Freakonomics Radio

Even with a new rat czar, an arsenal of poisons, and a fleet of new garbage trucks, it won’t be easy — because, at root, the enemy is us. (Part two of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”) SOURCES:Kathy Corradi,Robert Corrigan,Ed Glaeser,Robert Sullivan,Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitant.Jessica Tisch, RESOURCES:Increasing rat numbers in cities are linked to climate warming, urbanization, and human population,(Science Advances,The Next Frontier in New York's War on Rats: Birth Control,(New York Times,The Absurd Problem of New York City Trash,(New York Times,Mourning Flaco, the Owl Who Escaped,(The New Yorker,Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants, EXTRAS:The Downside of Disgust,Freakonomics Radio

A brief meditation on loss, relativity, and the vagaries of show business. RESOURCES:Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, documentary (2021)Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947, by Norman Lebrecht (2019)The War Room, documentary (1993) EXTRAS:Is San Francisco a Failed State? (And Other Questions You Shouldn’t Ask the Mayor)Freakonomics Radio Ari Emanuel Is Never Indifferent,Freakonomics Radio

New York City’s mayor calls them “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence disputes that claim. So is the rat a scapegoat? And what does our rat hatred say about us? (Part one of a three-part series.) SOURCES:Bethany BrookshirePests: How Humans Create Animal Villains.Kathy CorradiEd GlaeserNils Stenseth RESOURCES:On Patrol With the Rat Czar,(Intelligencer,How Rats Took Over North America,(Scientific American,Where Are the Rats in New York City,(New York Times,"Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains" Human ectoparasites and the spread of plague in Europe during the Second Pandemic,(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, EXTRAS:Freakonomics Radio Live: 'Jesus Could Have Been a Pigeon.'Freakonomics Radio

Licensing began with medicine and law; now it extends to 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, including hair stylists and auctioneers. In a new book, the legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth calls licensing boards “a thicket of self-dealing and ineptitude” and says they keep bad workers in their jobs and good ones out — while failing to protect the public. SOURCES:Rebecca Allensworth RESOURCES:The Licensing Racket: How We Decide Who Is Allowed to Work, and Why It Goes WrongLicensed to Pill,(The New York Review of Books,Licensing Occupations: Ensuring Quality or Restricting Competition?(W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research,How Much of Barrier to Entry is Occupational Licensing?(British Journal of Industrial Relations, EXTRAS:Is Ozempic as Magical as It Sounds?Freakonomics Radio

In 2023, the N.F.L. players’ union conducted a workplace survey that revealed clogged showers, rats in the locker room — and some insights for those of us who don’t play football. Today we’re updating that episode, with extra commentary from Omnipresent Football Guy (and former Philadelphia Eagle) Jason Kelce. SOURCES:Tom GarfinkelJim IvlerJason KelceNew HeightsJalen Reeves-MaybinBetsey StevensonJ.C. TretterMark Wilf RESOURCES:N.F.L. Player Team Report Cards,NFLPA team report cards: Dolphins rank No. 1; Jaguars jump from 28th to fifth; Commanders earn worst grade,(CBS Sports,Kelce, The N.F.L. Cast Him Out; He Says That Only Makes Him More PowerfulSports Illustrated, New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce, EXTRAS:Why Don’t Running Backs Get Paid Anymore?Freakonomics RadioHow Does Playing Football Affect Your Health?Freakonomics, M.D. Why Does the Most Monotonous Job in the World Pay $1 Million?Freakonomics Radio

They used to be the N.F.L.’s biggest stars, with paychecks to match. Now their salaries are near the bottom, and their careers are shorter than ever. We speak with an analytics guru, an agent, some former running backs (including LeSean McCoy), and the economist Roland Fryer (a former Pop Warner running back himself) to understand why. SOURCES:Brian Burke,Roland Fryer,LeSean McCoy,Robert Smith,Robert Turbin,Jeffery Whitney, RESOURCES:The Economics of Running Backs,(Wall Street Journal,"Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper," The Rest of the Iceberg: An Insider’s View on the World of Sports and Celebrity," EXTRAS:Roland Fryer Refuses to Lie to Black America,Freakonomics RadioWhy Does the Most Monotonous Job in the World Pay $1 Million?Freakonomics Radio

When the computer scientist Ben Zhao learned that artists were having their work stolen by A.I. models, he invented a tool to thwart the machines. He also knows how to foil an eavesdropping Alexa and how to guard your online footprint. The big news, he says, is that the A.I. bubble is bursting. SOURCES:Erik BrynjolfssonBen Zhao RESOURCES:The AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AI,(MIT Technology Review,Glaze: Protecting Artists from Style Mimicry by Text-to-Image Models,(Cornell University,Nightshade: Prompt-Specific Poisoning Attacks on Text-to-Image Generative Models,(Cornell University,A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going, EXTRAS:Nuclear Power Isn’t Perfect. Is It Good Enough?Freakonomics Radio

Stephen Dubner, live on stage, mixes it up with outbound mayor London Breed, and asks economists whether A.I. can be “human-centered” and if Tang is a gateway drug. SOURCES:London BreedErik BrynjolfssonKoleman Strumpf RESOURCES:SF crime rate at lowest point in more than 20 years, mayor says,The San Francisco StandardHow the Trump Whale and Prediction Markets Beat the Pollsters in 2024,(Wall StreetJournalArtificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation,(MIT Department of Economics, EXTRAS:Why Are Cities (Still) So Expensive?Freakonomics Radio

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 GilbukhKevin SearsChad SyversonLawrence Yun RESOURCES:Heterogeneous Real Estate Agents and the Housing CycleNBER Working Paper, Real Estate Commissions and HomebuyingFederal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Paper, The Relationship Between Home Prices and Real Estate Commission Rates: Implications for Consumers and Public PolicyConsumer Federation of America, The Relationship of Residential Real Estate Commission Rate to Industry Structure and CultureConsumer Federation of America, Competition in the Real Estate Brokerage Industry: A Critical ReviewEconomic Studies at Brookings, Hidden Real Estate Commissions: Consumer Costs and Improved TransparencyConsumer Federation of America, Market Distortions when Agents are Better Informed: The Value of Information in Real Estate TransactionsNBER Working Paper, The Residential Real Estate Brokerage Industry

Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billions of dollars and causes serious health problems, so why hasn’t it been fixed? And how about all the other things we think we’re allergic to? SOURCES:Kimberly BlumenthalTheresa MacPhailThomas Platts-MillsElena Resnick RESOURCES:Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World, Evaluation and Management of Penicillin Allergy: A ReviewJAMA, The Allergy Epidemics: 1870–2010The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Randomized Trial of Peanut Consumption in Infants at Risk for Peanut AllergyThe New England Journal of Medicine, EXTRAS:Freakonomics, M.D.

Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from prescription glasses to highway signs — often for pennies an hour. Zachary Crockett takes the next exit, in this special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things. SOURCES:Laura ApplemanLee BlackmanGene HawkinsLouis Southall RESOURCES:Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, 11th EditionPrisoners in the U.S. Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food BrandsAP News, Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings AboundThe New York Times, Bloody Lucre: Carceral Labor and Prison ProfitWisconsin Law Review, The Road to ClarityThe New York Times Magazine, Correction Enterprises EXTRAS:Do People Pay Attention to Signs?No Stupid Questions The Economics of Everyday Things.

Probably not — the incentives are too strong. But a few reformers are trying. We check in on their progress, in an update to an episode originally published last year. (Part 2 of 2) SOURCES:Max BazermanLeif NelsonBrian NosekIvan OranskyThe TransmitterRetraction Watch.Joseph SimmonsUri SimonsohnSimine VazirePsychological Science. RESOURCES:How a Scientific Dispute Spiralled Into a Defamation LawsuitThe New Yorker, The Harvard Professor and the BloggersThe New York Times, They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?The New Yorker, Evolving Patterns of Extremely Productive Publishing Behavior Across SciencebioRxiv, Hindawi Reveals Process for Retracting More Than 8,000 Paper Mill ArticlesRetraction Watch, Exclusive: Russian Site Says It Has Brokered Authorships for More Than 10,000 ResearchersRetraction Watch, How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey DataPLOS One, Lifecycle Journal EXTRAS:Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia? (Update)Freakonomics Radio Freakonomics Goes to College, Part 1Freakonomics Radio

Some of the biggest names in behavioral science stand accused of faking their results. Last year, an astonishing 10,000 research papers were retracted. In a series originally published in early 2024, we talk to whistleblowers, reformers, and a co-author who got caught up in the chaos. (Part 1 of 2) SOURCES:Max BazermanLeif NelsonBrian NosekJoseph SimmonsUri SimonsohnSimine VazirePsychological Science. RESOURCES:More Than 10,000 Research Papers Were Retracted in 2023 — a New RecordNature, Data Falsificada (Part 1): 'ClusterfakeData Colada, Fabricated Data in Research About Honesty. You Can't Make This Stuff Up. Or, Can You?Planet Money, Complicit: How We Enable the Unethical and How to Stop, Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Field Experiment About DishonestyData Colada, False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as SignificantPsychological Science, EXTRAS:Why Do We Cheat, and Why Shouldn’t We?No Stupid Questions Is Everybody Cheating These Days?No Stupid Questions

David Eagleman upends myths and describes the vast possibilities of a brainscape that even neuroscientists are only beginning to understand. Steve Levitt interviews him in this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire. SOURCES:David Eagleman RESOURCES:Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, Why Do We Dream? A New Theory on How It Protects Our BrainsTIME, Prevalence of Learned Grapheme-Color Pairings in a Large Online Sample of SynesthetesPLoS One,Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, The vOICe appNeosensory EXTRAS:Feeling Sound and Hearing ColorPeople I (Mostly) Admire What’s Impacting American Workers?People I (Mostly) Admire This Is Your Brain on PodcastsFreakonomics Radio

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 RESOURCES:The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, Goodbye, New York. Adam Moss Is Leaving the Magazine He Has Edited for 15 YearsThe New York Times, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, EXTRAS:David Simon Is On Strike. Here’s WhyPeople I (Mostly) Admire Samin Nosrat Always Wanted to Be FamousFreakonomics Radio What’s Wrong with Being a One-Hit Wonder?Freakonomics Radio

In a wide-ranging conversation with Ezekiel Emanuel, the policymaking physician and medical gadfly, we discuss the massive effects of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. We also talk about the state of cancer care, mysteries in the gut microbiome, flaws in the U.S. healthcare system — and what a second Trump term means for healthcare policy. SOURCES:Ezekiel Emanuel RESOURCES:Obesity Drugs Would Be Covered by Medicare and Medicaid Under Biden ProposalThe New York Times, International Coverage of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists: A Review and Ethical Analysis of Discordant ApproachesThe Lancet, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma, The Significance of Blockbusters in the Pharmaceutical IndustryNature Reviews Drug Discovery, Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System, Why I Hope to Die at 75The AtlanticDirect-to-Consumer Advertising of PharmaceuticalsThe American Journal of Medicine, Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family, Bounds in Competing Risks Models and the War on CancerEconometrica, EXTRAS:How to Fix Medical ResearchPeople I (Mostly) Admire The Suddenly Diplomatic Rahm EmanuelFreakonomics Radio Ari Emanuel Is Never IndifferentFreakonomics Radio Who Pays for Multimillion-Dollar Miracle Cures?Freakonomics, M.D. Who Gets the Ventilator?Freakonomics Radio

Last week, we heard a former U.S. ambassador describe Russia’s escalating conflict with the U.S. Today, we revisit a 2019 episode about an overlooked front in the Cold War — a “farms race” that, decades later, still influences what Americans eat. SOURCES:Anne EfflandShane HamiltonPeter TimmerAudra Wolfe RESOURCES:Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of ScienceSupermarket USA: Food and Power in The Cold War Farms RaceAssociation of Higher Consumption of Foods Derived From Subsidized Commodities With Adverse Cardiometabolic Risk Among US AdultsJAMA Internal MedicineThe Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil WarHow the Mechanical Tomato Harvester Prompted the Food MovementUC Davis Department of Plant Sciences Newsletter EXTRAS:Is the U.S. Sleeping on Threats from Russia and China?Freakonomics Radio

John J. Sullivan, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador, says yes: “Our politicians aren’t leading — Republicans or Democrats.” He gives a firsthand account of a fateful Biden-Putin encounter, talks about his new book Midnight in Moscow, and predicts what a second Trump term means for Russia, Ukraine, China — and the U.S. SOURCES:John Sullivan RESOURCES:Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War Against the West, The ‘Deathonomics’ Powering Russia’s War MachineThe Wall Street Journal, War, On the Record: The U.S. Administration’s Actions on RussiaBrookings, Why Economic Sanctions Still Do Not WorkInternational Security, EXTRAS:The Suddenly Diplomatic Rahm EmanuelFreakonomics Radio

Macy’s wants to recapture its glorious past. The author of the Wimpy Kid books wants to rebuild his dilapidated hometown. We just want to listen in. (Part two of a two-part series.) SOURCES:Mark CohenWill CossJeff KinneyTony Spring RESOURCES:Macy’s Discovers Employee Hid Millions in Delivery ExpensesThe New York Times, NBC Ready to Pay Triple to Gobble Up Thanksgiving Parade Broadcast RightsThe Wall Street Journal, How Macy’s Set Out to Conquer the Department Store Business — and LostRetail Dive, An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café EXTRA:Can the Macy's Parade Save Macy's?Freakonomics Radio

The 166-year-old chain, which is fighting extinction, calls the parade its “gift to the nation.” With 30 million TV viewers, it’s also a big moneymaker. At least we think it is — Macy’s is famously tight-lipped about parade economics. We try to loosen them up. (Part one of a two-part series.) Please take our audience survey at freakonomics.com/survey. SOURCES:Will CossJeff KinneyKevin LynchTony SpringJessica TischDawn Tolson RESOURCES:Macy's: The Store. The Star. The Story., History of Macy's of New York, 1853-1919: Chapters in the Evolution of the Department StoreMacy's Thanksgiving Day Parade EXTRA:The Economics of Everyday Things.