…the producers still need to raise another $15 million to bring the show to New York. There really is no business like show business. (Part three of a three-part series.)…
…hearing Shaun’s insights. Q. Aristotle said that every new idea builds on something earlier by hiding/transforming it. What’s old and what’s “new” in crowdstorming? A. The main newness is the…
Hit by Covid, runaway costs, and a zillion streams of competition, serious theater is in serious trouble. A new hit play called Stereophonic — the most Tony-nominated play in history…
Young people have been reporting a sharp rise in anxiety and depression. This maps neatly onto the global rise of the smartphone. Some researchers are convinced that one is causing…
What do a computer hacker, an Indiana farm boy, and Napoleon Bonaparte have in common? The past, present, and future of food science.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz combs through mountains of information to find advice for everyday life….
…people make so many of them. (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or read the transcript here.) But recent news out of Italy seems to take the…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
Is evolution stacked against healthy eating? What policies could increase demand for nutritious food? And does Popeyes count as a cultural icon?…
Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially for men, and how to stop the bleeding. (Part 3 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics…
Economists and politicians have turned him into a mascot for free-market ideology. Some on the left say the right has badly misread him. Prepare for a very Smithy tug of…
We seem to have decided that ethnic food tastes better when it’s served by people of that ethnicity (or at least something close). Does this make sense — and is…
We seem to have decided that ethnic food tastes better when it’s served by people of that ethnicity (or at least something close). Does this make sense — and is…
By mid-century, 10 million people a year are projected to die from untreatable infections. Can Cassandra, an ethnobotanist at Emory University convince Steve that herbs and ancient healing are key…
From politics and economics to psychology and the arts, many of the modern ideas we take for granted emerged a century ago from a single European capital. In this episode…
The pandemic may be winding down, but that doesn’t mean we’ll return to full-time commuting and packed office buildings. The greatest accidental experiment in the history of labor has lessons…
Guest host Adam Davidson looks at what might happen to your job in a world of human-level artificial intelligence, and asks when it might be time to worry that the…
From politics and economics to psychology and the arts, many of the modern ideas we take for granted emerged a century ago from a single European capital. In this episode…
Justin Trudeau, facing record-low approval numbers, is doubling down on his progressive agenda. But he is so upbeat (and Canada-polite) that it’s easy to miss just how radical his vision…
Experts and pundits are notoriously bad at forecasting, in part because they aren’t punished for bad predictions. Also, they tend to be deeply unscientific. The psychologist Philip Tetlock is finally…
In their chase for a global audience, American movie studios spend billions to make their films look amazing. But almost none of those dollars stay in America. What would it…
We explore the science, scalability, and (of course) economics surrounding the global vaccine race. Guests include the chief medical officer of the first U.S. firm to go to Phase 3…
The public has almost no chance to buy good tickets to the best events. Ticket brokers, meanwhile, make huge profits on the secondary markets. Here’s the story of how this…
It’s not oil or water or plutonium — it’s human hours. We’ve got an idea for putting them to use, and for building a more human-centered economy. But we need…
Lina Khan, the youngest F.T.C. chair in history, reset U.S. antitrust policy by thwarting mega-mergers and other monopolistic behavior. This earned her enemies in some places, and big fans in…
Stephen Dubner’s conversations with members of the San Francisco 49ers offense, recorded for Freakonomics Radio episode No. 350, part of the “Hidden Side of Sports” series….
Organized labor hasn’t had this much public support in 50 years, and yet the percentage of Americans in a union is near a record low. A.F.L-C.I.O. president Liz Shuler tries…
…Why did whale hunting die out here — and continue to grow elsewhere? And is that whale vomit in your perfume? (Part 1 of “Everything You Never Knew About Whaling.”)…
No. But now is a good time to sort out the potential from the hype. Whether you’re bullish, bearish, or just confused, we’re here to explain what the blockchain can…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
