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O’Reilly Transcript

…grow up at all, and that brought the crime rate down. Do I have it about right? STEVE LEVITT, CO-AUTHOR, “FREAKONOMICS”: Yes, absolutely. After the legalization of abortion, there were…



Does the Highway Patrol Keep Us Safe?

…on crime rates, due to what’s called the “simultaneity” of causation. We might suppose police deter crime. But ironically, we often see lots of police in high-crime areas, not because…



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Episode 518

Are Personal Finance Gurus Giving You Bad Advice?

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

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Episode 105

Can Data Keep People Out of Prison?

Clementine Jacoby went from performing in a circus to founding a nonprofit that works to shrink the prison population….

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Episode 420

Which Jobs Will Come Back, and When?

Covid-19 is the biggest job killer in a century. As the lockdown eases, what does re-employment look like? Who will be first and who last? Which sectors will surge and…

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Episode 60

Money Laundering

How do criminals turn their ill-gotten gains into taxable income? And how does law enforcement stop them? Zachary Crockett follows the money….

Campus Crime Junk Stats?

…law, colleges and universities must distribute them annually. Crime rates can be compared at http://www.ope.ed.gov/security/Search.asp. Just how “inconclusive” are the numbers? Take a look at these four schools first: Ohio…



Where Is All the Hard-Time Crime?

Despite the recession, the Associated Press reports, U.S. crime rates continue to fall in 2009 compared to last year. Sociologists and crime experts are citing the economic stimulus, people staying…




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Episode 75

Self-Help for Data Nerds

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz combs through mountains of information to find advice for everyday life….

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Episode 308

How Can I Do the Most Social Good With $100? And Other FREAK-quently Asked Questions

Dubner and his Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt answer your questions about crime, traffic, real-estate agents, the Ph.D. glut, and how to not get eaten by a bear.

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Episode 104

How Simple Is Too Simple?

Why are humans so eager for magic-bullet solutions? Can you explain how a pen works? And how does Angela feel about being forever branded “the grit lady”?…

Read All About it: Crime Surges Again

Six months ago I blogged about how the media reported the crime statistics released by the FBI at that time. All the headlines screamed that a new crime wave was…



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Episode 43

The Decline and Fall of Violence

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

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Episode 40

The Suicide Paradox (Replay)

There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scrutiny. Freakonomics Radio digs through the numbers and finds all kinds of…

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Episode 252

Confessions of a Pothole Politician

Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, has big ambitions but knows he must first master the small stuff. He’s also a polymath who relies heavily on data and new…

The Financial Meltdown Now and Then

…1930 and 9 percent in 1931. This meant that the real discount rate (the discount rate minus the inflation rate) rose slightly from 4.5 to 4.77 percent in 1930 and…





Are Sex Offender Laws Backfiring?

…Agan went block by block and found that crime rates in general, and sex crimes in particular, do not vary according to the number of sex offenders in the area….



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Episode 72

Lottery Loopholes and Deadly Doctors

What do you do when smart people keep making stupid mistakes? And: are we a nation of financial illiterates? This is a “mashupdate” of “Is America Ready for a “No-Lose…

Let’s Do the Crime Drop Again

Because the abortion/crime theory put forward by Steve Levitt and John Donohue in this 2001 paper was so jarring, on so many levels, it drew great interest and occasional controversy….




Did Banning Lead Lower Crime?

…lead and crime. Rather than looking at a national time-series, she tries to exploit differences in the rates at which lead was removed from gasoline across states. I haven’t read…



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Episode 40

The Suicide Paradox

There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scrutiny. Freakonomics Radio digs through the numbers and finds all kinds of…

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Episode 40

The Suicide Paradox (Replay)

There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scrutiny. Freakonomics Radio digs through the numbers and finds all kinds of…


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Episode 31

Gambling With Your Life

Does Las Vegas increase your risk of suicide? A researcher embeds himself in the city where Americans are most likely to kill themselves.

The Positive Effects of a Higher Alcohol Tax

…injury death rate, the violent crime rate, and the property crime rate. A conservative estimate is that the federal tax reduced injury deaths by 4.7%, or almost 7,000, in 1991….



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Episode 46

Misadventures in Baby-Making

We are constantly wowed by new technologies and policies meant to make childbirth better. But beware the unintended consequences.