Steve Levitt talks about why the center cannot hold in penalty kicks, why a running track hurts home-field advantage, and why the World Cup is an economist’s dream.
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?
If we want our kids to thrive in school, maybe we should just pay them.
The left and the right blame each other for pretty much everything, including slanted media coverage. Can they both be right?
The thrill of customization, via Pandora, and a radical new teaching method.
To get a lot of followers on Twitter, do you need to follow a lot of other Tweeps? And if not, why not?
Dubner and Levitt answer reader questions in this first installment of the Think Like a Freak Book Club….
The online universe doesn’t have nearly as many rules, or rulemakers, as the real world. Discuss.
Dubner and Levitt talk about fixing the post office, putting cameras in the classroom, and wearing hats.
The online universe doesn’t have nearly as many rules, or rulemakers, as the real world. Discuss.
Levitt and Dubner answer your questions about driving, sneezing, and ladies’ nights. Plus a remembrance of Levitt’s sister Linda.
Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt talk about their new book and field questions about prestige, university life, and (yum yum) bacon.
Chicago has given the world more than sausage, crooked politics and Da Bears.
College tends to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier. But how?
There are enough management consultants these days to form a small nation. But what do they actually do? And does it work?
There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. A variety of Olympic and professional athletes tell us how they made it and…
The White House is hosting an anti-terror summit next week. Summits being what they are, we try to offer some useful advice.
Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative risks?
…global corporations to explore how they can better meet society’s demands. And she explains to Steve why, even as a Harvard and Oxford-educated economist, her goal in life might sound…
A lot of the conventional wisdom in medicine is nothing more than hunch or wishful thinking. A new breed of data detectives is hoping to change that.
He’s the C.E.O. of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which, under his charge, exposed the most celebrated American cyclist as a cheater. And Steve’s been studying cheaters for the…
We all know the answer is yes. But the data — and Rudy Giuliani — say no.
Also: Does knowing your family history affect your identity?…
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…
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?
Stanford professor Carolyn Bertozzi’s imaginative ideas for treating disease have led to ten start-ups. She talks with Steve about the next generation of immune therapy she’s created, and why she…
Naturalist Sy Montgomery explains how she learned to be social from a pig, discovered octopuses have souls, and came to love a killer that will never love her back.
