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Episode 136

Is Sloth a Sin or a Virtue?

How can we distinguish between laziness and patience? Why do people do crossword puzzles? And how is Angie like a combination of a quantum computer and a Sherman tank? Take…

Episode 159

How Much Personal Space Do You Need?

How do you deal with a close talker? Is Angela drinking too much water? And why can’t Mike keep his phone out of his bedroom?

Episode 37

How Do You Know if People Don’t Like You?

Also: do self-help books really help?…

EXTRA

The Men Who Started a Thinking Revolution (Update)

The psychologist Daniel Kahneman — a Nobel laureate and the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow — recently died at age 90. Along with his collaborator Amos Tversky, he changed…

Episode 281

Big Returns from Thinking Small

By day, two leaders of Britain’s famous Nudge Unit use behavioral tricks to make better government policy. By night, they repurpose those tricks to improve their personal lives. They want…

Episode 271

The Men Who Started a Thinking Revolution

Starting in the late 1960s, the Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Danny Kahneman began to redefine how the human mind actually works. Michael Lewis’s new book The Undoing Project explains…

Yet More News on “Deal or No Deal”

…University in Rotterdam, and Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago. “There is no doubt that these are real people making real choices for high stakes, and we rarely get…





World Water Day: Nudges for Safe Water

…a classic example of a nudge a la Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Diarrheal diseases claim two million lives each year worldwide—a loss that is especially tragic because it is…



Nudge

…with Richard Thaler and he told me that he and Cass Sunstein were going to write a popular behavioral economics book about what they called “libertarian paternalism,” I have to…



Episode 105

Should You Give Kids an Allowance or Make Them Get Jobs?

How do kids learn about money? What’s the big problem with education? And who made Raiders of the Lost Ark?…

Episode 140

How to Think About Money, Choose Your Hometown, and Buy an Electric Toothbrush

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

Episode 349

How Sports Became Us

Dollar-wise, the sports industry is surprisingly small, about the same size as the cardboard-box industry. So why does it make so much noise? Because it reflects — and often amplifies…

Episode 523

Did Michael Lewis Just Get Lucky with “Moneyball”?

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

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Episode 523

Did Michael Lewis Just Get Lucky with “Moneyball”?

No — but he does have a knack for stumbling into the perfect moment, including the recent FTX debacle. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, we revisit…

Episode 32

Which Gets You Further: Talent or Effort?

Also: Where is the line between acronyms, initialisms and gibberish?

Episode 40

Have We All Lost Our Ability to Compromise?

Also: is it better to be right or “not wrong”?…

Episode 309

Nurses to the Rescue!

They are the most-trusted profession in America (and with good reason). They are critical to patient outcomes (especially in primary care). Could the growing army of nurse practitioners be an…

Episode 220

“I Don’t Know What You’ve Done With My Husband But He’s a Changed Man”

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

Episode 339

The Future of Freakonomics Radio

After eight years and more than 300 episodes, it was time to either 1) quit, or 2) make the show bigger and better. We voted for number 2. Here’s a…

Episode 87

How Much Are the Right Friends Worth?

Harvard economist Raj Chetty uses tax data to study inequality, kid success, and social mobility. He explains why you should be careful when choosing your grade school teachers — and…

Episode 61

Was Austan Goolsbee’s First Visit to the Oval Office Almost His Last?

The former chairman of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisors tells Steve how improv comedy was a better training ground for teaching than a Ph.D. from M.I.T., and why…

Episode 329

The Invisible Paw

Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we’ve had it exactly backward?…

Episode 88

Ken Burns on Heroism, Horror, and History

The documentary filmmaker, known for The Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball, turns his attention to the Holocaust, and asks what we can learn from the evils of the past….

Episode 37

Sendhil Mullainathan Thinks Messing Around Is the Best Use of Your Time

He’s a professor of computation and behavioral science at the University of Chicago, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, and author. Steve and Sendhil laugh their way through a conversation about the…

Episode 54

Do You Really Need a Muse to Be Creative?

Also: Is short-sightedness part of human nature?…

Episode 55

This Vaccine Lottery Seemed Like a Great Idea. Why Didn’t it Work?

Behavioral economists say “regret lotteries” are powerful motivational tools. When Philadelphia tried one in 2021, the results were disappointing. Bapu looks at how incentives can backfire — and what we…

Episode 329

The Invisible Paw (Replay)

Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we’ve had it exactly backward?

When Is the 99% Really the 5%?

…have to think that his framing skills would be admired by Messrs. Tversky, Kahneman, and Thaler. If you’re looking for a somewhat headier argument about redistribution, you could try here….