The Team
…Augusta Chapman Augusta is an associate producer for Freakonomics Radio. Before Freakonomics she studied documentary audio at the Salt Institute in Portland, Maine. She likes ambient music and detective fiction….
It takes a highly skilled stenographer — and some specialized equipment — to transcribe TV dialogue in real time at 300 words per minute. Will A.I. rewrite the script? Zachary…
…Augusta Chapman Augusta is an associate producer for Freakonomics Radio. Before Freakonomics she studied documentary audio at the Salt Institute in Portland, Maine. She likes ambient music and detective fiction….
In a conversation fresh from the Freakonomics Radio Network’s podcast laboratory, Michèle Flournoy (one of the highest-ranking women in Defense Department history) speaks with Cecil Haney (one of the U.S….
What if the thing we call “talent” is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson,…
Most epidemics flare up, do their damage, and fade away. This one has been raging for almost 30 years. To find out why, it’s time to ask some uncomfortable questions….
Jens Ludwig has an idea for how to fix America’s gun violence problem — and it starts by rejecting conventional wisdom from both sides of the political aisle.
Economists are a notoriously self-interested bunch. But a British outfit called Pro Bono Economics is giving away its services to selected charities.
Thinking of Bitcoin as just a digital currency is like thinking about the Internet as just email. Its potential is much more exciting than that.
…of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the historian Richard Cockett explores all those ideas — and how the arrival of fascism can ruin in a few years what took generations…
Three former White House economists weigh in on the new tax bill. A sample: “The overwhelming evidence is that the trickle-down, magic-beanstalk beans argument — that’s just nonsense.”
Breaking news! Sources say American journalism exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits, and social media algorithms add fuel to the fire. Stephen Dubner investigates….
Ellen Wiebe is a physician who helps seriously ill patients end their lives in Canada, where assisted suicide is legal. Is death a human right?
Over a decade ago, Swarthmore economist Fred Pryor wrote this fascinating article about reading through the records of the East German secret police who arrested him while he was doing…
Photo: ShuttrKing|KT Last week, we posted an essay by University of Chicago economist Allen R. Sanderson on why he thinks a “sin tax” should be levied against Division I college…
…data visualization. And so when #FedValentines lit up Twitter last week, she decided to go a step further, and provide the perfect valentine for the economist in your life. Make…
Here is a nice article from The Economist with a description of what the recent Nobel Prize in Economics is all about, as well as interesting personal facts about the…
You may remember Paul Feldman as the Bagel Man we wrote about in Freakonomics. You may also remember that he was an economist before he got into bagels, with an…
…feelings of being engaged (ditto). 11. I’m convinced that Twitter is essential for journalists. I remain skeptical that it is important for economists. And will Twitter make me a better…
In policing, as in most vocations, the best employees are often promoted into leadership without much training. One economist thinks he can address this problem — and, with it, America’s…
…fairness, the referee should have been a co-author. Anyway, when I asked the octogenarian economist if he could referee a paper for me, here is the response I received: Much…
…this nonsense. Not a right-wing economist, not a left-wing economist, and not even a two-handed economist. Critics might note (fairly) that we economists are often wrong. But when opinion is…
Artist Wendy MacNaughton knows the difficulty of sitting in silence and the power of having fun. She explains to Steve the lessons she’s gleaned from drawing hospice residents, working in…
Steve continues his conversation with his good friend, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, and fellow University of Chicago economist. Sendhil breaks down the hypothesis of his book Scarcity, explains why machines…
…potentially life-saving healthcare device? Americans aren’t used to rationing in medicine, but it’s time to think about it. We consult a lung specialist, a bioethicist, and (of course) an economist….
The pandemic moved a lot of religious activity onto the internet. With faith-based apps, Silicon Valley is turning virtual prayers into earthly rewards. Does this mean sharing user data? Dear…
For the more academically inclined among you, Princeton economist Angus Deaton offers his appraisal of the state of development economics. Deaton writes: The wholesale abandonment in American graduate schools of…
Tim Harford, a.k.a. the Undercover Economist (also a Financial Times columnist) has a new radio series on the BBC called Pop-Up Economics: The show is all about storytelling – and…
Paul Collier Paul Collier, an award-winning Oxford University economist, is a self-described Africanist who researches the effects of civil war, aid, and the “problems of democracy” in societies that have…
