Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Street Gangs (But Didn’t Know Whom to Ask)
…makes it illegal for anyone to be a gang member, with penalties of up to one year in prison. Also, fines can be imposed on parents for failing to prevent…
Dubner and Levitt talk about fixing the post office, putting cameras in the classroom, and wearing hats.
…makes it illegal for anyone to be a gang member, with penalties of up to one year in prison. Also, fines can be imposed on parents for failing to prevent…
We all like to throw around terms that describe human behavior — “bystander apathy” and “steep learning curve” and “hard-wired.” Most of the time, they don’t actually mean what we…
This week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio takes a look at Pope Francis’s critique of the free-market system in “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), his first apostolic exhortation….
Also: would you take a confirmation-bias vaccine?…
Pharmaceutical firms donate an enormous amount of their products (and some cash too). But it doesn’t seem to be helping their reputation. We ask Pfizer’s generosity chief why the company…
Or, failing that, it needs to wait a few hours before sending out its e-mail blitzes. Here’s what just showed up in my in-box: Dear Amazon.com Customer, Congratulations, [placeholder for…
An update of our 2020 series, in which we spoke with physicians, researchers, and addicts about the root causes of the crisis — and the tension between abstinence and harm…
…social costs. But surely the burden on others of not doing your homework or failing to sparkle in repartee pale in comparison to killing an innocent person. This is not…
Economists are a notoriously self-interested bunch. But a British outfit called Pro Bono Economics is giving away its services to selected charities.
…an Italian court has convicted seven earthquake experts of failing to appropriately sound the alarm bell for an earthquake that wound up killing more than 300 people in L’Aquila in…
Ecologist Suzanne Simard studies the relationships between trees in a forest: they talk to each other, punish each other, and depend on each other. What can we learn from them?
…that black coaches are being held to the same standards as their white counterparts. “If African-American coaches don’t fail, it means that those with equal talents to the failing white…
Not long ago during a ground delay at my beloved LaGuardia, I met an off-duty airline captain and we got to talking. His name is Steve. (Isn’t everyone’s?) Our conversation…
In 2016, David Cameron held a referendum on whether the U.K. should stay in the European Union. A longtime Euroskeptic, he nevertheless led the Remain campaign. So what did Cameron…
Having already amassed an eventful resume — the Clinton White House, the Department of Justice, and Bertelsmann — Joel I. Klein spent the past eight years as chancellor of the…
Promising drugs keep failing in trials. Allegations of fraud have cast a shadow over the field. An expert explains why Alzheimer’s treatments have been so hard to find — and…
Trump says it would destroy us. Sanders says it will save us. The majority of millennials would like it to replace capitalism. But what is “it”? We bring in the…
Trying to go rustic by baking, brewing, and knitting at home can be terribly inefficient. And that’s a wonderful thing.
She spent nearly a decade as an undercover C.I.A. operative working to prevent terrorism. More recently, she hosted The Business of Drugs on Netflix. Amaryllis Fox — now Kennedy —…
Also: why don’t you need a license to become a parent?…
It’s Self-Improvement Month at Freakonomics Radio. We begin with a topic that seems to be on everyone’s mind: how to get more done in less time. First, however, a warning:…
In this interview, first heard on Freakonomics Radio last year, Steve talks with the former top adviser to presidents Clinton and Obama, about his record — and his reputation. And…
If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there’s a good chance you’ll barely be punished. Why?
…(although in a different way). About $65 billion went to prevent Citigroup and A.I.G. from failing in ways that our team feared would have had severe systemic financial consequences. Nineteen…
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…
For the most part, Americans don’t like the simple,boring act of putting money in a savings account. We do, however, love to play the lottery. So what if you combined…
…failing grade. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent by the government since 1937 to both enforce and prolong marijuana prohibition. Meanwhile, over 19 million people have been…
