Freakonomics Radio Podcast

“How to Save $1 Billion Without Even Trying:” The Economics of Generics

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

The most recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast was titled, “How to Save $1 Billion Without Even Trying.”  It discusses how consumers can save by purchasing generic, as opposed to name brand, products.  The podcast discusses generic medications in particular and is, therefore, relevant to debates about healthcare.

Here is a description of the podcast from the Freakonomics website:

When a pharmacist gets a headache, what do you think she’ll buy: Bayer aspirin or the much cheaper store brand? You’ll find out on this week’s episode. Hint: the episode is called “How to Save $1 Billion Without Even Trying.” (You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. You can also read the transcript; it includes credits for the music you’ll hear in the episode.)

It features Stephen Dubner interviewingMatthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, a pair of economics professors at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and co-authors (along with Bart J. Bronnenberg and Jean-Pierre Dubé) of a working paper called “Do Pharmacists Buy Bayer? Sophisticated Shoppers and the Brand Premium.” Along the way, we find out if conducting this kind of research leads a researcher to buy more store-brand items himself:

SHAPIRO: I think I probably buy a little more [store brand stuff] now than before we wrote the study. Not so much because of anything I learned from the study, but more because I think I would just feel hypocritical buying the branded good after writing this paper.

You’ll also hear from Steve Levitt about his shopping habits. He says there is one particular item that he’s always willing to splurge on. Can you guess what that is?

Freakonomics on Bitcoin

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Freakonomics on Bitcoin

Earlier this year, the Freakonomics Radio Podcast provided its take on the virtual currency bitcoin, in a episode titled “Why Everybody Who Doesn’t Hate Bitcoin Loves It.”

Here is a description of the show from the Freakonomics website: 

After being bombarded by email requests for months, Freakonomics Radio has finally caved and made an episode about Bitcoin. . . . The gist: 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.

Bitcoin is often described as “virtual gold” — as well as everything from a “bubble” to a “Ponzi scheme” to “a haven for individuals to buy black market items.” But what excites some people, like Silicon Valley veteran Marc Andreessen, is Bitcoin’s potential as a new technology that could underlie any number of transactions, well beyond the simple swapping of currency.

Andreessen, a Web pioneer, is now on the board of companies like Facebook and eBay. He is not a disinterested observer in the Bitcoin debate: his venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitzhas invested around $50 million in two Bitcoin-related companies, including Coinbase, and Andreessen says they plan to invest much more to enable Bitcoin to go mainstream.

Why such confidence? The reason, Andreessen tells Stephen Dubner, is that Bitcoin is “the solution to a fundamental problem in computer science”:

ANDREESSEN: One of the things … that’s been missing on the Internet for 20 years is kind of a native concept of money…The ability to very easily pay somebody online, the ability to very easily charge for a piece of content, the ability to very easily exchange a digital title, or a digital key, or a digital contract has just been missing because you have no mechanism for establishing trust. And so Bitcoin basically holds the promise of being the first solution to establishing trust over an untrusted network.

Susan Athey, an award-winning economist at Stanford with a background in computer science, is also a big believer in the technology behind Bitcoin; for what it’s worth, Athey advises the company behind Ripple, which is Bitcoin’s top competitor (by market cap):

ATHEY: The beauty of a new currency, which is part of a virtual currency protocol, is that what I’m moving from me to you is just an entry on a secure, public ledger. And that public ledger is maintained by a set of computers all talking to each other using a protocol. So I don’t have to worry about some bank giving me an IOU and then giving that IOU and handing it to another bank. Instead, if I make a transaction over the virtual currency, it’s just an entry in the ledger. So I don’t need a middleman.

New York Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky, who is leading the charge toregulate Bitcoin in the U.S., tells Dubner that he is concerned about the freedom Bitcoin affords to criminals:

LAWSKY: It’s very hard to transport $1 million in hard currency overseas. You can’t just put it in a backpack and get it on a plane very easily. But it is very easy to do that now digitally using Bitcoin.

That said, Lawsky is also excited about the possibilities of a technology like Bitcoin, which could bring down all sorts of transaction fees. This may be bad news for traditional banks, credit-card companies, and other fee-seeking middlemen. But, as Lawsky points out, a lot of other people stand to benefit:

LAWSKY: Right now, there are thousands and thousands of New Yorkers who work hard every day to send money back home to their families in whatever country they’re from…And right now they’re paying fees for those wire transactions each week at the end of the week, 7, 8, 9 percent. And that’s a lot of money for people who often can’t afford it.

A crowd of leading economists, including two Nobel laureates and former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, have bashed Bitcoin. They’ve expressed alarm about the astronomical rise in the digital currency’s value. Marc Andreessen argues that they are missing the larger point:

ANDREESSEN: It’s a little bit like dogs watching TV. It’s like, it’s all very interesting, but like whatever until another dog shows up on screen and then the dog freaks out. Economists, like this stuff is all like, whatever, technology, geek, nerds whateverand then “currency” is the flag. And so the minute the word “currency” shows up, all the economists perk up because if there’s one thing economists are all experts on it’s currency… And they look at it and they say, “Oh my god, people are paying $600 for this thing, it’s just a piece of fake digital currency, people have just lost their minds.” I don’t think that they are looking at the underlying substance.

The episode also addresses a question many of you asked when Freakonomics Radio ran a fund-raising campaign: why don’t you guys accept Bitcoin?

“Women Are Not Men”

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

“Women Are Not Men“

That was the title of a recent rebroadcast of the Freakonomics podcast, which asks what do Wikipedia edits and murder have in common? Answer: women statistically do them far less frequently than men.  The podcast also explores why women tend to be less competitive than men, why they make less and why they have become less happy.

Here is a description of the episode from the Freakonomics website:

We take a look at the ways in which the gender gap is closing, and the ways in which it’s not. You’ll hear about the gender gap among editors of the world’s biggest encyclopedia, and what a study conducted in Tanzania and India has to say about female-male differences in competition. You’ll also hear about the female happiness paradox and one of the biggest gender gaps out there: crime. Which begs the question: if you’re rooting for women and men to become completely equal, should you root for women to commit more crimes?

“Women Are Not Men”

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

“Women Are Not Men“

That was the title of a recent rebroadcast of the Freakonomics podcast, which asks what do Wikipedia edits and murder have in common? Answer: women statistically do them far less frequently than men.  The podcast also explores why women tend to be less competitive than men, why they make less and why they have become less happy.

Here is a description of the episode from the Freakonomics website:

We take a look at the ways in which the gender gap is closing, and the ways in which it’s not. You’ll hear about the gender gap among editors of the world’s biggest encyclopedia, and what a study conducted in Tanzania and India has to say about female-male differences in competition. You’ll also hear about the female happiness paradox and one of the biggest gender gaps out there: crime. Which begs the question: if you’re rooting for women and men to become completely equal, should you root for women to commit more crimes?

Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?

A fundamental skill which all good lawyer possess is the ability to effectively communicate ideas.  According to the most recent episode of the Freakonomic Radio podcast, “the brain’s greatest attribute is knowing what other people are thinking.” This attribute is key to communication.  

This episode, although not explicitly about public policy, is helpful for any lawyer or layman in understand how the brain works and how to better communicate and negotiate.  

Here is a description of the show: 

In the episode, Stephen Dubner talks to Nicholas Epley. Here’s how Epley introduces himself:

EPLEY:  I’m a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago. I’m in the Booth School of Business, and I study mind-reading.

What’s a B-school professor doing studying mind-reading? Well, as he says:

EPLEY: If you can’t understand what other people think [and] how you’re being seen by other people, it’s very hard to lead or manage them effectively.

Epley has written a book on research in the field of mind-reading, including some of his own studies. It’s called Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want. A few things you’ll learn in the episode that you never thought you wanted to know, but do: