Freakonomics Radio

The thrill of customization, via Pandora and a radical new teaching method

Tyler Cowen points fingers. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Clever ways to not waste our waste.

The science of charity, with economist John List.

There’s a nasty secret about hot-button topics like global warming: knowledge is not always power.

Our appetite for breast meat renders our holiday birds unable to reproduce.

Is booing an act of verbal vandalism—or the last true expression of democracy?

On Election Day, most people focus on the obvious winners and losers -- that is, the candidates. But we went looking for some of the strange side effects that elections produce.

We are constantly wowed by new technologies and policies meant to make childbirth better. But beware the unintended consequences.

High-stakes testing has produced some rotten apples. But they can be caught.

Did we needlessly scare ourselves into ditching a good thing? And, with millions of cars driving around with no passengers, should we be rooting for a renaissance?

The world is a more peaceful place today that at any time in history -- by a long, long shot.

You know the saying: a winner never quits and a quitter never wins. To which Freakonomics Radio says … Are you sure?

Human beings love to predict the future, but we're quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all those bad predictions?

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 and finds all kinds of surprises.

Think 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 being seen leaning green.

Freakonomics Radio hits the road, and plays some Quiz Bowl