Logo

Freakonomics Radio

Transcribe your files Podcasts Home

Discover the hidden side of everything with Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the Freakonomics books. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) — from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers. The entire archive, going back to 2010, is available on the Stitcher podcast app and at freakonomics.com.

618. Are Realtors Having an Existential Crisis?

Freakonomics Radio

  • 130 views
  • 2 months ago
  • 53:37

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 way of travel agents, will we miss them when they’re gone? SOURCES:Sonia Gilbukh, assistant professor of real estate at CUNY Baruch College.Kevin Sears, 2025 president of the National Association of Realtors.Chad Syverson, professor of economics at the University of Chicago.Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. RESOURCES:"Heterogeneous Real Estate Agents and the Housing Cycle," by Sonia Gilbukh and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham (NBER Working Paper, 2024)."Real Estate Commissions and Homebuying," by Borys Grochulski and Zhu Wang (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Paper, 2024)."The Relationship Between Home Prices and Real Estate Commission Rates: Implications for Consumers and Public Policy," by Stephen Brobeck (Consumer Federation of America, 2022)."The Relationship of Residential Real Estate Commission Rate to Industry Structure and Culture," by Stephen Brobeck (Consumer Federation of America, 2021)."Competition in the Real Estate Brokerage Industry: A Critical Review," by Panle Jia Barwick and Maisy Wong (Economic Studies at Brookings, 2019)."Hidden Real Estate Commissions: Consumer Costs and Improved Transparency," by Stephen Brobeck (Consumer Federation of America, 2019)."Market Distortions when Agents are Better Informed: The Value of Information in Real Estate Transactions," by Steven D. Levitt and Chad Syverson (NBER Working Paper, 2005).The Residential Real Estate Brokerage Industry, staff report by the Los Angeles Regional Office of the Federal Trade Commission (1983).

616. How to Make Something from Nothing

Freakonomics Radio

  • 170 views
  • 3 months ago
  • 50:12

Adam Moss was the best magazine editor of his generation. When he retired, he took up painting. But he wasn’t very good, and that made him sad. So he wrote a book about how creative people work— and, in the process, he made himself happy again. SOURCE:Adam Moss, magazine editor and author. RESOURCES:The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, by Adam Moss (2024)."Goodbye, New York. Adam Moss Is Leaving the Magazine He Has Edited for 15 Years," by Michael M. Grynbaum (The New York Times, 2019).Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, by Samin Nosrat (2017). EXTRAS:"David Simon Is On Strike. Here’s Why," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."Samin Nosrat Always Wanted to Be Famous," by Freakonomics Radio (2023)."What’s Wrong with Being a One-Hit Wonder?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

How to Stop Worrying and Love the Robot Apocalypse (Update)

Freakonomics Radio

  • 190 views
  • 4 months ago
  • 53:55

It’s true that robots (and other smart technologies) will kill many jobs. It may also be true that newer collaborative robots (“cobots”) will totally reinvigorate how work gets done. That, at least, is what the economists are telling us. Should we believe them? SOURCES:David Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.James Rosenman, C.E.O. of Andrus on Hudson senior care community.Karen Eggleston, economist at Stanford University.Yong Suk Lee, professor of technology, economy, and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame. RESOURCES:"Robots and Labor in Nursing Homes," by Yong Suk Lee, Toshiaki Iizuka, and Karen Eggleston (NBER Working Paper, 2024)."Global Robotics Race: Korea, Singapore and Germany in the Lead," by International Federation of Robotics (2024)."Unmet Need for Equipment to Help With Bathing and Toileting Among Older US Adults," by Kenneth Lam, Ying Shi, John Boscardin, and Kenneth E. Covinsky (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2021)."Robots and Labor in the Service Sector: Evidence from Nursing Homes," by Karen Eggleston, Yong Suk Lee, and Toshiaki Iizuka (NBER Working Papers, 2021).The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines, by David Autor, David Mindell, Elisabeth Reynolds, and the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future (2020)."Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," by Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo (University of Chicago Press, 2020)."The Slowdown in Productivity Growth and Policies That Can Restore It," by Emily Moss, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh (The Hamilton Project, 2020)."The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," by David H. Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson (NBER Working Papers, 2016)."Deregulation at Heart of Japan's New Robotics Revolution," by Sophie Knight and Kaori Kaneko (Reuters, 2014). EXTRAS:"What Do People Do All Day?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024)."Did China Eat America’s Jobs?" by Freakonomics Radio (2017).

605. What Do People Do All Day?

Freakonomics Radio

  • 290 views
  • 6 months ago
  • 01:01:48

Sixty percent of the jobs that Americans do today didn’t exist in 1940. What happens as our labor becomes more technical and less physical? And what kinds of jobs will exist in the future?  SOURCES:David Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Paula Barmaimon, manager of coverage and audience analytics at The New York Times.Ellen Griesedieck, artist and president of the American Mural Project.Adina Lichtman, co-host of the Our Friends Are Smart party.Avi Popack, co-host of the Our Friends Are Smart party.Huck Scarry, author and illustrator.James Suzman, anthropologist and author.Ben Varon, rabbi and chaplain at NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn . RESOURCES:"New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018," by David Autor, Caroline Chin, Anna Salomons, and Bryan Seegmiller (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024).Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots, by James Suzman (2020).Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, by Studs Terkel (1974).What Do People Do All Day?, by Richard Scarry (1968)."Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren," by John Maynard Keynes (1930).American Mural Project. EXTRAS:"Will the Democrats 'Make America Great Again'?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023)."How to Stop Worrying and Love the Robot Apocalypse," by Freakonomics Radio (2021)."Did China Eat America’s Jobs?" by Freakonomics Radio (2017).People I (Mostly) Admire.

453. A Rescue Plan for Black America

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.7K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 56:47

New York Times columnist Charles Blow argues that white supremacy in America will never fully recede, and that it’s time for Black people to do something radical about it. In The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, he urges a “reverse migration” to the South to consolidate political power and create a region where it’s safe to be Black. (This is an episode of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club.)

452. Jeff Immelt Knows He Let You Down

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 45:48

Not so long ago, G.E. was the most valuable company in the world, a conglomerate that included everything from light bulbs and jet engines to financial services and The Apprentice. Now it’s selling off body parts to survive. What does the C.E.O. who presided over the decline have to say for himself? 

450. How to Be Better at Death

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.6K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 57:38

Caitlin Doughty is a mortician who would like to put herself out of business. Our corporate funeral industry, she argues, has made us forget how to offer our loved ones an authentic sendoff. Doughty is the author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From the Crematory. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, she is interviewed by guest host Maria Konnikova.

449. How to Fix the Incentives in Cancer Research

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 44:15

For all the progress made in fighting cancer, it still kills 10 million people a year, and some types remain especially hard to detect and treat. Pancreatic cancer, for instance, is nearly always fatal. A new clinical-trial platform could change that by aligning institutions that typically compete against one another.

447. How Much Do We Really Care About Children?

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 50:58

They can’t vote or hire lobbyists. The policies we create to help them aren’t always so helpful. Consider the car seat: parents hate it, the safety data are unconvincing, and new evidence suggests an unintended consequence that is as anti-child as it gets.

446. “We Get All Our Great Stuff from Europe — Including Witch Hunting.”

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 42:00

We’ve collected some of our favorite moments from People I (Mostly) Admire, the latest show from the Freakonomics Radio Network. Host Steve Levitt seeks advice from scientists and inventors, memory wizards and basketball champions — even his fellow economists. He also asks about quitting, witch trials, and whether we need a Manhattan Project for climate change. 

445. Why Do We Seek Comfort in the Familiar?

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 36:56

In this episode of No Stupid Questions — a Freakonomics Radio Network show launched earlier this year — Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth debate why we watch, read, and eat familiar things during a crisis, and if it might in fact be better to try new things instead. Also: is a little knowledge truly as dangerous as they say? 

PLAYBACK (2015): Could the Next Brooklyn Be ... Las Vegas?!

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 57:02

Tony Hsieh, the longtime C.E.O. of Zappos, was an iconoclast and a dreamer. Five years ago, we sat down with him around a desert campfire to talk about those dreams. Hsieh died recently from injuries sustained in a house fire; he was 46.

“Don’t Neglect the Thing That Makes You Weird” | People I (Mostly) Admire: Ken Jennings

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.8K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 50:37

It was only in his late twenties that America’s favorite brainiac began to seriously embrace his love of trivia. Now he holds the “Greatest of All Time” title on Jeopardy! Steve Levitt digs into how he trained for the show, what it means to have a "geographic memory," and why we lie to our children.

432. When Your Safety Becomes My Danger

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 50:25

The families of U.S. troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan are suing several companies that did reconstruction there. Why? These companies, they say, paid the Taliban protection money, which gave them the funding — and opportunity — to attack U.S. soldiers instead. A look at the messy, complicated, and heart-breaking tradeoffs of conflict-zone economies.

"I Started Crying When I Realized How Beautiful the Universe Is” | People I (Mostly) Admire Ep. 2: Mayim Bialik

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.5K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 49:19

She’s best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, but the award-winning actress has a rich life outside of her acting career, as a teacher, mother — and a real-life neuroscientist.  Steve Levitt tries to learn more about this one-time academic and Hollywood non-conformist, who is both very similar to him and also quite his opposite. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Introducing “People I (Mostly) Admire"

Freakonomics Radio

  • 2K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 45:59

A new interview show with host Steve Levitt. Today he speaks with the Harvard psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker. By cataloging the steady march of human progress, the self-declared “polite Canadian” has managed to enrage people on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Levitt tries to understand why. 

The Economics of Sports Gambling (Ep. 388 Rebroadcast)

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 57:58

What happens when tens of millions of fantasy-sports players are suddenly able to bet real money on real games? We’re about to find out. A recent Supreme Court decision has cleared the way to bring an estimated $300 billion in black-market sports betting into the light. We sort out the winners and losers.

427. The Pros and Cons of Reparations

Freakonomics Radio

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 44:26

Most Americans agree that racial discrimination has been, and remains, a big problem. But that is where the agreement ends.