Season 5, Episode 25
This week on Freakonomics Radio, what’s “the perfect crime?” It turns out that if you are driving your car and run over a pedestrian, there’s a good chance — especially if you live in New York — that you’ll barely be punished. Why?
Also, where have all the hitchhikers gone? Thumbing a ride used to be commonplace. Now you’re more likely to see it happen in the opening scene of a slasher movie. Maybe that explains it.
Critics — including President Obama — say short-term, high-interest loans are predatory, trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt. But some economists see them as a useful financial instrument for people who need them. As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau promotes new regulation, we ask: who’s right?
Season 5, Episode 24
This hour of Freakonomics Radio is all about tipping. As we all know, the practice of tipping can be awkward, random, and confusing. What you might not know is that it is discriminatory, and according to at least one academic’s research, correlates with corruption. We talk with a professor who has written over 50 papers on the subject.
Then, we explore the warped restaurant business model: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate tipping, raise menu prices, and redistribute the wealth? New York restaurant maverick Danny Meyer is about to find out.
People who sleep better earn more money. Now all we have to do is teach everyone to sleep better.
Season 5, Episode 23
This week on Freakonomics Radio: Junior U.S. Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker thinks bipartisanship is right around the corner. Is he just an idealistic newbie or does he see a way forward that everyone else has missed?
Then, as sexy as the digital revolution may be, it can’t compare to the Second Industrial Revolution (electricity! the gas engine! antibiotics!), which created the biggest standard-of-living boost in U.S. history. The only problem, argues the economist Robert Gordon, is that the Second Industrial Revolution was a one-time event.
Could a lack of sleep help explain why some people get much sicker than others?
Season 5, Episode 22 As we learned in last week’s episode, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been effective in reducing criminal behavior among teenagers in Chicago and former child soldiers in Liberia. This week we go to England, where behavioral-therapy workshops for low-level domestic violence offenders have achieved a 40 percent reduction in repeat incidents of abuse. We also talk . . .
As sexy as the digital revolution may be, it can’t compare to the Second Industrial Revolution (electricity! the gas engine! antibiotics!), which created the biggest standard-of-living boost in U.S. history. The only problem, argues the economist Robert Gordon, is that the Second Industrial Revolution was a one-time event. So what happens next?
Season 5, Episode 21
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: conventional crime-prevention programs tend to be expensive, onerous, and ineffective. Could something as simple (and cheap) as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) do the trick? First we go to Chicago, where at-risk teenagers who learn to be less impulsive have lower dropout and arrest rates.
Then, we take a look at Liberia, where a former child soldier and a team of researchers pair CBT with a cash incentive to help other former soldiers become productive citizens in peacetime.
The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate tipping, raise menu prices, and redistribute the wealth? New York restaurant maverick Danny Meyer is about to find out.
Season 5, Episode 20
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: Doctors, chefs, and other experts are much more likely than the rest of us to buy store-brand products. What do they know that we don’t? And if we all did like they do, how much fatter might our wallets be?
Then, imagine a fantasy world that’s exactly as the world is today except that two things are missing: alcohol and marijuana. And then imagine that tomorrow, both of them are discovered. What happens now? How are each of them used – and, perhaps more importantly, regulated? How would we weigh the relative benefits and costs of alcohol versus marijuana?
The junior U.S. Senator from New Jersey thinks bipartisanship is right around the corner. Is he just an idealistic newbie or does he see a way forward that everyone else has missed?
Season 5, Episode 19
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: We spend billions of dollars on end-of-life healthcare that often doesn’t do much good. So what if a patient could forego the standard treatment and get a cash rebate instead?
Also, the war on cigarettes has been fairly successful in some places. In the U.S., the smoking rate has fallen by more than half. But a billion humans still smoke, so what comes next?
Now and again, Freakonomics Radio puts hat in hand and asks listeners to donate to the public-radio station that produces the show. Why on earth should anyone pay good money for something that can be had for free?
Season 5, Episode 18
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: The first woman to get tenure in the Harvard economics department has tried to uncover the reasons for the pay gap between men and women. Turns out discrimination doesn’t explain why women earn so much less. It’s much more complicated than that.
Also, what’s behind the surprising fact that a marriage that produces a girl is more likely to end in divorce than one that produces a boy? In this episode we delve into the research — and the broader economic implications of so many girls living without their dads.
A famous economics essay features a pencil (yes, a pencil) arguing that “not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.” Is the pencil just bragging? In any case, what can the pencil teach us about our global interdependence — and the proper role of government in the economy?
Season 5, Episode 17
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: there’s a huge stigma attached to failure. But should there be? Perhaps we’re not thinking clearly about failure. Maybe failure can be your friend.
Also on this week’s episode: in most countries, houses get more valuable over time. But in Japan, a new buyer often bulldozes the home. Why?
Remember the torture of penmanship class when you were a kid? Now, how often do you take a pen to paper these days? If you’re like the average American, it’s been more than a month since you did. So why do we still bother teaching handwriting in school?
Season 5, Episode 16
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: a look at the supply side of the education equation — the teachers — as well the demand side, the students.
Teacher quality has a huge impact. So how can we best identify, educate, and reward the good ones? And what can be done to take failing students and put them on a track to graduation?
Our take: maybe the steps aren’t so easy, but a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had great success in turning around kids who were headed for trouble.
Season 5, Episode 15
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: sure, markets generally work well. But for some transactions — like school admissions and organ transplants — money alone can’t solve the problem. That’s when you need a market-design wizard like Nobel Prize winner Al Roth. You’ll hear how Roth and others have revolutionized the organ-donor market. Plus, the amazing story of how one particularly selfless woman became the first link in a donor chain that gave life to many others.
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?
Season 5, Episode 14
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: Why would anyone want to think like a child? Aren’t kids just sloppy, inchoate versions of us? Hardly. As Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt describe in their book Think Like a Freak, it can be very fruitful like a child.
And then: How can we get kids to eat healthier food? Educational messaging sounds like a good idea, but kids don’t respond to it. So why not bribe them?
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the South African divestment campaign, Chick-fil-A! Almost anyone can launch a boycott, and the media loves to cover them. But do boycotts actually produce the change they’re fighting for?
Season 5, Episode 13
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio:
In 2014, Tesla’s Model S became the best-selling car in Norway ever for a one-month period. Not bad for a luxury electric vehicle whose base price in Norway is over $100,000. What’s behind this Tesla boom?
And then, hear our interview with the physician/anthropologist Jim Yong Kim. He used to advocate dismantling the World Bank; now he’s running it — and is eager to apply the insights of behavioral economics to development policy.
Experts and pundits are notoriously bad at forecasting, in part because they aren’t punished for bad predictions. Also, they tend to be deeply unscientific. The psychologist Philip Tetlock is finally turning prediction into a science — and now even you could become a superforecaster.
Season 5, Episode 12
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: The argument for open borders is compelling — and deeply problematic. We hear from economists for and against the argument as well as immigrants, including former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Discrimination can’t explain why women earn so much less than men. If only it were that easy.
Season 5, Episode 11
On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio, we continue last week’s conversation about the economics of sleep. We look at some research suggesting, for instance, that early birds really do get the worm.
And then we look into the tactics — physical, mental, and strategic — of six-time hot dog-eating champion Takeru Kobayashi, who revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us can learn from his breakthroughs?
Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn’t always work out. That’s where “temptation bundling” comes in.
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