Question of the Day: What Does a Roommate's Bad Habit Say About the Economics of Jealousy?
…it in the fridge/cabinet, then eats out all the time and never touches it. Then, when it’s all gone bad, she dumps it all in the trash (often unopened) –…
…it in the fridge/cabinet, then eats out all the time and never touches it. Then, when it’s all gone bad, she dumps it all in the trash (often unopened) –…
…of the coastal mountain range, and even other people off overpasses. Less tragic but considerably galling is the use of freeways as garbage dumps. Trash of all sorts has induced…
…in its own special way. One more honorable mention goes to those intrepid souls who wrestle with New Jersey’s Pulaski Skyway; its charms made it the single most complained-about road…
American politics is trapped in a duopoly, with two all-powerful parties colluding to stifle competition. We revisit a 2018 episode to explain how the political industry works, and talk to…
…in the face of a global financial meltdown, a pandemic and other existential crises? With the publication of a new, radically updated edition, Thaler tries to persuade Stephen Dubner that…
…see our selection of NCAA championship products. NCAA Championship Cap Check out our championship hats, tees, and hooded sweatshirts in our NCAA Fan Shop. http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_sg_ncaa06champ_ftr?node=3386071 Available only while supplies last….
…he’s made it his mission to help the public understand statistics and hosts the podcast Cautionary Tales. In their conversation, Steve gives Tim some feedback on his new book, The…
What happens when tens of millions of fantasy-sports players are suddenly able to bet real money on real games? We’re about to find out. A recent Supreme Court decision has…
What’s the difference between people who preserve special things and people who devour them right away? Why do we love to binge-watch? And did Adam really eat an apple?
How did a little green nut become a billion-dollar product, lauded by celebrities in Super Bowl ads? Zachary Crockett cracks open the story….
…for a barrel of oil, an unparalleled worldwide depression, and as one web page puts it, “Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.” One might think…
…provide you with a modest amount of capital, combined with the support and guidance you’ll need. In return, you share a small portion of your income for 10 years. By…
…are the 527 committee and its cynical sibling, the 501(c)(3) committee, neither of which are regulated by the Federal Election Commission. The first is a kind of issue advocacy committee…
…Will Dobbie, Fryer collected “unparalleled data” on 35 elementary and middle charter schools in New York City by conducting extensive interviews and videotaping classrooms. Their results are fairly counter-intuitive. They…
…asks an amazing battery of questions about the subjectively-experienced lives of people across the globe, and hence offers an unparalleled opportunity to contrast the subjectively-experienced lives of those in rich…
How did mobile kitchens become popular with hipster gourmands? And just how much money can a popular truck make from a lunch shift? Zachary Crocket drops some napkins.
…Max is doing to mitigate our risk. The co-founder of the Future of Life Institute thinks that artificial intelligence can be the greatest thing to ever happen to humanity —…
Are you the same person you were a decade ago? Do we get better as we age? And is your sixth-grade class clown still funny?…
Economist Daron Acemoglu likes to tackle big questions. He tells Steve how colonialism still affects us today, who benefits from new technology, and why democracy wasn’t always a sure thing….
Some diagnostic tests give distorted results for Black patients. How are doctors trying to change that?…
We often look to other countries for smart policies on education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. But can a smart policy be simply transplanted into a country as culturally unusual (and as…
How does bail work — and who’s really paying? Zachary Crockett follows the money….
When Freakonomics co-authors Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner first met, one of them hated the other. Two decades later, Levitt grills Dubner about asking questions, growing the pie, and what…
Are we using technology to make ourselves numb? What’s the downside of air conditioning? And was Angela the most annoying person in her college classes?…
How do friendships change as we get older? Should you join a bowling league? And also: how does a cook become a chef?…
How many bottles of wine are regifted? What’s wrong with giving cash? And should Angela give her husband a subscription to the Sausage of the Month Club?
…over time “free lunch freeloaders” became increasingly common, thereby rendering the deal increasingly unworkable from the restaurant’s point of view. By 1910 the free lunch practice was criticized for presenting…
Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success…
As of today, Google Book Search affords you the opportunity to read or even download the complete text of many out-of-copyright books, including Hamlet, Aesop’s Fables, the Inferno, and many…
…fixed barn space couldn’t cram as many hens into a single shed as they once could. Density of production, as one would suspect, pays. Commenting on this industry-initiated cage expansion,…
