Who Will Climb the Piano Stairs?
…the only people who pay attention to calorie counts, will only fit people take the piano stairs? What happens after the first lawsuit, when some commuter takes a nasty tumble…
No — but he does have a knack for stumbling into the perfect moment, including the recent FTX debacle. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, we revisit…
How do kids learn about money? What’s the big problem with education? And who made Raiders of the Lost Ark?…
…the only people who pay attention to calorie counts, will only fit people take the piano stairs? What happens after the first lawsuit, when some commuter takes a nasty tumble…
Even a brutal natural disaster doesn’t diminish our appetite for procreating. This surely means we’re heading toward massive overpopulation, right? Probably not.
…Produced (calculation) in 2011-12 (numbers from The NBA Geek). Thunder 2011-12 Games Played Minutes Played Wins Produced per 48 minutes (WP48) Wins Produced Kevin Durant 66 2546 0.226 11.97 James…
…business? Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have come down strongly on the side of therapy in their book Nudge. Thaler, one of the founders of behavioral economics, has spent much…
A lot of full-time jobs in the modern economy simply don’t pay a living wage. And even those jobs may be obliterated by new technologies. What’s to be done so…
Lewis got incredible access to Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire behind the spectacular FTX fraud. His book is a bestseller, but some critics say he went too easy on S.B.F. Lewis…
Lewis got incredible access to Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire behind the spectacular FTX fraud. His book is a bestseller, but some critics say he went too easy on S.B.F. Lewis…
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…
…Cade Massey and Richard Thaler, who find top draft picks to be seriously overvalued. Consider the data presented in the interactive graphic here, which reveals the average draft position for…
If you think talent and hard work give top athletes all the leverage to succeed, think again. As employees in the Sports-Industrial Complex, they’ve got a tight earnings window, a…
The documentary filmmaker, known for The Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball, turns his attention to the Holocaust, and asks what we can learn from the evils of the past….
The Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg wrote his new book in an attempt to learn how to communicate better. Steve shares how the book helped him understand his own…
Dubner and Levitt field your queries in this latest installment of our FREAK-quently Asked Questions….
Dollar-wise, the sports industry is surprisingly small, about the same size as the cardboard-box industry. So why does it make so much noise? Because it reflects — and often amplifies…
…plates, she asked again if we wanted complimentary dessert. No, we said, just coffee. As Trilby and I talked, I mentioned that I had not long ago interviewed Richard Thaler,…
…the “Nudge Unit,” after the excellent book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Thaler regularly consults for the unit; Sunstein, who recently exited government service here in the U.S.,…
The pandemic has hit America’s biggest city particularly hard. Amidst a deep fiscal hole, rising homicides, and a flight to the suburbs, some people think the city is heading back…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer and David Paterson….
Even a brutal natural disaster doesn’t diminish our appetite for procreating. This surely means we’re heading toward massive overpopulation, right? Probably not.
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…
Michael Roth of Wesleyan University doesn’t hang out with other university presidents. He also thinks some of them have failed a basic test of good sense and decency. It’s time…
Only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. Why? Research shows that female executives are more likely to be put in charge of firms that are already…
She used to run a behavioral unit in the Obama administration, and now has a similar role at Google. Maya and Steve talk about the power (and limits) of behavioral…
…outside the strike zone. To give an extreme example, the strike zone on 3–0 counts is 188 square inches larger than it is on 0–2 counts in MLB. That’s an…
As beloved and familiar as they are, we rarely stop to consider life from the dog’s point of view. That stops now. In this latest installment of the Freakonomics Radio…
Also: Is short-sightedness part of human nature?…
Harvard economist Raj Chetty uses tax data to study inequality, kid success, and social mobility. He explains why you should be careful when choosing your grade school teachers — and…
A conversation with 2008 Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Hidden Side of Sports.”…
