An Economist’s Guide to Parenting

Becoming a parent means entering one of the largest seas of advice known to man.  Much of it is written by amateurs.  Little of it has any connection to the tools that social scientists have forged to analyze human behavior.  In this hour of Freakonomics Radio, we turn back this rollicking tide of misunderstanding with the hyper-rational, un-emotional techniques of economists.  Can Steven Levitt incentivize his young daughter to use the toilet? Does watching TV on the sofa have the same effect on kids as going to music class?  What happens when children are randomly assigned to families? We hear from a roundtable of entertaining and smart economists about what really matters as a parent and what doesn’t.