Summary: Planet Money presents three stories regarding the financial market; the stock market’s sluggish performance, a negative interest rates in the banking sector, and pawn shops exchanges for the rich.
Original Air Date: June 13, 2014
Length: 13 min
Link: http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/15/the-three-hardest-words-in-the-english-language-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ Summary: What are the three most difficult words in the English language? According to Amanda Waterman, professor of Psychology at the University of Leeds, the words “I don’t know” are difficult for people, especially for children to fully express and admit.
Original Air Date: May 15, 2014
Length: 30 min
Summary: This podcast outlines how information technology is being used to measure efficiency in certain markets, such as the United Parcel Service (UPS). Whether you are inside a truck driving or in an office, information technology can track almost everything you do.
Original Air Date: May 2, 2014
Length: 14 min
Summary: Ed Glaeser, University of Harvard professor sheds light on why it is easy for politicians and marketers to sell green.
Original Air Date: October 24, 2013
Length: 25 min
Summary: How much can a 19th century land lottery tell us about today’s income inequality? Would giving cash to a poor family effect the trajectory of its future? The statistics say no.
Original Air Date: September 26, 2013
Length: 29 min
Link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/12/13/167055503/why-legos-are-so-expensive-and-so-popular
Summary: Why are Legos so popular? How has this toy-construction behemoth survived and out-strategized competitors even after their 1989 patent expiration?
Original Air Date: December 13, 2012
Length: 5 min
Summary: What makes us choose the places we decide to settle down and start a family? Does electronic banking effect the way we spend money or in other words how we do “mental accounting?” Freakonomics Radio sheds a bit of light in the different ways people decide where to live and the generational shift between hard cash and credit.
Original Air Date: October 3, 2013
Length: 26 min
Link: http://www.npr.org/2012/06/04/154287476/honest-truth-about-why-we-lie-cheat-and-steal
Summary: Planet Money interviews Dan Ariely, professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, about his book The Honest Truth About Dishonesty. Ariely notes that most individuals do not conduct their daily affairs on strict cost-benefit analysis but rather tend to cheat, lie, and steal as long as they don’t cross a certain moral threshold.
Original Air Date: June 4, 2012
Length: 8 min
Summary: A consideration of consumers’ tendency to purchase more expensive name brands rather than identical generics. Includes discussion of education as a contributing factor to likelihood to purchase generics. Includes one consumer’s belief that there is rational ignorance in his decision to just buy the brand name.
Length: 4:29 min
Original air date: July 4, 2013
Link: http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/03/27/100-ways-to-fight-obesity-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
Summary: Freakonomics’ Stephen Dubner hosts a forum of experts who discuss and brainstorm strategies to combat childhood obesity. Considers strategies from the perspective of biology, politics, economics and psychology.
Length: 37:23
Original air date: March 27, 2013
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