Freakonomics Radio
Thursday at 3pm and Sunday at Noon
Freakonomics Radio ferrets out connections between seemingly unrelated things. The program explores the riddles of everyday life and the weird wrinkles of human nature-from cheating and crime to parenting and sports-using the tools of economics to explore real-world behavior.
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Credit Audrey S. Bernstein
Host Stephen J. Dubner discovers the hidden side of everything in interviews with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, social scientists and entrepreneurs-and with his "Freakonomics" co-author Steve Levitt.
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Insurance forms that make no sense. Subscriptions that can’t be cancelled. A never-ending blizzard of automated notifications. Where does all this sludge come from — and how much is it costing us? (Part one of a two-part series.) The post Season 14, Episode 32 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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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 finds one of the few people in Washington who is willing to tell the truth — and it’s even worse than you think. The post Season 14, Episode 31 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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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 her enemies in some places, and big fans in others — including the Trump administration. Stephen Dubner speaks with Khan about her tactics, her track record, and her future. The post Season 14, Episode 30 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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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 the lab — and from the animator who made one the hero of a Pixar blockbuster. (Part three of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”) The post Season 14, Episode 29 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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Even with a new rat czar, an arsenal of poisons, and a fleet of new garbage trucks, it won’t be easy for New York City to win its war on rats — because, at root, the enemy is us. (Part two of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”) The post Season 14, Episode 28 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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New York City’s mayor calls rats “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence disputes that claim. So is the rat a scapegoat? And what does our rat hatred say about us? (Part one of a three-part series.) The post Season 14, Episode 27 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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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 legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth calls licensing boards “a thicket of self-dealing and ineptitude” and says they keep bad workers in their jobs and good ones out — while failing to protect the public. The post Season 14, Episode 26 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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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 also knows how to foil an eavesdropping Alexa and how to guard your online footprint. The big news, he says, is that the A.I. bubble is bursting. The post Season 14, Episode 25 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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The National Association of Realtors just lost a huge lawsuit. Their infamous commission model is under attack. And there are way too many of them. If they go the way of travel agents, will we miss them when they’re gone? The post Season 14, Episode 24 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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Running backs 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. We speak with an analytics guru, an agent, some former running backs (including LeSean McCoy), and the economist Roland Fryer (a former Pop Warner running back himself) to understand why. The post Season 14, Episode 23 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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We conclude our look at penicillin allergy. And later: We tend to think of medicine as a science, but for most of human history it has been scientific-ish at best. We look at the grotesque mistakes produced by centuries of trial-and-error, and ask whether the new era of evidence-based medicine is the solution. The post Season 14, Episode 22 appeared first on Freakonomics.
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Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billions of dollars and causes serious health problems, so why hasn’t it been fixed? And how about all the other things we think we’re allergic to? The post Season 14, Episode 21 appeared first on Freakonomics.