What Do Al D’Amato and Steve Levitt Have in Common?
They would both like to see the new Federal ban on Internet gambling overturned. At least D’Amato is getting paid to do something about it. Am I the only one…
In this episode of Freakonomics Radio, we explore a way to make 1.1 million schoolkids feel like they have 1.1 million teachers….
Steve loved Michael Lewis’s latest, The Premonition, but has one critique: Why aren’t there even more villains? Also, why the author of best-sellers Moneyball and The Big Short can barely…
Sarah Hart investigates the mathematical structures underlying musical compositions and literature. Using examples from Monteverdi to Lewis Carroll, Sarah explains to Steve how math affects how we hear music and…
What do the most creative people have in common? How open-minded are you, really? And what’s wrong with ordering eggs Benedict? Take the Big Five inventory: freakonomics.com/bigfive…
How does the profitability of family firms stack up against the rest? Has nepotism become more taboo over time? And why are 90 percent of adoptees in Japan not children…
There are more firefighters than ever — and fewer fires for them to fight. So the job has changed. Zachary Crockett slides down the pole….
Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative risks?
For 37 years, Rick Doblin has been pushing the F.D.A. to approve treating post-traumatic stress disorder with MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. He tells Steve why he persisted for so…
The economist Joseph Stiglitz has devoted his life to exposing the limits of markets. He tells Steve about winning an argument with fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, why small governments…
They would both like to see the new Federal ban on Internet gambling overturned. At least D’Amato is getting paid to do something about it. Am I the only one…
Nobel Prize winner Joshua Angrist explains how the draft lottery, the Talmud, and West Point let economists ask — and answer — tough questions….
He wondered if he was in for a Jim Cramer-type beatdown. But it turns out that Jon Stewart gave SuperFreakonomics a thumping endorsement. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon…
…only is St. Paul the home of Freakonomics Radio co-producer American Public Media, but Steve Levitt also grew up in the Twin Cities. So the live event had a good…
The Ford Motor Company is ditching its legacy sedans, doubling down on trucks, and trying to steer its stock price out of a long skid. But C.E.O. Jim Hackett has…
Since his last visit to People I (Mostly) Admire, the formerly top-ranked golfer has become the sport’s most controversial figure. Why has he partnered with the Saudi government — and…
A special episode: Steve reports on a passion of his. Most high-school math classes are still preparing students for the Sputnik era. Steve wants to get rid of the “geometry…
You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done. The founder of behavioral economics…
Conrad Wolfram wants to transform the way we teach math — by taking advantage of computers. The creator of Computer-Based Maths convinced the Estonian government to give his radical curriculum…
The director of the Hayden Planetarium is one of the best science communicators of our time. He and Steve talk about his role in reclassifying Pluto, bad teachers, and why…
He’s a world-renowned magician who’s been performing since he was seven-years-old. But Joshua Jay is also an author, toymaker, and consultant for film and television. Steve Levitt talks to him…
…of data about Covid-19 in schools. Steve and Emily discuss how she became an advocate for school reopening, how economists think differently from the average person, and whether pregnant women…
Sure, sex crimes are horrific, and the perpetrators deserve to be punished harshly. But society keeps exacting costs — out-of-pocket and otherwise — long after the prison sentence has been…
He’s an M.I.T. cosmologist, physicist, and machine-learning expert, and once upon a time, almost an economist. Max and Steve continue their conversation about the existential threats facing humanity, and what…
…care system. She tells Steve how she hacked the V.A.’s bureaucracy, opens up about her struggle with Type 1 diabetes, and explains how she was building websites for soap opera…
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…
Kate Douglass is a world-class swimmer and data scientist who’s used mathematical modeling to help make her stroke more efficient. She and Steve talk about why the Olympics were underwhelming,…
Human beings love to predict the future, but we’re quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all those bad predictions?
There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics come to a close, we revisit a 2018 episode in which…
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…
