20 Years of Freakonomics: How It Changed Business

In this HBR IdeaCast episode, Adi Ignatius interviews Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, on the book's 20th anniversary and its impact on economics and popular culture. They discuss the initial reactions from the economics profession, the book's appeal, and the potential unintended consequences of popularizing economic research, such as contributing to academic fraud. Dubner defends the book's approach to uncovering the hidden side of everything, emphasizing the importance of understanding incentives and critically examining conventional wisdom. The conversation also explores the challenges of establishing causation versus correlation and the importance of fact-based explanations in a world of alternative facts. Dubner reflects on what he would change if writing the book today, highlighting a more cautious and less playful tone, and recounts an instance where they had to correct a factual error, reaffirming his commitment to rigorous journalism and storytelling.