Season 6, Episode 17 On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio: we continue last week’s conversation about the economics of sleep. We look at some research suggesting, for instance, that early birds really do get the worm. And then we look into the tactics — physical, mental, and strategic — of six-time hot dog-eating champion Takeru […]
Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is "The Economics of Sleep, Part 2." (You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. You can also read the transcript, which includes credits for the music you’ll hear in the episode.)
In our previous episode, we primarily discussed the health implications of sleep. This time, we look at the economic impact. One big takeaway: if you sleep more, you will likely earn more money. How do we know this? Thanks to a fascinating paper by Matthew Gibson and Jeffrey Shrader, called “Time Use and Productivity: The Wage Returns to Sleep.” As Gibson tells us, economists have traditionally not paid too much attention to sleep — in part because good data were hard to come by: