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Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to

Episodes

Total: 853

Cory Booker on the politics of fear, the politics of hope, and how to split the difference. SOURCES:

In the U.S., there will soon be more people over 65 than there are under 18 — and it’s not just life

In this episode from 2013, we look at whether spite pays — and if it even exists. SOURCES:Benedikt H

The simplicity of life back then is appealing today, as long as you don’t mind Church hegemony, the

For decades, the great fear was overpopulation. Now it’s the opposite. How did this happen — and wha

A famous essay argues that “not a single person on the face of this earth” knows how to make a penci

Nicholas Cullinan, the new director of the British Museum, seems to think so. “I'm not afraid of the

Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, is less reserved than the average

Just beneath the surface of the global economy, there is a hidden layer of dealmakers for whom war,

Everyone makes mistakes. How do we learn from them? Lessons from the classroom, the Air Force, and t

Giving up can be painful. That's why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, le

In medicine, failure can be catastrophic. It can also produce discoveries that save millions of live

We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad de

It used to be that making documentary films meant taking a vow of poverty (and obscurity). The strea

It’s been in development for five years and has at least a year to go. On the eve of its out-of-town

In an episode from 2012, we looked at what Sleep No More and the Stanford Prison Experiment can tell

A hit like Hamilton can come from nowhere while a sure bet can lose $20 million in a flash. We speak

It has become fiendishly expensive to produce, and has more competition than ever. And yet the belie

Why do so many promising solutions in education, medicine, and criminal justice fail to scale up int

There is no sludgier place in America than Washington, D.C. But there are signs of a change. We’ll h