Freakonomics Radio
Dubner takes apart everyday phenomena with economic thinking, numbers and controls checkable
49:25As beef grows scarcer, solving it requires accepting deeper shortages first
U.S. ground-beef prices hit record highs, rooted in the cattle cycle's bind: easing the shortage requires ranchers to hold back breeding cattle instead of selling them, which must first make today's shortage worse in order to restore the herd years later.
48:39Prediction Markets Aren't Casinos, but 90% of Volume Comes From Sports
Kalshi traded four years of compliance for 90% market share, but its revenue structure looks more like a sportsbook's; what's genuinely underrated are the quiet markets like FDA approvals.
32:32A Math Professor and NFL Player Who Says He Was Just Lucky
John Urschel played in the NFL while finishing an MIT math PhD, yet says talent is only a small part of it — his success came from "an enormous amount of hard work" and luck. He even hopes his football fame didn't get him his MIT job.
52:55Returning the Benin Bronzes: The Hard Question Is Not Whether, but to Whom
Returning looted artifacts has become the correct position of the age, but with the Benin Bronzes ‘to whom’ is far harder to answer than ‘whether’: France and Germany are racing each other, Britain is playing dead, and three rival claimants inside Nigeria are fighting over them.