Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than drive a car? How do we decide whom to marry? Why is the media so full of bad news? Also: things you never knew you wanted to know about wolves, bananas, pollution, search engines, and the quirks of human behavior.
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Everyone makes mistakes. How do we learn from them? Lessons from the classroom, the Air Force, and the world’s deadliest infectious disease.
Giving up can be painful. That’s why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, leaky paint cans, broken sculptures — and a quest for the perfect bowl of ramen.
In medicine, failure can be catastrophic. It can also produce discoveries that save millions of lives. Tales from the front line, the lab, and the I.T. department.
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 wildfires, school shootings, and love.
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 capturing Billie Eilish’s musical genius and Martha Stewart’s vulnerability — and why he really, really, really needs to make a film about the New York Mets.
A backstage conversation with Jeffrey Seller, producer of Rent, Avenue Q, and Hamilton. To get Plus episodes, become a member at Apple Podcasts or at freakonomics.com/plus.
It’s been in development for five years and has at least a year to go. On the eve of its out-of-town debut, the actor playing Lincoln quit. And the producers still need to raise another $15 million to bring the show to New York. There really is no business like show business. (Part three of a three-part series.)
In an episode from 2012, we looked at what Sleep No More and the Stanford Prison Experiment can tell us about who we really are.
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 — Sonia Friedman, Jeffrey Seller, Hal Luftig — and learn that there is only one guarantee: the theater owners always win. (Part two of a three-part series.)
It has become fiendishly expensive to produce, and has more competition than ever. And yet the believers still believe. Why? And does the world really want a new musical about … Abraham Lincoln?! (Part one of a three-part series.)
Why do so many promising solutions in education, medicine, and criminal justice fail to scale up into great policy? And can a new breed of “implementation scientists” crack the code?
There is no sludgier place in America than Washington, D.C. But there are signs of a change. We’ll hear about this progress — and ask where Elon Musk and DOGE fit in. (Part two of a two-part series.)
Insurance forms that make no sense. Subscriptions that can’t be cancelled. A never-ending blizzard of automated notifications. Where does all this sludge come from — and how much is it costing us? (Part one of a two-part series.)
A full-length conversation with Robert Sullivan, who wrote the best book on rats you’ll ever read. To get subscriber-only episodes, become a member at Apple Podcasts or at freakonomics.com/plus.
The quirky little grocery chain with California roots and German ownership has a lot to teach all of us about choice architecture, efficiency, frugality, collaboration, and team spirit.
Nearly everything that politicians say about taxes is at least half a lie. They are also dishonest when it comes to the national debt. Stephen Dubner finds one of the few people in Washington who is willing to tell the truth — and it’s even worse than you think.
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 others — including the Trump administration. Stephen Dubner speaks with Khan about her tactics, her track record, and her future.
It’s a powerful biological response that has preserved our species for millennia. But now it may be keeping us from pursuing strategies that would improve the environment, the economy, even our own health. So is it time to dial down our disgust reflex? You can help fix things — as Stephen Dubner does in this 2021 episode — by chowing down on some delicious insects.
To most people, the rat is vile and villainous. But not to everyone! We hear from a scientist who befriended rats and another who worked with them in the lab — and from the animator who made one the hero of a Pixar blockbuster. (Part three of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”)
Hear how Jan Pinkava created Ratatouille. To get Plus episodes, become a member at Apple Podcasts or at freakonomics.com/plus.
Even with a new rat czar, an arsenal of poisons, and a fleet of new garbage trucks, it won’t be easy — because, at root, the enemy is us. (Part two of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”)
A brief meditation on loss, relativity, and the vagaries of show business.
New York City’s mayor calls them “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence disputes that claim. So is the rat a scapegoat? And what does our rat hatred say about us? (Part one of a three-part series.)
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 calls licensing boards “a thicket of self-dealing and ineptitude” and says they keep bad workers in their jobs and good ones out — while failing to protect the public.
In 2023, the N.F.L. players’ union conducted a workplace survey that revealed clogged showers, rats in the locker room — and some insights for those of us who don’t play football. Today we’re updating that episode, with extra commentary from Omnipresent Football Guy (and former Philadelphia Eagle) Jason Kelce.
They used to be the N.F.L.’s biggest stars, with paychecks to match. Now their salaries are near the bottom, and their careers are shorter than ever. We speak with an analytics guru, an agent, some former running backs (including LeSean McCoy), and the economist Roland Fryer (a former Pop Warner running back himself) to understand why.
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 foil an eavesdropping Alexa and how to guard your online footprint. The big news, he says, is that the A.I. bubble is bursting.
Stephen Dubner, live on stage, mixes it up with outbound mayor London Breed, and asks economists whether A.I. can be “human-centered” and if Tang is a gateway drug.
Medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhail explains the rapid rise in allergies over the last few decades.
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Their trade organization just lost a huge lawsuit. Their infamous commission model is under attack. And there are way too many of them. If they go the way of travel agents, will we miss them when they’re gone?
Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billions of dollars and causes serious health problems, so why hasn’t it been fixed? And how about all the other things we think we’re allergic to?
Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from prescription glasses to highway signs — often for pennies an hour. Zachary Crockett takes the next exit, in this special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things.
Probably not — the incentives are too strong. But a few reformers are trying. We check in on their progress, in an update to an episode originally published last year. (Part 2 of 2)
Some of the biggest names in behavioral science stand accused of faking their results. Last year, an astonishing 10,000 research papers were retracted. In a series originally published in early 2024, we talk to whistleblowers, reformers, and a co-author who got caught up in the chaos. (Part 1 of 2)
David Eagleman upends myths and describes the vast possibilities of a brainscape that even neuroscientists are only beginning to understand. Steve Levitt interviews him in this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire.
Adam Moss was the best magazine editor of his generation. When he retired, he took up painting. But he wasn’t very good, and that made him sad. So he wrote a book about how creative people work— and, in the process, he made himself happy again.
Retail expert Mark Cohen explains the social, economic, and cultural forces behind the decline of department stores like Sears and Macy’s. To get Plus episodes, sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Ezekiel Emanuel, the policymaking physician and medical gadfly, we discuss the massive effects of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. We also talk about the state of cancer care, mysteries in the gut microbiome, flaws in the U.S. healthcare system — and what a second Trump term means for healthcare policy.
Last week, we heard a former U.S. ambassador describe Russia’s escalating conflict with the U.S. Today, we revisit a 2019 episode about an overlooked front in the Cold War — a “farms race” that, decades later, still influences what Americans eat.
John J. Sullivan, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador, says yes: “Our politicians aren’t leading — Republicans or Democrats.” He gives a firsthand account of a fateful Biden-Putin encounter, talks about his new book Midnight in Moscow, and predicts what a second Trump term means for Russia, Ukraine, China — and the U.S.
Macy’s wants to recapture its glorious past. The author of the Wimpy Kid books wants to rebuild his dilapidated hometown. We just want to listen in. (Part two of a two-part series.)
The 166-year-old chain, which is fighting extinction, calls the parade its “gift to the nation.” With 30 million TV viewers, it’s also a big moneymaker. At least we think it is — Macy’s is famously tight-lipped about parade economics. We try to loosen them up. (Part one of a two-part series.)
It’s true that robots (and other smart technologies) will kill many jobs. It may also be true that newer collaborative robots (“cobots”) will totally reinvigorate how work gets done. That, at least, is what the economists are telling us. Should we believe them?
The author and Economist editor examines how alcohol has shaped society. And we ask, could the U.K.’s drinking culture ever be replaced by cannabis culture? To get Plus episodes, sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts.
After a dramatic election, Donald Trump has returned from exile. We hear what to expect at home and abroad — and what to do if you didn’t vote for Trump.
Some people want the new cannabis economy to look like the craft-beer movement. Others are hoping to build the Amazon of pot. And one expert would prefer a government-run monopoly. We listen in as they fight it out. (Part four of a four-part series.)
Chris Weld worked for years in emergency rooms, then ditched that career and bought an old farm in Massachusetts. He set up a distillery and started making prize-winning spirits. When cannabis was legalized, he jumped into that too — and the first few years were lucrative. But now? It turns out that growing, processing, and selling weed is more complicated than it looks. He gave us the grand tour. (Part three of a four-part series.)
With abortion on the Nov. 5 ballot, we look back at Steve Levitt’s controversial research about an unintended consequence of Roe v. Wade.
There are a lot of reasons, including heavy regulations, high taxes, and competition from illegal weed shops. Most operators are losing money and waiting for Washington to get out of the way. In the meantime, it’s not that easy being green. (Part two of a four-part series.)
We have always been a nation of drinkers — but now there are more daily users of cannabis than alcohol. Considering alcohol’s harms, maybe that’s a good thing. But some people worry that the legalization of cannabis has outpaced the research. (Part one of a four-part series.)
Jim Rooney discusses his father Dan Rooney’s legacy, from revolutionizing the N.F.L. business model to finding a winning edge for the Steelers by doing the right thing. To get Plus episodes, sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts.
Are betting markets more accurate than polls? What kind of chaos would a second Trump term bring? And is U.S. democracy really in danger, or just “sputtering on”? (Part two of a two-part series.)
Sure, we all pay lip service to the Madisonian system of checks and balances. But presidents have been steadily expanding the reach of the job. With an election around the corner, we updated our 2016 conversation with the legal scholar Eric Posner — who has some good news and some not-so-good news about the power of the presidency. (Part one of a two-part series.)
Sixty percent of the jobs that Americans do today didn’t exist in 1940. What happens as our labor becomes more technical and less physical? And what kinds of jobs will exist in the future?
His research on police brutality and school incentives won him acclaim, but also enemies. He was suspended for two years by Harvard, during which time he took a hard look at corporate diversity programs. As a follow-up to our recent series on the Rooney Rule, we revisit our 2022 conversation with the controversial economist.
What happened when the Rooney Rule made its way from pro football to corporate America? Some progress, some backsliding, and a lot of controversy. (Second in a two-part series.)
The biggest sports league in history had a problem: While most of its players were Black, almost none of its head coaches were. So the N.F.L. launched a hiring policy called the Rooney Rule. In the first episode of a two-part series, we look at how the rule succeeded — until it failed.
We revisit an episode from 2016 that asks: Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be taken care of?
Young people have been reporting a sharp rise in anxiety and depression. This maps neatly onto the global rise of the smartphone. Some researchers are convinced that one is causing the other. But how strong is the evidence?
The former president of Brown, Smith, and Prairie View A&M has some thoughts on higher education. To get Plus episodes, sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts.
Only a tiny number of “supertaskers” are capable of doing two things at once. The rest of us are just making ourselves miserable, and less productive. How can we put the — hang on a second, I’ve just got to get this.
Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially for men, and how to stop the bleeding. (Part 3 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)
Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success could never teach.
America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply? (Part 2 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)
We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges also operate like firms, trying to differentiate their products to win market share and prestige points. In the first episode of a special series originally published in 2022, we ask what our chaotic system gets right — and wrong. (Part 1 of “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)
There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics come to a close, we revisit a 2018 episode in which top athletes from a variety of sports tell us how they made it, and what they sacrificed.
Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and now the president of Fordham University, thinks the modern campus could use a dose of old-fashioned values.
Stephen Dubner talks with Columbia Law professor and antitrust expert Tim Wu.
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It’s not oil or water or plutonium — it’s human hours. We’ve got an idea for putting them to use, and for building a more human-centered economy. But we need your help.
A new proposal from the Biden administration calls for a nationwide cap on rent increases. Economists think that’s a terrible idea. We revisit a 2019 episode to hear why.
That’s the worry. Even the humble eyeglass industry is dominated by a single firm. We look into the global spike in myopia, how the Lemtosh got its name, and what your eye doctor knows that you don’t. (Part two of a two-part series.)
A single company, EssilorLuxottica, owns so much of the eyewear industry that it’s hard to escape their gravitational pull — or their “obscene” markups. Should regulators do something? Can Warby Parker steal market share? And how did Ray-Bans become a luxury brand? (Part one of a two-part series.)
You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done. In an interview from 2018, the founder of behavioral economics describes his unlikely route to success; his reputation for being lazy; and his efforts to fix the world — one nudge at a time.
Daniel Kahneman left his mark on academia (and the real world) in countless ways. A group of his friends and colleagues recently gathered in Chicago to reflect on this legacy — and we were there, with microphones.
American politics is trapped in a duopoly, with two all-powerful parties colluding to stifle competition. We revisit a 2018 episode to explain how the political industry works, and talk to a reformer (and former presidential candidate) who is pushing for change.
We revisit an episode about whether a multi-billion dollar industry is effective.
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It’s hard to know whether the benefits of hiring a celebrity are worth the risk. We dig into one gruesome story of an endorsement gone wrong, and find a surprising result.
Stephen Dubner talks with three of the people responsible for the Tony-winning play Stereophonic.
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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 of the show will have to go elsewhere to make real money. (Part two of a two-part series.)
The Berlin dance mecca Berghain is known for its eight-hour line and inscrutable door policy. PJ Vogt, host of the podcast Search Engine, joins us to crack the code. It has to do with Cold War rivalries, German tax law, and one very talented bouncer.
Stephen Dubner talks with the transportation scholar Kelcie Ralph about why so many pedestrians are killed on America’s roads.
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Hit by Covid, runaway costs, and a zillion streams of competition, serious theater is in serious trouble. A new hit play called Stereophonic — the most Tony-nominated play in history — has something to say about that. We speak with the people who make it happen every night. (Part one of a two-part series.)
Revisiting an episode about parenting, travel, luck, and why we should all spend more time on YouTube.
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Every December, a British man named Tom Whitwell publishes a list of 52 things he’s learned that year. These fascinating facts reveal the spectrum of human behavior, from fraud and hypocrisy to Whitwell’s steadfast belief in progress. Should we also believe?
An update of our 2020 series, in which we spoke with physicians, researchers, and addicts about the root causes of the crisis — and the tension between abstinence and harm reduction.
Stephen Dubner speaks with Pfizer corporate responsibility chief Caroline Roan.
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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.)
Stephen Dubner talks with addiction doctor Stephen Loyd about Loyd’s own experience with addiction, and how we should approach recovery in the U.S.
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Most epidemics flare up, do their damage, and fade away. This one has been raging for almost 30 years. To find out why, it’s time to ask some uncomfortable questions. (Part one of a two-part series.)
Presenting two stories from The Economics of Everyday Things: Why does it seem like every car is black, white, or gray these days? And: How self-storage took over America.
Stephen Dubner talked to the economist and social critic in 2020 about whether Black Americans should receive government payments for the lasting damages of slavery.
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The economist and social critic Glenn Loury has led a remarkably turbulent life, both professionally and personally. In a new memoir, he has chosen to reveal just about everything. Why?
Stephen Dubner appears on Alan Alda’s podcast Clear + Vivid to discuss their mutual hero Richard Feynman.
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The employee ownership movement is growing, and one of its biggest champions is also a private equity heavyweight. Is this meaningful change, or just window dressing?
How did Germany prevent globalization from destroying its manufacturing sector when so many other countries — including the U.S. — failed? We revisit an episode from the Freakonomics Radio archive to figure out what we might learn from an economic success story.
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From politics and economics to psychology and the arts, many of the modern ideas we take for granted emerged a century ago from a single European capital. In this episode of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the historian Richard Cockett explores all those ideas — and how the arrival of fascism can ruin in a few years what took generations to build.
Five years ago, we published an episode about the boom in home DNA testing kits, focusing on the high-flying firm 23andMe and its C.E.O. Anne Wojcicki. Their flight has been extremely bumpy since then. This update includes an additional interview with the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been investigating the firm’s collapse.
Long before the world knew what a “universal basic income” was, Canada experimented with giving poor households extra money. We dig back into the Freakonomics Radio archive to see what happened — and what it means for the U.B.I. movement.
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Justin Trudeau, facing record-low approval numbers, is doubling down on his progressive agenda. But he is so upbeat (and Canada-polite) that it’s easy to miss just how radical his vision is. Can he make it work?
Stephen Dubner joins Voices of Esalen host Sam Stern to talk about Richard Feynman.
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