636. Why Aren’t We Having More Babies?

<p>A Trump executive order is giving retail investors more access to private markets. Is that a golden opportunity — or fool’s gold?</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</strong><ul><li><a href="https://law.duke.edu/fac/defontenay/">Elisabeth de Fontenay,</a> professor of law at D ... Show More

<p>Thoroughbred auction prices keep setting records. But tracks are closing, gambling revenues are falling, and the sport is increasingly reliant on subsidies. Is that the kind of long shot anybody wants? (Part three of a series, “<a href="https://freakonomics.com/the-horse-is-us ... Show More

<p>The world has changed a good bit since <i>Freakonomics</i> was first published. In this live anniversary episode, Stephen Dubner tells Geoff Bennett of <i>PBS NewsHour </i>everything he has learned since then. Happy birthday, <i>Freakonomics.</i></p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOU ... Show More

<p>For a long time, the story about the world’s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five chi ... Show More

<p>Are things really as bad as they seem? Has Gen Z given up hope for the world? And why was the father of positive psychology a lifelong pessimist?</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</strong><ul><li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/science/albert-bandura-dead.html">A ... Show More

Stephen J. Shaw is a data scientist & demographer. He is the writer and director of ‘Birthgap - Childless World’, a documentary exploring the global decline in birth rates. Check out part one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6s8QlIGanA SPONSORED BY: EasyDNS - domain name r ... Show More

<p>Why does the U.S. use Fahrenheit when Celsius is better? Would you quit your job if a coin flip told you to? And how do you get an entire country to drive on the other side of the road?</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</strong><ul><li><a href="https://psychology.ku.edu/peop ... Show More

Stephen J. Shaw is a data scientist and filmmaker. Birth rates in Western countries are collapsing, a trend even Elon Musk calls an existential threat. But what’s the true cause? Is it economics, fear of the future, cultural shifts, or something deeper? And more importantly, can ... Show More

When it comes to women controlling their own economic destinies, perhaps nothing has had a more profound impact than the contraceptive pill. But the US may be on the cusp of change. Earlier this year, the Trump administration froze some federal funding for subsidised access to co ... Show More

<p>Around the world, racist influencers have instigated a panic over shadowy global elites who have supposedly conspired to flood white-majority countries with immigrants from Latin America, Africa and Asia in order to destroy Western civilization.  This idea, called the Great Re ... Show More

<p class="">'History has ended, and capitalism is the last man standing. The innovations and freedoms enjoyed by the Global North have shown that the free market is the only viable economic system; it is almost impossible to imagine a coherent alternative.'</p> <p class="">This w ... Show More

<p>Steven Pinker’s new book argues that all our relationships depend on shared assumptions and “recursive mentalizing” — our constant efforts to understand what other people are thinking. He and Steve talk about the psychology of eye contact, the particular value of Super Bowl ad ... Show More

Twenty-three years later, over 1,000 families are still waiting for news of loved ones lost in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. Correspondent Scott Pelley looks at how efforts to search for and identify their remains have never stopped, driven by the promise made by the Ne ... Show More