Now and again, Freakonomics Radio puts hat in hand and asks listeners to donate to the public-radio station that produces the show. Why on earth should anyone pay good money for something that can be had for free? Here are a few reasons.

A famous economics essay features a pencil (yes, a pencil) arguing that “not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.” Is the pencil just bragging? In any case, what can the pencil teach us about our global interdependence — and the proper role of government in the economy?

The digital age is making pen and paper seem obsolete. But what are we giving up if we give up on handwriting?

Okay, maybe the steps aren't so easy. But a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had great success in turning around kids who were headed for trouble.

If U.S. schoolteachers are indeed "just a little bit below average," it's not really their fault. So what should be done about it?

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the South African divestment campaign, Chick-fil-A! Almost anyone can launch a boycott, and the media loves to cover them. But do boycotts actually produce the change they're fighting for?

Experts and pundits are notoriously bad at forecasting, in part because they aren't punished for bad predictions. Also, they tend to be deeply unscientific. The psychologist Philip Tetlock is finally turning prediction into a science -- and now even you could become a superforecaster.

Discrimination can't explain why women earn so much less than men. If only it were that easy.

Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn't always work out. That's where "temptation bundling" comes in.

A team of economists has been running the numbers on the U.N.'s development goals. They have a different view of how those billions of dollars should be spent.