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. To get every show in our network without ads and a monthly bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio, sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts at http://apple.co/SiriusXM.
907 episodes transcribedNot exactly. But their runaway success with games like Wordle says something bigger about the way we live now. (Part one of a series, “We Are All Game...
Great. Then depressed. Then great again. Stephen Dubner gets the full story from David Lang; we also hear from some fans, and the New York Philharmoni...
Economists and politicians have turned him into a mascot for free-market ideology. Some on the left say the right has badly misread him. In this updat...
That’s what the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang wanted to learn. So he turned Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations into an oratorio. We tag a...
Epic Systems manages the electronic health records for hundreds of millions of people. This makes Faulkner a healthcare heavyweight and one of the mos...
New York City’s mayor called them “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence dispu...
One possibility: a leading hypothesis pursued by researchers (and funders) was built on science that now appears to be fraudulent. Stephen Dubner spea...
How do beekeepers make a living? Why is there so much honey fraud? And why did billions of bees suddenly disappear? To find out, guest host Steve Levi...
Nearly everything that politicians say about taxes is at least half a lie. They are also dishonest when it comes to the national debt. In this update...
Is it tradition … or protectionism? And what happens when the bourbon boom turns into a glut? SOURCES: Andrew Muhammad, agricultural economi...
As one researcher told us: “We’ve engineered a world where the most distracting device ever made is also the one we use to listen to music in the car....
In blue cities across the country, unions and politicians want to ban self-driving cars. In this episode from the Search Engine podcast, PJ Vogt visit...
How a secret project at Google led to driverless cars on American roads. Freakonomics Radio shares a story from our friends at Search Engine. (Part o...
A ruthless (and ruthlessly efficient) industry is using digital tools to supercharge one of the world’s oldest behaviors. We look at how the industry...
Economists don’t usually talk about “culture.” But Joel Mokyr argues that it’s the engine of innovation — and the Nobel Prize committee agreed. Stephe...
Just beneath the surface of the global economy, there is a hidden layer of dealmakers for whom war, chaos, and sanctions can be a great business oppor...
... of bad reviews, meager financing, or artificial intelligence. But he is worried that the world is full of sloppy thinkers who mistake facts for th...
Existing drugs can sometimes be repurposed to treat rare diseases. But making that match can be hard — and the financial incentives are weak. Guest ho...
When Richard Thaler first published Nudge, the world was just starting to believe in his brand of behavioral economics. In this 2021 episode, we ask:...
The science says no, at least not in the athletic sense. But the psychic benefits can be large — just ask former N.F.L. star Ricky Williams. He says a...
