Freakonomics Radio

It isn’t easy to separate the guilty from the innocent, but a clever bit of game theory can help.

Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from his breakthrough?

Dubner and Levitt answer reader questions in this first installment of the “Think Like a Freak” Book Club.

Is it really in a restaurant’s best interest to give customers free bread or chips before they even order?

Every four years, the U.S. takes a look at the World Cup and develops a slight crush. What would it take to really fall in love?

In which we argue that failure should not only be tolerated but celebrated.

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

When it comes to generating ideas and asking questions it can be really fruitful to have the mentality of an eight year old.

Why learning to say “I don’t know” is one of the best things you can do.

Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt talk about their new book and field questions about prestige, university life, and (yum yum) bacon.

If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there's a good chance you'll barely be punished. Why?

When it comes to exercising outrage, people tend to be very selective. Could it be that humans are our least favorite animal?

Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative risks?

Unlike certain elected officials in Washington, mayors all over the country actually get stuff done. So maybe we should ask them to do more?

The war on cigarettes has been fairly successful in some places. But 1 billion humans still smoke -- so what comes next?

Thinking of Bitcoin as just a digital currency is like thinking about the Internet as just e-mail. Its potential is much more exciting than that.

In many ways, the gender gap is closing. In others, not so much. And that's not always a bad thing.

A psychology professor argues that the brain's greatest attribute is knowing what other people are thinking. And that a Queen song, played backwards, can improve your mind-reading skills.

Yes, it expands the mind but we usually don't retain much -- and then there's the opportunity cost.

In most countries, houses get more valuable over time. In Japan, a new buyer will often bulldoze the home. We'll tell you why.