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Data to Improve the World: A Conversation with Freakonomics' Stephen Dubner

Freakanomics

Stephen Dubner is one of the co-authors of the series of popular books "Freakonomics," which use the tools of the economist's trade in entertaining and enlightening ways.

He's also the co-host of a new radio show of the same name, which airs on 89.3 FM Sundays at 2 p.m.

Dubner spoke recently with WFPL's James Bickers about the concept behind the "Freakonomics" radio show.

"We are constantly trying to find data to explore the ways that the world can be made a little bit better," Dubner said.

Listen:

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On being in a rock band: 

"A career in rock and roll, I think, should be mandatory for everybody in the world, because it teaches you a lot of things. It teaches you to get alon with other people — conflict resolution. It encourages creativity, obviously. But it's also a very, very, very good training in bootstrap economics. You're always trying to do more with very few resources."

On the inspiration for the show: 

"We do use the tools economists use to typically apply them to big, important, scary, mathy, macro stuff. We use those tools and the economist's way of thinking to look at things that are often a little bit more human, about human decisions, how we behave, how we can get people to do stuff that's better for them and better for society."