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Episode 149

Pontiff-icating on the Free-Market System

This week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio takes a look at Pope Francis’s critique of the free-market system in “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), his first apostolic exhortation….


Episode 188

Is America’s Education Problem Really Just a Teacher Problem? (Replay)

The gist: If U.S. schoolteachers are indeed “just a little bit below average,” it’s not really their fault. So what should be done about it?

Episode 36

Bad News — It’s Your Surgeon’s Birthday

Distractions are everywhere — including in the operating room. So, what happens if a surgeon loses focus? A tap dancer, a health researcher, and a surgeon help Bapu Jena find…

Episode 433

How Are Psychedelics and Other Party Drugs Changing Psychiatry?

Three leading researchers from the Mount Sinai Health System discuss how ketamine, cannabis and ecstasy are being used (or studied) to treat everything from severe depression to addiction to PTSD….

End of Days: A Guest Post

…subject of great interest to me, something we hope to address empirically in future writing: the cost/benefit dilemma of end-of-life medical care. End of Days A Guest Post by Julie…



What Else Acts Like Cheap Wine and Cigarettes?

…wonder what are other weird examples? Also, aside from the usual suspects (grocery purchases being the standard example), what else doesn’t decrease much? Pornography, cigarettes, cheap wine? (Hat tip: AS)…



The Bathroom or a Glass of Wine

Flying coach on the plane home from Europe last weekend, I had to have a glass of wine; so I paid $6 and was hit by the airlines’ revenue-increasing, pay-by-the-piece…



Episode 10

Michelin Stars

Only the finest restaurants have a chance to bask in their glow. Sometimes, it’s a bit too bright. Zachary Crockett squints at the menu….

Episode 10

Michelin Stars (Replay)

Only the finest restaurants have a chance to bask in their glow. Sometimes, it’s a bit too bright. Zachary Crockett squints at the menu….

Episode 369

A Good Idea Is Not Good Enough

Whether you’re building a business or a cathedral, execution is everything. We ask artists, scientists, and inventors how they turned ideas into reality. And we find out why it’s so…

Episode 101

Celebrating 100 People I (Mostly) Admire

Steve and producer Morgan Levey look back at the first 100 episodes of the podcast, including surprising answers, spectacular explanations, and listeners who heard the show and changed their lives….

Episode 414

Will Covid-19 Spark a Cold War (or Worse) With China?

The U.S. spent the past few decades waiting for China to act like the global citizen it said it wanted to be. The waiting may be over.

Episode 549

The First Great American Industry

Whaling was, in the words of one scholar, “early capitalism unleashed on the high seas.” How did the U.S. come to dominate the whale market? Why did whale hunting die…

Episode 562

How to Succeed at Failing, Part 2: Life and Death

In medicine, failure can be catastrophic. It can also produce discoveries that save millions of lives. Tales from the front line, the lab, and the I.T. department. Part of the…

Episode 59

The Most Valuable Resource in Medicine

Time is precious. How can doctors and patients make the best use of it — especially when there isn’t much left?…

Episode 389

How to Make Meetings Less Terrible (Replay)

In the U.S. alone, we hold 55 million meetings a day. Most of them are woefully unproductive and tyrannize our offices. The revolution begins now — with better agendas, smaller…

Episode 16

An Exit Interview with N.I.H. Director Dr. Francis Collins

The National Institutes of Health is the backbone of health research in the U.S., and Collins has been in charge for more than a decade. Now that he’s stepping down,…


Episode 38

What Does It Mean to Be a “Good” Man?

Also: how can you stop ruminating?…

Episode 9

Why Fridays May Be Dangerous for Your Health

When researchers analyzed which day of the week most drug-safety alerts are released — and what it means for public health — they were stunned. So was Bapu Jena. He…

EXTRA

What if Your Company Had No Rules?

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings came to believe that corporate rules can kill creativity and innovation. In this latest edition of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, guest host Maria Konnikova talks…

EXTRA

Mr. Feynman Takes a Trip — But Doesn’t Fall

A wide-open conversation with three women who guided Richard Feynman through some big adventures at the Esalen Institute. (Part of our Feynman series.)…

Episode 389

How to Make Meetings Less Terrible

In the U.S. alone, we hold 55 million meetings a day. Most of them are woefully unproductive, and tyrannize our offices. The revolution begins now — with better agendas, smaller…

Episode 10

The Mystery of the Man with Confusion and Back Pain

Hear diagnostician Gurpreet Dhaliwal try to solve the case of a patient who came to the emergency room with an unusual combination of symptoms. Plus, we discuss how difficult it…

Episode 111

Can a Moonshot Approach to Mental Health Work?

Obi Felten used to launch projects for X, Google’s innovation lab, but she’s now tackling mental health. She explains why Steve’s dream job was soul-destroying for her, and how peer…

Episode 76

Why Can’t Baby Boomers and Millennials Just Get Along?

Also: how do phone cameras affect the way we experience live events?…

Episode 535

Why Is Flying Safer Than Driving?

Thanks to decades of work by airlines and regulators, plane crashes are nearly a thing of the past. Can we do the same for cars? (Part 2 of “Freakonomics Radio…

LIST-onomics: A Few Days

Three days: … The amount of time auto-rickshaws are striking. … How long it took to crack the iPhone root password. … The length of the papal visit to New…



Episode 188

Is America’s Education Problem Really Just a Teacher Problem?

We’ve all heard the depressing numbers: when compared to kids from other rich countries, U.S. students aren’t doing very well, especially in math, even though we spend more money per…