The Tax Man Nudgeth (Ep. 121)
…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.,…
Fareed Zakaria says yes. But it’s not just political revolution — it’s economic, technological, even emotional. He doesn’t offer easy solutions but he does offer some hope….
The former chairman of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisors tells Steve how improv comedy was a better training ground for teaching than a Ph.D. from M.I.T., and why…
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….
No — but he does have a knack for stumbling into the perfect moment, including the recent FTX debacle….
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…
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 “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.,…
…to the right of their pictures, the billboard will display the program’s live Twitter feed, nicely linking the broadcasters to the events they’re covering. One problem: apparently no one thought…
…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…
How do kids learn about money? What’s the big problem with education? And who made Raiders of the Lost Ark?…
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…
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…
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…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, and David Paterson….
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer and David Paterson….
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…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the former N.F.L. player, union official, and all-around sports thinker, recorded for our “Hidden Side of Sports” series….
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…
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…
…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 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…
Ecologist Suzanne Simard studies the relationships between trees in a forest: they talk to each other, punish each other, and depend on each other. What can we learn from them?
Broadway operates on a winner-take-most business model. A runaway hit like Stereophonic — which just won five Tony Awards — will create a few big winners. But even the stars…
…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,…
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…
