Freakonomics Radio

After a dramatic election, Donald Trump has returned from exile. We hear what to expect at home and abroad — and what to do if you didn’t vote for Trump.

SOURCE:

• Fareed Zakaria, journalist and author.

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Some people want the new cannabis economy to look like the craft-beer movement. Others are hoping to build the Amazon of pot. And one expert would prefer a government-run monopoly. We listen in as th…

Chris Weld worked for years in emergency rooms, then ditched that career and bought an old farm in Massachusetts. He set up a distillery and started making prize-winning spirits. When cannabis was le…

With abortion on the Nov. 5 ballot, we look back at Steve Levitt’s controversial research about an unintended consequence of Roe v. Wade.

• SOURCES:
  • John Donohue, professor of law at Stanford Law School…

There are a lot of reasons, including heavy regulations, high taxes, and competition from illegal weed shops. Most operators are losing money and waiting for Washington to get out of the way. In the …

We have always been a nation of drinkers — but now there are more daily users of cannabis than alcohol. Considering alcohol’s harms, maybe that’s a good thing. But some people worry that the legaliza…

Are betting markets more accurate than polls? What kind of chaos would a second Trump term bring? And is U.S. democracy really in danger, or just “sputtering on”? (Part two of a two-part series.)

• SOU…

Sure, we all pay lip service to the Madisonian system of checks and balances. But presidents have been steadily expanding the reach of the job. With an election around the corner, we updated our 2016…

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:
  • D…

His research on police brutality and school incentives won him acclaim, but also enemies. He was suspended for two years by Harvard, during which time he took a hard look at corporate diversity progr…

What happened when the Rooney Rule made its way from pro football to corporate America? Some progress, some backsliding, and a lot of controversy. (Second in a two-part series.)

• SOURCES:
  • Tynesia Boyea…

The biggest sports league in history had a problem: While most of its players were Black, almost none of its head coaches were. So the N.F.L. launched a hiring policy called the Rooney Rule. In the f…

We revisit an episode from 2016 that asks: Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be taken care of? 

• SOURCES:
  • Martin Casado, general partner at…

Young people have been reporting a sharp rise in anxiety and depression. This maps neatly onto the global rise of the smartphone. Some researchers are convinced that one is causing the other. But how…

Only a tiny number of “supertaskers” are capable of doing two things at once. The rest of us are just making ourselves miserable, and less productive. How can we put the — hang on a second, I've just…

Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially for men, and how to stop the bleeding. (Part 3 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back…

Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success could never teach.

• SOURCES:
  • D…

America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply? (Part 2 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)

• SOURCES:
  • Peter Blair, professor of educa…

We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges also operate like firms, trying to differentiate their products to win market share and prestige poi…

There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics come to a close, we revisit a 2018 episode in which top athletes from a variety of sports tell us how…