Flying in the U.S. is still exceptionally safe, but the system relies on outdated tech and is under tremendous strain. Six experts tell us how it got this way and…
Half the world’s population uses social media — and a new study suggests that it causes anxiety and depression. Can anything be done, or is it too late?…
Uri Simonsohn is a behavioral science professor who wants to improve standards in his field — so he’s made a sideline of investigating fraudulent academic research. He tells Steve Levitt,…
Photo: nxusco J.C. Bradbury is a long-time friend and contributor to the Freakonomics blog. An associate professor of economics at Kennesaw State University, Bradbury is the author of two books…
Our latest full-length podcasts are “You Eat What You Are,” Parts 1 and 2. They were inspired in part by Tyler Cowen‘s latest book An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules…
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…
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…
Celiac disease is thought to affect roughly one percent of the population. The good news: it can be treated by quitting gluten. The bad news: many celiac patients haven’t been…
Does instinct trump expertise? Can playing poker improve your intuition? And why did Angela jump off of a moving trolley car?…
They can’t vote or hire lobbyists. The policies we create to help them aren’t always so helpful. Consider the car seat: parents hate it, the safety data are unconvincing, and…
A conversation with the Shark Tank star, entrepreneur, and Dallas Mavericks owner recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Hidden Side of Sports.”…
It’s hard to know whether the benefits of hiring a celebrity are worth the risk. We dig into one gruesome story of an endorsement gone wrong, and find a surprising…
We’d love to hear from you! But first — are you here looking for a transcript? Complete transcripts for every episode of every podcast are available on this website. Choose…
…cutting room floor in the other time zones. So here is the transcript… Copyright 2005 National Broadcasting Co. Inc. All Rights Reserved NBC News Transcripts SHOW: Today 7:00 AM EST…
…our latest podcast, “The Church of Scionology,” tries to answer. (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or read the transcript here.) Stanford economist Francisco Pérez-González has looked…
…doesn’t feel like work.” But Barkley’s description provides some insight about what’s really motivating his weight loss. From the transcript, I’m guessing that the group weigh-in is not a large…
It’s an acutely haphazard way of paying workers, and yet it keeps expanding. We dig into the data to find out why.
In this episode, we speculate what would happen if economists got to run the world. Hear from a high-end call girl; an Estonian who ran his country according to the…
…may also be true that newer collaborative robots (“cobots”) will totally reinvigorate how work gets done. That, at least, is what the economists are telling us. Should we believe them?…
…may also be true that newer collaborative robots (“cobots”) will totally reinvigorate how work gets done. That, at least, is what the economists are telling us. Should we believe them?…
It’s a centerpiece of U.S. climate policy and a sacred cow among environmentalists. Does it work?
Jonathan Levin is an academic economist who now runs one of the most influential universities in the world. He tells Steve how he saved Comcast a billion dollars, why he…
Hollywood loves stories of canine heroism. But can ordinary dogs really be heroes? To find out, Alexandra Horowitz talks to a dog-cognition researcher and to Susan Orlean, author of the…
In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan talk about unfinished tasks, recurring arguments, and Irish goodbyes….
Does having more health information actually change behavior? To test this question, host Bapu Jena explores whether doctors make healthier choices than the rest of us (and he fesses up…
In the early 20th century, Max Weber argued that Protestantism created wealth. Finally, there are data to prove if he was right. All it took were some missionary experiments in…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
…very pleased about the back-and-forthing on the estate-tax law in the U.S. Here’s how we laid it out in SuperFreakonomics: In the United States, the rate in recent years was…
…Oklahoma. The median value was $4.66/mile. In comparison, the standard federal reimbursement rate for fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile in 2011 was $0.51/mile. From 1997 to 2011,…
