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.
885 episodes transcribedWhy do so many promising solutions in education, medicine, and criminal justice fail to scale up into great policy? And can a new breed of “implementa...
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...
Insurance forms that make no sense. Subscriptions that can’t be cancelled. A never-ending blizzard of automated notifications. Where does all this slu...
The quirky little grocery chain with California roots and German ownership has a lot to teach all of us about choice architecture, efficiency, frugali...
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...
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 he...
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 imp...
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...
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 brief meditation on loss, relativity, and the vagaries of show business.RESOURCES:Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, documentary (2021)Geni...
New York City’s mayor calls them “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence disput...
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...
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 o...
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....
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...
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...
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...
Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billio...
Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from prescription glasses to highway signs — often for pennies an hour. Za...
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 pub...
