 Jul 2015

People who sleep better earn more money. Now all we have to do is teach everyone to sleep better.

Thu, 9 Jul 2015

Could a lack of sleep help explain why some people get much sicker than others?

Thu, 2 Jul 2015

Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from ...

Thu, 25 Jun 2015

We seem to have decided that ethnic food tastes better when it's served by people of that ethnicity ...

Thu, 18 Jun 2015

Sure, markets generally work well. But for some transactions -- like school admissions and organ tra...

Thu, 11 Jun 2015

Sure, sex crimes are horrific, and the perpetrators deserve to be punished harshly. But society keep...

Thu, 4 Jun 2015

One man's attempt to remake his life in the mold of homo economicus.

Thu, 28 May 2015

The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, a...

Thu, 21 May 2015

In which we argue that failure should not only be tolerated but celebrated.

Thu, 14 May 2015

Dubner and Levitt are live onstage at the 92nd Street Y in New York to celebrate their new book &quo...

Thu, 7 May 2015

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has a wild vision and the dollars to try to make it real. But it still might b...

Thu, 30 Apr 2015

When it comes to generating ideas and asking questions it can be really fruitful to have the mentali...

Thu, 23 Apr 2015

America's favorite statistical guru answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions, and more.

Thu, 16 Apr 2015

It may seem like winning a valuable diamond is an unalloyed victory. It's not. It's not even clear t...

Thu, 9 Apr 2015

The practice of medicine has been subsumed by the business of medicine. This is great news for healt...

Thu, 2 Apr 2015

A lot of the conventional wisdom in medicine is nothing more than hunch or wishful thinking. A new b...

Thu, 26 Mar 2015

If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there's a good chance you'll barely be punished. Why?

Thu, 19 Mar 2015

Thick markets, thin markets, and the triumph of attributes over compatibility.

Thu, 12 Mar 2015

Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn't always work out. That's where &quo...

Thu, 5 Mar 2015

Every year, Edge.org asks its salon of big thinkers to answer one big question. This year's question...

Thu, 26 Feb 2015

Advertisers have always been adept at manipulating our emotions. Now they're using behavioral econom...

Thu, 19 Feb 2015

Jim Yong Kim has an unorthodox background for a World Bank president — and his reign thus far is j...

Thu, 12 Feb 2015

The White House is hosting an anti-terror summit next week. Summits being what they are, we try to o...

Thu, 5 Feb 2015

It's a centerpiece of U.S. climate policy and a sacred cow among environmentalists. Does it work?

Thu, 29 Jan 2015

Economists preach the gospel of "creative destruction," whereby new industries -- and jobs...

Thu, 22 Jan 2015

As Kevin Kelly tells it, the hippie revolution and the computer revolution are nearly one and the sa...

Thu, 15 Jan 2015

Verbal tic or strategic rejoinder? Whatever the case: it’s rare to come across an interview these ...

Thu, 8 Jan 2015

Influenza kills, but you’d never know it by how few of us get the vaccine.

Thu, 1 Jan 2015

Most people blame lack of time for being out of shape. So maybe the solution is to exercise more eff...

Thu, 25 Dec 2014

Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative ...

Thu, 18 Dec 2014

Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?

Thu, 11 Dec 2014

We spend billions on our pets, and one of the fastest-growing costs is pet "aftercare." Bu...

Thu, 4 Dec 2014

Okay, maybe the steps aren’t so easy. But a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had g...

Thu, 27 Nov 2014

If U.S. schoolteachers are indeed “just a little bit below average,” it’s not really their fau...

Thu, 20 Nov 2014

Boris Johnson -- mayor of London, biographer of Churchill, cheese-box painter and tennis-racket coll...

Thu, 13 Nov 2014

Even a brutal natural disaster doesn’t diminish our appetite for procreating. This surely means we...

Thu, 6 Nov 2014

Corporations around the world are consolidating like never before. If it’s good enough for compani...

Thu, 30 Oct 2014

A lot! “The Economics of the Undead” is a book about dating strategy, job creation, and whether ...

Thu, 23 Oct 2014

The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, a...

Thu, 16 Oct 2014

The Norwegian government parleys massive oil wealth into huge subsidies for electric cars. Is that c...

Thu, 9 Oct 2014

The science of what works -- and doesn't work -- in fund-raising

Thu, 2 Oct 2014

A team of economists has been running the numbers on the U.N.'s development goals. They have a diffe...

Thu, 25 Sep 2014

Markets are hardly perfect, but the results can be ugly when you try to subvert them.

Thu, 18 Sep 2014

What does it mean to pursue something that everyone else thinks is nuts? And what does it take to su...

Thu, 11 Sep 2014

Doctors, chefs, and other experts are much more likely than the rest of us to buy store-brand produc...

Thu, 4 Sep 2014

Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, EatWith, and other companies in the “sharing economy” are practically daring...

Thu, 28 Aug 2014

The online universe doesn't have nearly as many rules, or rulemakers, as the real world. Discuss.

Thu, 21 Aug 2014

There ain't no such thing as a free parking spot. Somebody has to pay for it -- and that somebody is...

Thu, 14 Aug 2014

A look at whether spite pays -- and if it even exists.

Thu, 7 Aug 2014

It's awkward, random, confusing -- and probably discriminatory too.

Thu, 31 Jul 2014

A kid's name can tell us something about his parents -- their race, social standing, even their poli...

Thu, 24 Jul 2014

It’s a hard question to answer, but we do our best.

Thu, 17 Jul 2014

Educational messaging looks good on paper but kids don’t respond to it -- and adults aren’t much...

Thu, 10 Jul 2014

It isn’t easy to separate the guilty from the innocent, but a clever bit of game theory can help.

Thu, 3 Jul 2014

Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from ...

Thu, 26 Jun 2014

Dubner and Levitt answer reader questions in this first installment of the “Think Like a Freak” ...

Thu, 19 Jun 2014

Is it really in a restaurant’s best interest to give customers free bread or chips before they eve...

Thu, 12 Jun 2014

Every four years, the U.S. takes a look at the World Cup and develops a slight crush. What would it ...

Thu, 5 Jun 2014

In which we argue that failure should not only be tolerated but celebrated.

Thu, 29 May 2014

You know the saying: a winner never quits and a quitter never wins. To which Freakonomics Radio says...

Thu, 22 May 2014

When it comes to generating ideas and asking questions it can be really fruitful to have the mentali...

Thu, 15 May 2014

Why learning to say “I don’t know” is one of the best things you can do.

Thu, 8 May 2014

Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt talk about their new book and field questions about prestige, univer...

Thu, 1 May 2014

If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there's a good chance you'll barely be punished. Why?

Thu, 24 Apr 2014

When it comes to exercising outrage, people tend to be very selective. Could it be that humans are o...

Thu, 17 Apr 2014

Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative ...

Thu, 10 Apr 2014

Unlike certain elected officials in Washington, mayors all over the country actually get stuff done....

Thu, 3 Apr 2014

The war on cigarettes has been fairly successful in some places. But 1 billion humans still smoke --...

Thu, 27 Mar 2014

Thinking of Bitcoin as just a digital currency is like thinking about the Internet as just e-mail. I...

Thu, 20 Mar 2014

In many ways, the gender gap is closing. In others, not so much. And that's not always a bad thing.

Thu, 13 Mar 2014

A psychology professor argues that the brain's greatest attribute is knowing what other people are t...

Thu, 6 Mar 2014

Yes, it expands the mind but we usually don't retain much -- and then there's the opportunity cost.

Thu, 27 Feb 2014

In most countries, houses get more valuable over time. In Japan, a new buyer will often bulldoze the...

Thu, 20 Feb 2014

The consequences of our low marriage rate -- and if the old model is less attractive, how about a ne...

Thu, 13 Feb 2014

The myths of modern marriage.

Thu, 6 Feb 2014

Thick markets, thin markets, and the triumph of attributes over compatibility.This episode is includ...

Thu, 30 Jan 2014

The "beauty premium" is real, for everyone from babies to NFL quarterbacks.

Thu, 23 Jan 2014

The benefits of rumor-mongering

Thu, 16 Jan 2014

What "Sleep No More" and the Stanford Prison Experiment tell us about who we really are.

Thu, 9 Jan 2014

Dubner and Levitt talk about fixing the post office, putting cameras in the classroom, and wearing h...

Thu, 2 Jan 2014

Most people blame lack of time for being out of shape. So maybe the solution is to exercise more eff...

Thu, 26 Dec 2013

A commitment device forces you to be the person you really want to be. What could possibly go wrong?...

Thu, 19 Dec 2013

The Pope just gave it to the global economy with both barrels. Was he right to do so?

Thu, 12 Dec 2013

It’s easy to get that idea. But is the stereotype true?

Thu, 5 Dec 2013

More than 1 million people die worldwide each year from traffic accidents. But there's never been a ...

Wed, 27 Nov 2013

It's time to do away with feel-good stories, gut hunches, and magical thinking.

Thu, 21 Nov 2013

Spontaneous order is everywhere if you know where to look for it.

Thu, 14 Nov 2013

The online universe doesn't have nearly as many rules, or rulemakers, as the real world. Discuss.

Thu, 7 Nov 2013

College tends to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier. But how?

Thu, 31 Oct 2013

What's a college degree really worth these days?

Thu, 24 Oct 2013

Being green is rarely a black-and-white issue -- but that doesn't stop marketers and politicians fro...

Mon, 14 Oct 2013

We spend billions on our pets, and one of the fastest-growing costs is pet "aftercare." Bu...

Thu, 10 Oct 2013

The science of what works -- and doesn't work -- in fund-raising

Thu, 3 Oct 2013

Dubner and Levitt field your queries in this latest installment of our FREAK-quently Asked Questions...

Thu, 26 Sep 2013

A 19th-century Georgia land lottery may have something to teach us about today's income inequality.

Thu, 19 Sep 2013

Think you know how much parents matter? Think again. Economists crunch the numbers to learn the ROI ...

Thu, 12 Sep 2013

Once upon a time, office workers across America lived in fear of a dreaded infirmity. Was the comput...

Thu, 5 Sep 2013

There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scr...

Thu, 29 Aug 2013

It's impossible to say for sure, but the Lebanese do remarkably well. Why?

Thu, 22 Aug 2013

Human beings love to predict the future, but we're quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all ...

Thu, 15 Aug 2013

Chicago has given the world more than sausage, crooked politics, and Da Bears.

Thu, 8 Aug 2013

We worship the tradition of handing off a family business to the next generation. But is that really...

Thu, 1 Aug 2013

Even American parents have a strong "son preference" -- which means that a newborn daughte...

Mon, 22 Jul 2013

You know the saying: a winner never quits and a quitter never wins. To which Freakonomics Radio says...

Thu, 18 Jul 2013

The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failures catalogs the fiscal, sexual, and mental lapses of federal worke...

Thu, 11 Jul 2013

Is junk food an abomination or a modern miracle?

Wed, 3 Jul 2013

What does "Pride and Prejudice" have to do with nuclear deterrence?

Thu, 27 Jun 2013

What happens to your reputation when you're no longer around to defend it?

Thu, 20 Jun 2013

You might think that someone with a 50-50 chance of getting a fatal disease would want to know for s...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013

Yet another reason to blame your parents for pretty much everything.

Mon, 3 Jun 2013

It's awkward, random, confusing -- and probably discriminatory too.

Wed, 29 May 2013

A glimpse into our driverless future.

Thu, 23 May 2013

Dubner and Levitt talk about circadian rhythms, gay marriage, autism, and whether "pay what you...

Wed, 15 May 2013

If any other product failed 94 percent of the time, you'd probably stop using it. So why do we put u...

Thu, 9 May 2013

A look at whether spite pays — and if it even exists.

Wed, 1 May 2013

Why is unemployment still so high? It may be because of something that happened well before the Grea...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013

An interview with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, whose younger brother turned him in -- and what it says a...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013

In many states, it is perfectly legal to not hire someone who smokes. Should employers also be able ...

Mon, 8 Apr 2013

A kid's name can tell us something about his parents -- their race, social standing, even their poli...

Wed, 3 Apr 2013

Real tax reform may or may not ever happen. In the meantime, how about making the current system wor...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013

Freakonomics asks a dozen smart people for their best ideas. Get ready for a fat tax, a sugar ban, a...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013

The NCAA basketball tournament grabs a lot of eyeballs, but turning them into dollars hasn't always ...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013

There ain't no such thing as a free parking spot. Somebody has to pay for it -- and that somebody is...

Wed, 6 Mar 2013

Sure, we all like to hear compliments. But if you're truly looking to get better at something, it's ...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013

In many ways, the gender gap is closing. In others, not so much. And that's not always a bad thing.

Wed, 20 Feb 2013

The gas tax doesn't work well, and it's only going to get worse. What's next?

Wed, 13 Feb 2013

No one wants mass shootings. Unfortunately, no one has a workable plan to stop them either.

Wed, 6 Feb 2013

It is startlingly easy to create false memories, especially in politics.

Wed, 30 Jan 2013

Levitt and Dubner go deep on "Freakonomics Experiments," a new research project that lets ...

Wed, 23 Jan 2013

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

Wed, 16 Jan 2013

The very long reach of Winston Churchill -- and how the British government is remaking copyright law...

Wed, 9 Jan 2013

Why do Hall of Fame inductees, Oscar winners, and Nobel laureates outlive their peers?

Wed, 2 Jan 2013

Levitt and Dubner answer your questions about driving, sneezing, and ladies’ nights. Plus a rememb...

Wed, 26 Dec 2012

It's harder than you'd think to measure the value of a boss. But some enterprising economists have d...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012

Dubner's childhood home goes from sacred to profane -- and then back again.

Wed, 12 Dec 2012

Who better than an economist to help with your shopping list?

Wed, 5 Dec 2012

College, at its best, is about learning to think. Stephen Dubner chats up three of his former profes...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012

Economists are a notoriously self-interested bunch. But a British outfit called Pro Bono Economics i...

Wed, 21 Nov 2012

There are enough management consultants these days to form a small nation. But what do they actually...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012

Adding more train and bus lines looks like an environmental slam dunk. Until you start to do the mat...

Mon, 5 Nov 2012

Turkey sex and chicken wings, selling souls and swapping organs, the power of the president and the ...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012

Is it as simple as going to the richest neighborhood you can find? Of course not ...

Wed, 24 Oct 2012

Politicians tell voters exactly what they want to hear, even when it makes no sense. Which is pretty...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012

We rely on polls and surveys to tell us how people will behave in the future. Too bad they're comple...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012

When you want to get rid of a nasty pest, one obvious solution comes to mind: just offer a cash rewa...

Wed, 3 Oct 2012

Sure, we love our computers and all the rest of our digital toys. But when it comes to real economic...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012

Trying to go rustic by baking, brewing, and knitting at home can be terribly inefficient. And that's...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012

The data show that poker is indeed a game of skill, not chance, and a Federal judge agrees. So why ...

Wed, 12 Sep 2012

What "Sleep No More" and the Stanford Prison Experiment tell us about who we really are.

Wed, 5 Sep 2012

Binge drinking is a big problem at college football games. Oliver Luck -- father of No. 1 NFL pick A...

Wed, 29 Aug 2012

What we know -- and don't know -- about the gazillions of dollars that never show up on anyone's boo...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012

If you think working from home offers too many distractions, just think about what happens at the of...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012

College tends to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier. But how?

Wed, 8 Aug 2012

We know that summertime brings far too many fatal accidents. But you may be surprised if you dig int...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012

What's a college degree really worth these days?

Wed, 25 Jul 2012

Do host cities really get the benefits their boosters promise, or are they just engaging in some fis...

Wed, 18 Jul 2012

What happens to your reputation when you're no longer around to defend it?

Tue, 10 Jul 2012

If we want our kids to thrive in school, maybe we should just pay them.

Wed, 4 Jul 2012

Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about junk food, insurance, and how to m...

Tue, 26 Jun 2012

Once a week, the British Prime Minister goes before the House of Commons for a lightning round of ha...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012

How using peer pressure -- and good, old-fashioned shame -- can push people to do the right thing.

Wed, 13 Jun 2012

Paying workers as little as possible seems smart -- unless you can make more money by paying them mo...

Wed, 6 Jun 2012

To feed 7 billion people while protecting the environment, it would seem that going local is a no-br...

Wed, 30 May 2012

The NBA’s superstars are suddenly sporting Urkel glasses -- but is it more than a fashion stateme...

Wed, 23 May 2012

How American food so got bad -- and why it's getting so much better.

Wed, 16 May 2012

Sure, we all dream of leaving the office forever. But what if it's bad for your health?

Mon, 7 May 2012

In a world where nearly everything is for sale, is it always okay to buy what isn’t yours?

Wed, 2 May 2012

At a time when people worry about every mile their food must travel, why is it okay to import most o...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012

What do you do when smart people keep making stupid mistakes? And: are we a nation of financial illi...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012

A new study says that yes, it is -- but try telling that to the United Nations officials who are pre...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012

Does the future of food lie in its past – or inside a tank of liquid nitrogen? Also: how anti-soci...

Tue, 3 Apr 2012

If any other product failed 94 percent of the time, you’d probably stop using it. So why do we put...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012

How much does the President of the United States really matter? And: where did all the hitchhikers g...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012

Women hold fewer than one in 10 patents. Why? And what are we missing out on?

Wed, 14 Mar 2012

Is booing an act of verbal vandalism or the last true expression of democracy? And: when you drive a...

Wed, 7 Mar 2012

Isn’t it time to admit that the U.S. economy doesn’t have a commander in chief?

Mon, 27 Feb 2012

Do more expensive wines taste better? And: what does one little rodent in a salad say about a restau...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012

Measuring workplace morale -- and how to game the sick-day system.

Wed, 15 Feb 2012

The left and the right blame each other for pretty much everything, including slanted media coverage...

Wed, 8 Feb 2012

A look at some non-obvious ways to lose weight.

Wed, 1 Feb 2012

A commitment device forces you to be the person you really want to be. What could possibly go wrong...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012

A football cheat sheet to help you sound like the smartest person at the party.

Thu, 19 Jan 2012

Education is the surest solution to a lot of problems. Except when it’s not.

Wed, 11 Jan 2012

We all know the answer is yes. But the data -- and Rudy Giuliani -- say no.

Wed, 4 Jan 2012

Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about certifying politicians, irrational...

Tue, 27 Dec 2011

We know it's terribly dangerous to drive drunk. But heading home on foot isn't the solution.

Wed, 21 Dec 2011

The thrill of customization, via Pandora and a radical new teaching method

Tue, 13 Dec 2011

Tyler Cowen points fingers. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Fri, 2 Dec 2011

Clever ways to not waste our waste.

Tue, 29 Nov 2011

The science of charity, with economist John List.

Tue, 22 Nov 2011

There’s a nasty secret about hot-button topics like global warming: knowledge is not always power....

Wed, 16 Nov 2011

Our appetite for breast meat renders our holiday birds unable to reproduce.

Tue, 8 Nov 2011

Is booing an act of verbal vandalism—or the last true expression of democracy?

Wed, 2 Nov 2011

On Election Day, most people focus on the obvious winners and losers -- that is, the candidates. But...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011

We are constantly wowed by new technologies and policies meant to make childbirth better. But bewar...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011

High-stakes testing has produced some rotten apples. But they can be caught.

Mon, 10 Oct 2011

Did we needlessly scare ourselves into ditching a good thing? And, with millions of cars driving aro...

Wed, 5 Oct 2011

The world is a more peaceful place today that at any time in history -- by a long, long shot.

Wed, 28 Sep 2011

You know the saying: a winner never quits and a quitter never wins. To which Freakonomics Radio says...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011

Human beings love to predict the future, but we're quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all ...

Wed, 31 Aug 2011

There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scr...

Tue, 16 Aug 2011

Think you know how much parents matter? Think again. Economists crunch the numbers to learn the ROI ...

Wed, 3 Aug 2011

We worship the tradition of handing off a family business to the next generation. But is that really...

Wed, 20 Jul 2011

In restaurants and in life, bad things happen. But what happens next is just as important.

Wed, 6 Jul 2011

"Conspicuous conservation" is about showing off your environmental bona fides. In other wo...

Wed, 22 Jun 2011

Freakonomics Radio hits the road, and plays some Quiz Bowl

Wed, 8 Jun 2011

What did Levitt and Dubner learn as kids from their dads?

Wed, 25 May 2011

Who is likelier to get to the fugitive first? When a fugitive is on the run, it’s not only the pol...

Wed, 11 May 2011

What’s it like to wake up one day and realize Dad is a multi-billionaire? That's what happened to ...

Wed, 27 Apr 2011

Does Las Vegas increase your risk of suicide? A researcher embeds himself in the city where America...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011

In our second round of FREAK-quently Asked Questions, Steve Levitt answers some queries from listene...

Wed, 6 Apr 2011

It won’t work for everyone, but there’s a cheap, quick, and simple way to lift some students’ ...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011

We talk to a U.S. Geological Survey physicist about the science -- and folly -- of predicting earthq...

Wed, 23 Mar 2011

Fire deaths in the U.S. have fallen 90 percent over the past 100 years, a great and greatly underapp...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011

For decades, GDP has been the yardstick for measuring living standards around the world. Martha Nuss...

Wed, 9 Mar 2011

To get a lot of followers on Twitter, do you need to follow a lot of other Tweeps? And if not, why n...

Wed, 2 Mar 2011

Since the beginning of civilization, we’ve thought that human waste was worthless and dangerous. W...

Thu, 24 Feb 2011

Five things you don’t know about the NFL labor standoff

Thu, 17 Feb 2011

Could it be that cities are "our greatest invention" -- that, despite a reputation as blac...

Wed, 9 Feb 2011

It's not about how much something hurts -- it's how you remember the pain. This week, lessons on pai...

Wed, 2 Feb 2011

What do a computer hacker, an Indiana farm boy, and Napoleon Bonaparte have in common? The past, pre...

Wed, 26 Jan 2011

The "molecular gastronomy" movement -- which gets a bump in visibility next month with the...

Wed, 19 Jan 2011

Levitt and Dubner field questions from the public and hold forth on everything from dating strategie...

Thu, 13 Jan 2011

How economics -- and emotion -- have turned our garbage into such a mess

Wed, 5 Jan 2011

Having already amassed an eventful resume -- the Clinton White House, the Department of Justice, and...

Wed, 29 Dec 2010

What happens when the most disturbing ideas are also the best?

Wed, 15 Dec 2010

They should! It's a cardinal rule: more expensive items are supposed to be qualitatively better than...

Wed, 1 Dec 2010

It’s the banking tool that got millions of people around the world to stop wasting money on the lo...

Wed, 17 Nov 2010

For the most part, Americans don't like the simple, boring act of putting money in a savings account...

Wed, 3 Nov 2010

The U.S. president is often called the "leader of free world." But if you ask an economist or a Cons...

Thu, 28 Oct 2010

The NFL is very good at making money. So why on earth doesn't it sell ad space on the one piece of r...

Thu, 21 Oct 2010

Government and the private sector often feel far apart. One is filled with compliance-driven bureau...

Thu, 7 Oct 2010

It was a pretty good baseball season -- especially if you're a fan of the Yankees, Rays, Twins, Rang...

Thu, 30 Sep 2010

The next chapter in the adventures of Dubner and Levitt has begun. Listen to a preview of what's to ...

Thu, 10 Jun 2010

Steve Levitt talks about why the center cannot hold in penalty kicks, why a running track hurts home...

Thu, 13 May 2010

In this episode of Freakonomics Radio, we explore a way to make 1.1 million schoolkids feel like the...

Tue, 13 Apr 2010

Do you "fake it"? If so, you're hardly alone. In this episode, you'll hear how everyone fr...

Wed, 24 Mar 2010

In this episode we speculate what would happen if economists got to run the world. Hear from a high-...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010

Americans keep putting on pounds. So is it time for a cheeseburger tax? Or would a chill pill be the...

Sat, 6 Feb 2010

What do NASCAR drivers, Glenn Beck and the hit men of the NFL have in common?