Freakonomics Radio Podcast

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:

Freakonomics on College Part 2: Costs and Benefits

/ Matthew Clemente / 1 Comment

Freakonomics on College Part 2: Costs and Benefits

Last week, we featured Part I on the Freakonomics episode on the economics of college.  This week Freakonomics discussed the costs and benefits of college education with students, economics, professors and recent grads.  

Here is a sampling of some of those guests interviewed: 

This episode looks at tuition costs and also tries to figure out exactly how the college experience makes people so much better off. . . . 

 

While there are a lot of different voices in this episode, including current and recent college grads, the episode is also a bit heavy on economists (d’oh!), including:

+ David Card at Berkeley, whose education papers are here;

+ Ronald Ehrenberg at Cornell, whose recent paper “American Higher Education in Transition” discusses tuition inflation;

+ Betsey Stevenson; her blog contributions are here, and she tweets too;

+ Justin Wolfers, whose blog writing is here; he too tweets; additionally, he and Stevenson are a matched pair — heading for the University of Michigan, by the way — who also appeared in our “Economist’s Guide to Parenting” podcast, along with daughter Matilda, whom they discuss again in this episode; and:

+ Steve Levitt, 

Freakonomics on College, Fake Diplomas, and the Value of Real Ones

/ Matthew Clemente / 1 Comment

Freakonomics on College, Fake Diplomas, and the Value of Real Ones

The Freakonomics Radio Podcast, recently re-ran an episode titled, “Freakonomics Goes to College: Part 1.”  Here is description of the podcast:

The gist: what is the true value these days of a college education?

(You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player above, or read the transcript below.)

As you can tell from the title, this is the first episode of a two-parter. There is so much to say about college that we could have done ten episodes on the topic, but we held ourselves back to two.

The key guests in this first episode are, in order of appearance:

+ Allen Ezell, a former FBI agent who co-authored the book Degree Mills: The Billion-dollar Industry That Has Sold over a Million Fake Diplomas.

+ Karl Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush. Rove, it turns out, is not a college graduate. He is, however, a published author — of Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight.

+ David Card, an economist at Berkeley who has done a lot of research and writing on the value of education.