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.
804 episodes transcribedSure, we all pay lip service to the Madisonian system of checks and balances. But as one legal scholar argues, presidents have been running roughshod...
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, likes to say that most Americans are libertarians but don't know it yet. So why can't Li...
To you, it's just a ride-sharing app that gets you where you're going. But to an economist, Uber is a massive repository of moment-by-moment data that...
Internet pioneer Kevin Kelly tries to predict the future by identifying what's truly inevitable. How worried should we be? Yes, robots will probably t...
The gist: we spend billions on end-of-life healthcare that doesn’t do much good. So what if a patient could forego the standard treatment and get a ca...
The comedian, actor -- and now, author -- answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.
Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy - and frustrating - way for supply and demand to meet. Why haven't we found a better way to get what...
We seem to have decided that ethnic food tastes better when it's served by people of that ethnicity (or at least something close). Does this make sens...
We Americans may love our democracy -- at least in theory -- but at the moment our feelings toward the federal government lie somewhere between disdai...
Overt discrimination in the labor markets may be on the wane, but women are still subtly penalized by all sorts of societal conventions. How can those...
It's a remarkable ecosystem that allows each of us to exercise control over our lives. But how much control do we truly have? How many of our decision...
Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, has big ambitions but knows he must first master the small stuff. He's also a polymath who relies heavily on...
There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scrutiny. Freakonomics Radio digs through the numbers...
The U.S. president is often called the "leader of free world." But if you ask an economist or a Constitutional scholar how much the occupant...
There are all kinds of civics-class answers to that question. But how true are they? Could it be that we like to read about war, politics, and miscell...
Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?
You've seen them — everywhere! — and often clustered together, as if central planners across America decided that what every city really needs is a Ma...
Patrick Smith, the author of Cockpit Confidential, answers every question we can throw at him about what really happens up in the air. Just don't get...
When the uncelebrated Leicester City Football Club won the English Premier League, it wasn't just the biggest underdog story in recent history. It was...
Our Self-Improvement Month concludes with a man whose entire life and career are one big pile of self-improvement. Nutrition? Check. Bizarre physical...
