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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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.
To get Plus episodes, you can sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts here.
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.)
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