How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about junk food, insurance, and how to make an economist happy.
Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about certifying politicians, irrational fears, and the toughest three words in the English language.
What’s it like to wake up one day and realize Dad is a multi-billionaire? That’s what happened to Warren Buffett’s son, Peter — who then started to think about whether…
A team of economists has been running the numbers on the U.N.’s development goals. They have a different view of how those billions of dollars should be spent.
It isn’t easy to separate the guilty from the innocent, but a clever bit of game theory can help.
We spend billions on our pets, and one of the fastest-growing costs is pet “aftercare.” But are those cremated remains you got back really from your pet?…
Levitt and Dubner answer your questions about driving, sneezing, and ladies’ nights. Plus a remembrance of Levitt’s sister Linda.
We spend billions on our pets, and one of the fastest-growing costs is pet “aftercare.” But are those cremated remains you got back really from your pet?…
After struggling to schedule a flu shot for his own toddler, host Bapu Jena went down a research rabbit hole. He discovered that the time of year kids are born…
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…
Is art really meant to be an “asset class”? Will the digital revolution finally democratize a market that just keeps getting more elitist? And what will happen to the last…
Since doctors are human, they bring their own beliefs and preferences into the examining room. But they’ve also taken an oath to act in the best interest of all patients….
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…
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….
Hollywood loves stories of canine heroism. But can ordinary dogs really be heroes? To find out, Alexandra Horowitz talks to a dog-cognition researcher and to Susan Orlean, author of the…
Why are humans so eager for magic-bullet solutions? Can you explain how a pen works? And how does Angela feel about being forever branded “the grit lady”?…
The most expensive drugs in the world are treatments for genetic diseases. And more of these cures are on the horizon. How will anyone be able to afford them?…
But as C.E.O. of the resurgent Microsoft, he is firmly at the center of the A.I. revolution. We speak with him about the perils and blessings of A.I., Google vs….
…are bigger in Texas.) “‘A Fascinating, Sexy, Intellectually Compelling, Unregulated Global Market.’” (Ep. 484): The art market is so opaque and illiquid that it barely functions like a market at…
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman — a Nobel laureate and the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow — recently died at age 90. Along with his collaborator Amos Tversky, he changed…
Why are these 300-year-old instruments still coveted by violinists today? And how do working musicians get their hands on multimillion-dollar antiques? Zachary Crockett is not fiddling around….
Palliative physician B.J. Miller asks: Is there a better way to think about dying? And can death be beautiful?…
Districts across the country are facing shortages of school bus drivers. Can technology help? Zachary Crockett takes a seat in the back….
…‘public’. One fifth of children whose profile is public display their address and/or phone number, twice as many as for those with private profiles. However, children in the U.K. tended…
…and put them in hotels and drive them around and feed them? We aren’t complaining (last night was the first night in ages that one of my kids didn’t pounce…
…country and put them in hotels and drive them around and feed them? We aren’t complaining (last night was the first night in ages that one of my kids didn’t…
That’s because we just keep on posting. The typical blogger, like most people who go on diets and budgets, quits after a few months, weeks, or in many cases, days….
…was becoming heavily dependent on economic arguments, has become a prolific and well-remunerated expert witness. He has built a 1300-person research shop, LECG, to feed information to him and other…
…to generate a lot of interest and it fades without a trace; sometimes you post something that seems like no big deal and, for whatever reason, people care a lot….
