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,…
Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend…
Human beings love to predict the future, but we’re quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all those bad predictions?
Suzanne O’Sullivan is a neurologist who sees many patients with psychosomatic disorders. Their symptoms may be psychological in origin, but their pain is real and physical — and the way…
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…
Human beings love to predict the future, but we’re quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all those bad predictions?
Reginald Dwayne Betts spent more than eight years in prison. Today he’s a Yale Law graduate, a MacArthur Fellow, and a poet. His nonprofit works to build libraries in prisons…
Dubner and Levitt are live onstage at the 92nd Street Y in New York to celebrate their new book “When to Rob a Bank” — and a decade of working…
In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss classroom design, open offices, and cognitive drift….
The former YouTube C.E.O. — and sixteenth Google employee — died on August 9, 2024. Steve talked with her in 2020 about her remarkable career, and how her background in…
…So what does Khan want to do next? How about reinventing in-school learning, too? Find out why Steve nearly moved to Silicon Valley to be part of Khan’s latest venture….
…the league’s players. Sue Bird tells Steve Levitt the untold truth about clutch players, her thoughts about the pay gap between male and female athletes, and what it means to…
Dubner and Levitt answer reader questions in this first installment of the Think Like a Freak Book Club….
If we want our kids to thrive in school, maybe we should just pay them.
With industries relying on them and profits to be made, weather forecasts are more precise and more popular than ever. But there are clouds on the horizon. Zachary Crockett grabs…
Sal Khan returns to discuss his innovative online high school’s first year — and Steve grills a member of the school’s class of 2026 about what it’s really like….
Giving up can be painful. That’s why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, leaky paint cans, broken sculptures — and a quest for the perfect…
Economists have a hard time explaining why productivity growth has been shrinking. One theory: true innovation has gotten much harder – and much more expensive. So what should we do…
The online universe doesn’t have nearly as many rules, or rulemakers, as the real world. Discuss.
Dubner and his Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt answer your questions about crime, traffic, real-estate agents, the Ph.D. glut, and how to not get eaten by a bear.
The gist: we spend billions on end-of-life healthcare that doesn’t do much good. So what if a patient could forego the standard treatment and get a cash rebate instead?
Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy — and frustrating — way for supply and demand to meet. Why haven’t we found a better way to get what we want?…
