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Visualizing Mortality History

Hans Rosling, a guru of data animation, is at it again. Here is a very cool video showing 200 years of mortality/wealth progress in just four minutes: (HT: Peter Siegelman)…




Gapminder Is Cool

…then you are off to the races. Also, be sure to watch Hans Rosling‘s TED presentation using these tools. (The one danger of great data tools like these, however, is…



Episode 283

Earth 2.0: What Would Our Economy Look Like?

If we could reboot the planet and create new systems and institutions from scratch, would they be any better than what we’ve blundered our way into through trial and error?…

Taking on the Myths of Child Mortality

Hans Rosling, whose fantastic animated-data talks have been featured here before, has a new one about child-mortality trends: http://youtu.be/OwII-dwh-bk The video was timed to coincide with the release of Bill…



Episode 1

Steven Pinker: “I Manage My Controversy Portfolio Carefully”

By cataloging the steady march of human progress, the Harvard psychologist and linguist has become a very public intellectual. But the self-declared “polite Canadian” has managed to enrage people on…

Episode 183

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, and David Paterson….

Acceptable Biases, and Unacceptable Ones

…is inherently about a clash of cultures, I was pretty shocked to read the following: Some parents at J.H.S. 22 … were suspicious, viewing Mr. Waronker as too much an…



Episode 553

The Suddenly Diplomatic Rahm Emanuel

The famously profane politician and operative is now U.S. ambassador to Japan, where he’s trying to rewrite the rules of diplomacy. But don’t worry: When it comes to China, he’s…

Water Around the World

March 22 was World Water Day, and two excellent photo essays draw attention to the issue. Foreign Policy shows images of water crises in places like China, Pakistan and Iraq,…





Episode 412

What Happens When Everyone Stays Home to Eat?

Covid-19 has shocked our food-supply system like nothing in modern history. We examine the winners, the losers, the unintended consequences — and just how much toilet paper one household really…


Episode 300

Why Don’t We All Speak the Same Language?

There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day Tower of Babel? (Part 3 of the “Earth 2.0” series.)…

Episode 49

Mathematician Sarah Hart on Why Numbers are Music to Our Ears

Playing notes on her piano, she demonstrates for Steve why whole numbers sound pleasing, why octaves are mathematically imperfect, and how math underlies musical composition. Sarah, a professor at the…

Freakonomics Radio Live: “The World’s a Mess. But Oysters, They Hold it Down.”

Celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli joins us to co-host an evening of delicious fact-finding: where a trillion oysters went, whether a soda tax can work, and how beer helped build an…

Episode 51

Max Tegmark on Why Treating Humanity Like a Child Will Save Us All

How likely is it that this conversation is happening in more than one universe? Should we worry more about Covid or about nuclear war? Is economics a form of “intellectual…

I Hear England Is Lovely This Time of Year

…the U.K. Here’s the schedule: June 20: Birmingham Town Hall, 7:30 pm (tickets). June 21: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 7:30 pm (tickets). June 22: Brighton Corn Exchange, 8:00 pm (tickets). June…




Episode 42

The Upside of Quitting (Replay)

You know the saying: A winner never quits and a quitter never wins. To which Freakonomics Radio says … Are you sure?…

Episode 520

The Unintended Consequences of Working from Home

The last two years have radically changed the way we work — producing winners, losers, and a lot of surprises.

Episode 270

Bad Medicine, Part 3: Death by Diagnosis (Replay)

By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. How can that be? And what’s to be done? Our third and final episode in this…

Episode 39

The Economist’s Guide to Parenting

Think you know how much parents matter? Think again. Economists crunch the numbers to learn the ROI on child-rearing.


Quotes Uncovered: Death and Statistics

…Permissive Society” (lecture), March 22, 1972. I am sure that Megarry did not originate the England-Germany-France triad. Bev Smith asked: “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a…



Has American Pop Music Displaced Local Culture?

…we provide stylized facts about the global music consumption and trade since 1960, using a unique data on popular music charts from 22 countries, corresponding to over 98% of the…



Episode 183

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know (Replay)

The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer and David Paterson….

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…