Seattle Is Frustrated By the NBA’s Command Economy
…is, though, a different approach (as I once discussed in this forum in 2011). Consider how Cardiff City and Kingston upon Hull have acquired an English Premier League (the top…
He’s one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, with a focus on the physiological effects of stress. (For years, he spent his summers in Kenya, alone except for the baboons he…
How did mobile kitchens become popular with hipster gourmands? And just how much money can a popular truck make from a lunch shift? Zachary Crocket drops some napkins.
There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day Tower of Babel? (Part 3 of the “Earth 2.0” series.)…
We often look to other countries for smart policies on education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. But can a smart policy be simply transplanted into a country as culturally unusual (and as…
The families of U.S. troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan are suing several companies that did reconstruction there. Why? These companies, they say, paid the Taliban protection money, which gave…
Twenty years ago, before the Freakonomics book tour, Bill McGowan taught Steve Levitt to speak in public. In his new book he tries to teach everyone else….
When Freakonomics co-authors Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner first met, one of them hated the other. Two decades later, Levitt grills Dubner about asking questions, growing the pie, and what…
Also: how did Angela do with her no-sugar challenge?…
When you want to get rid of a nasty pest, one obvious solution comes to mind: just offer a cash reward. But be careful — because nothing backfires quite like…
Also: why do we hoard? (Rebroadcast From Ep. 28)…
…is, though, a different approach (as I once discussed in this forum in 2011). Consider how Cardiff City and Kingston upon Hull have acquired an English Premier League (the top…
The human foot is an evolutionary masterpiece, far more functional than we give it credit for. So why do we encase it in “a coffin” (as one foot scholar calls…
John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly…
From baseball card conventions to Walmart, John List has always used field experiments to say revolutionary things about economics. He explains the value of an apology, why scaling shouldn’t be…
Districts across the country are facing shortages of school bus drivers. Can technology help? Zachary Crockett takes a seat in the back….
In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But for every winner, he came to realize, there are thousands upon thousands of losers — a “war…
A year ago, nobody was taking Andrew Yang very seriously. Now he is America’s favorite entrepre-nerd, with a candidacy that keeps gaining momentum. This episode includes our Jan. 2019 conversation…
A hit like Hamilton can come from nowhere while a sure bet can lose $20 million in a flash. We speak with some of the biggest producers in the game…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
When the computer scientist Ben Zhao learned that artists were having their work stolen by A.I. models, he invented a tool to thwart the machines. He also knows how to…
In this special episode of Freakonomics, M.D., host Bapu Jena looks at data from birthday parties, March Madness parties, and a Freakonomics Radio holiday party to help us all manage…
We are trapped in a world with far too few IRS audits. Law-abiding tax payers hate being audited and their representatives in Congress have heard the message loud and clear…
Thanks to legal settlements with drug makers and distributors, states have plenty of money to boost prevention and treatment. Will it work? (Part two of a two-part series.)…
Educational messaging looks good on paper but kids don’t respond to it — and adults aren’t much better.
…keep people safe, or just providing information to allow consumers to make their own decisions? One example of the disappointing results of the informational approach are the calorie counts required…
What happens when an existentially depressed and recently widowed young physicist from Queens gets a fresh start in California? We follow Richard Feynman out west, to explore his long and…
Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. In the N.F.L., the long snapper is proof of that argument. Here’s everything there is to know about a…
Did we needlessly scare ourselves into ditching a good thing? And, with millions of cars driving around with no passengers, should we be rooting for a renaissance?
No, it’s not your fault the economy crashed. Or that consumer preferences changed. Or that new technologies have blown apart your business model. But if you’re the C.E.O., it is…
