Kidney failure is such a catastrophic (and expensive) disease that Medicare covers treatment for anyone, regardless of age. Since Medicare reimbursement rates are fairly low, the dialysis industry had to…
How much can you tell about someone from the first few seconds of a Zoom call? What did Stephen think of Angie when he first met her? And: a special…
Also: how do you avoid screwing up your kids?
It used to be that making documentary films meant taking a vow of poverty (and obscurity). The streaming revolution changed that. Award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler talks to Stephen Dubner about…
In this new addition to the Freakonomics Radio Network, co-hosts Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss the relationship between age and happiness. Also, does all creativity come from pain? New…
How did an affable 18th-century “moral philosopher” become the patron saint of cutthroat capitalism? Does “the invisible hand” mean what everyone thinks it does? We travel to Smith’s hometown in…
We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad decisions. Can this pattern be reversed? We try — with stories about…
The simplicity of life back then is appealing today, as long as you don’t mind Church hegemony, the occasional plague, trial by gossip — and the lack of ibuprofen. (Part…
Licensing began with medicine and law; now it extends to 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, including hair stylists and auctioneers. In a new book, the legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth…
Ken Goldberg is at the forefront of robotics — which means he tries to teach machines to do things humans find trivial….
They say they make companies more efficient through savvy management. Critics say they bend the rules to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and employees. Can they both be…
He’s been U.S. Treasury Secretary, a chief economist for the Obama White House and the World Bank, and president of Harvard. He’s one of the most brilliant economists of his…
…by amounts far greater than any possible revenue gains. Tobacco taxes only cover about 20 percent of tobacco-related costs, and alcohol taxes only cover about 10 percent of alcohol-related costs….
A reporter friend of mine recently asked me for a short list of academic economists he should call to better understand the current financial and economic mess. I found it…
Author and YouTuber John Green thought his breakout bestseller wouldn’t be a commercial success, wrote 40,000 words for one sentence, and brought Steve to tears.
Photo: neoliminal I recently switched banks, to Chase. So far, it’s been a pretty good experience. Indeed, the bank does a lot of very good things from a customer-service perspective….
Last Bob in sports? (Photo: Bradjward) Jon Bois at SB Nation writes about the disappearance of Bobs in sports: Across the histories of Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA,…
David Stern ran roughshod over owners during the recent NBA lockout negotiations. He was willing to levy stiff fines for any public comments that might undermine an image of management…
East St. Louis, faced with budget shortfalls, will lay off 30% of its police force (19 of its 62 officers) after negotiations with the union failed.? City residents and police…
The winner of food writer Michael Ruhlman‘s “BLT from Scratch Challenge,” Jared Dunnohew, harvested his own salt from sea water (25 liters for one kilo of salt), smoked his own…
When the crime statistics for 2006 were released, the news media had no trouble declaring that the next big crime wave had hit (even though violent crime had just ticked…
In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized how his profession does research — is trying to start a scaling revolution….
Museums are purging their collections of looted treasures. Can they also get something in return? And what does it mean to be a museum in the 21st century? (Part 3…
Three leading researchers from the Mount Sinai Health System discuss how ketamine, cannabis and ecstasy are being used (or studied) to treat everything from severe depression to addiction to PTSD….
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…
Same for Nigerians seeking to transfer millions of dollars to me (if I give them my bank account number). I haven’t gotten one of these in a year, after often…
The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failures catalogs the fiscal, sexual, and mental lapses of federal workers — all with an eye toward preventing the next big mistake….
Here’s concrete proof: an article in the new issue of Newsweek is headlined “Economics: Sexiest Trade Alive,” and credits Freakonomics with leading the way….
…to Denise goes her choice of swag. Congrats! I spent my undergrad years at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. It is pretty far from everything. Because I had no…
Khan Academy grew out of Sal Khan’s online math tutorials for his extended family. It’s now a platform used by more than 115 million people in 190 countries. So what…
