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.
839 episodes transcribedThink you know how much parents matter? Think again. Economists crunch the numbers to learn the ROI on child-rearing.
We worship the tradition of handing off a family business to the next generation. But is that really such a good idea?
In restaurants and in life, bad things happen. But what happens next is just as important.
"Conspicuous conservation" is about showing off your environmental bona fides. In other words, if you lean green, there's extra value in bei...
Freakonomics Radio hits the road, and plays some Quiz Bowl
What did Levitt and Dubner learn as kids from their dads?
Who is likelier to get to the fugitive first? When a fugitive is on the run, it’s not only the police he has to worry about. A bounty hunter could be...
What’s it like to wake up one day and realize Dad is a multi-billionaire? That's what happened to Warren Buffett’s son Peter -- who then started to th...
Does Las Vegas increase your risk of suicide? A researcher embeds himself in the city where Americans are most likely to kill themselves.
In our second round of FREAK-quently Asked Questions, Steve Levitt answers some queries from listeners and readers.
It won’t work for everyone, but there’s a cheap, quick, and simple way to lift some students’ grades.
We talk to a U.S. Geological Survey physicist about the science -- and folly -- of predicting earthquakes. There are lots of known knowns; and, fortun...
Fire deaths in the U.S. have fallen 90 percent over the past 100 years, a great and greatly underappreciated gain. How did it happen -- and could we e...
For decades, GDP has been the yardstick for measuring living standards around the world. Martha Nussbaum would rather use something that actually work...
To get a lot of followers on Twitter, do you need to follow a lot of other Tweeps? And if not, why not?
Since the beginning of civilization, we’ve thought that human waste was worthless and dangerous. What if we were wrong?
Five things you don’t know about the NFL labor standoff
Could it be that cities are "our greatest invention" -- that, despite a reputation as black-soot-spewing engines of doom, they in fact make...
It's not about how much something hurts -- it's how you remember the pain. This week, lessons on pain from the New York City subway, the professional...
What do a computer hacker, an Indiana farm boy, and Napoleon Bonaparte have in common? The past, present, and future of food science.
