A Football Outsider Answers Your Questions
…could go on.) At the time of the decision, I wrote a piece that shared Polian’s sentiment about statistical analyses published elsewhere failing to take into account the unique nature…
Richard Prum says there’s a lot that traditional evolutionary biology can’t explain. He thinks a neglected hypothesis from Charles Darwin — and insights from contemporary queer theory — hold the…
She showed up late and confused to her first silent retreat, but Caverly Morgan eventually trained for eight years in silence at a Zen monastery. Now her mindfulness-education program Peace…
Why does the U.S. use Fahrenheit when Celsius is better? Would you quit your job if a coin flip told you to? And how do you get an entire country…
No — but he does have a knack for stumbling into the perfect moment, including the recent FTX debacle….
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…
…could go on.) At the time of the decision, I wrote a piece that shared Polian’s sentiment about statistical analyses published elsewhere failing to take into account the unique nature…
Do highway warnings save lives or cost lives? How do you keep men from peeing on the floor? And what’s Angela’s plan to get more people washing their hands?…
The racial wealth gap in the U.S. is massive. We explore the causes, consequences and potential solutions. Also: another story of discrimination and economic disparity, this one perpetrated by an…
Ideas are currency. This couldn’t be more true in academia, where it’s the job of researchers to think of questions and, hopefully, find answers. Bapu talks with economists Steve Levitt…
In pursuit of a more perfect economy, we discuss the future of work, the toxic remnants of colonization, and whether giving everyone a basic income would be genius — or…
We revisit an episode from 2016 that asks: Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be taken care of?…
The Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg wrote his new book in an attempt to learn how to communicate better. Steve shares how the book helped him understand his own…
In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But for every winner, he came to realize, there are thousands upon thousands of losers — a “war…
In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the economist Amy Finkelstein explains why insurance markets are broken and how to fix them. Also: why can’t you buy divorce…
The economist Amy Finkelstein explains why insurance markets are broken and how to fix them. Also: why can’t you buy divorce insurance?…
Are fantasies helpful or harmful? How is daydreaming like a drug? And what did Angela fantasize about during ninth-grade English class?…
When Stephen Dubner learned that Dallas–Fort Worth will soon overtake Chicago as the third-biggest metro area in the U.S., he got on a plane to find out why. Despite getting…
The economist and social critic Glenn Loury has led a remarkably turbulent life, both professionally and personally. In a new memoir, he has chosen to reveal just about everything. Why?…
The economist and social critic Glenn Loury has led a remarkably turbulent life, both professionally and personally. In a new memoir, he has chosen to reveal just about everything. Why?…
The International Monetary Fund has long been the “lender of last resort” for economies in crisis. Christine Lagarde, who runs the institution, would like to prevent those crises from ever…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the founder and longtime C.E.O. of Bridgewater Associates, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.”…
Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940’s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrimination is incredibly costly — to the victims, of course, but also the perpetrators. One modern…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
…best suited and why? A: I think it is plausible that that could happen and could succeed. I would explain my feelings about it this way: that between 1975 and…
…thought that stand-up comedy must be incredibly hard: If you succeed, it looks so easy that anyone thinks they can do it; if you fail, it’s brutally obvious that you’re…
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…
Research shows that having a distinctively black name doesn’t affect your economic future. But what is the day-to-day reality of living with such a name? Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck, a newly-minted…
…while gathering up your belongings. The beauty of terrorism — if you’re a terrorist — is that you can succeed even by failing. We perform this shoe routine thanks to…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
