EconTalk

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EconTalk is an award-winning weekly talk show and podcast about economics in daily life. Host Russ Roberts talks to featured guests, professors, authors, and Nobel Prize winners about the economics behind current events, markets, the Great Depression, free trade, and the curiosities of everyday decision-making. Topics include school, health, business, finance, jobs, politics, book reviews, what's behind the recent mortgage and housing troubles, family, and more.

EconTalk is an award-winning weekly talk show and podcast about economics in daily life. Host Russ Roberts talks to featured guests, professors, authors, and Nobel Prize winners about the economics behind current events, markets, the Great Depression, free trade, and the curiosities of everyday decision-making. Topics include school, health, business, finance, jobs, politics, book reviews, what's behind the recent mortgage and housing troubles, family, and more.

More Information

Location:

Indianapolis, IN

Genres:

Economics

Business News

Podcasts

Description:

Twitter:

@EconTalker

Language:

English

Contact:

8335 Allison Pointe Trail Indianapolis, IN 46250 (317) 842-0880

Website:

http://www.econtalk.org/

Email:

mail@econtalk.org

Episodes

Jennifer Doleac on Crime

1/21/2019

Economist Jennifer Doleac of Texas A&M University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her research on crime, police, and the unexpected consequences of the criminal justice system. Topics discussed include legislation banning asking job applicants if they've been in prison, body cameras for police, the use of DNA databases, the use of Naloxone to prevent death from opioid overdose, and the challenges of being an economist who thinks about crime using the economist's toolkit.

Duration:01:22:58

Stephen Kotkin on Solzhenitsyn

1/14/2019

Historian and author Stephen Kotkin of Princeton University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the historical significance of the life and work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn's birth.

Duration:01:00:02

Ed Dolan on Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

1/7/2019

Economist Ed Dolan of the Niskanen Center talks about employer-based health insurance with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Dolan discusses how unusual it is relative to other countries that so many Americans get their health insurance through their employer and the implications of that phenomenon for the structure of the health insurance market. Dolan explores the drawbacks of this structure and makes the case for what he calls Universal Catastrophic Coverage.

Duration:01:04:26

Sebastian Junger on Tribe

12/31/2018

Journalist and author Sebastian Junger talks about his book Tribe with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Junger explores the human need to be needed and the challenges facing many individuals in modern society who struggle to connect with others. His studies of communal connection include soldiers in a small combat unit and American Indian society in the nineteenth century.

Duration:01:16:25

Mariana Mazzucato on the Value of Everything

12/24/2018

Economist and author Mariana Mazzucato talks about her book The Value of Everything with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Mazzucato argues that economists have mismeasured value and have failed to appreciate the role of government as innovator. She argues for a more active role for government in the innovation process and for government to share in revenue proportional to its role in the creation of new technology.

Duration:01:07:52

John Horgan on Mind-Body Problems

12/17/2018

Science journalist and author John Horgan talks about his book, Mind-Body Problems, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Horgan interviewed an array of scientists, philosophers, and others who have worked on consciousness, free-will, and what it means to be human. Horgan argues that no single solution to the problems in these areas is likely to be established by science and that our perspective on these questions is inevitably colored by our personal experiences rather than by scientific...

Duration:01:17:10

Peter Berkowitz on Locke, Liberty, and Liberalism

12/9/2018

Peter Berkowitz of Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the origins of liberalism and the importance of John Locke. Berkowitz defends the liberal project of individual rights and liberty and argues that critics of Locke mischaracterize his thought. The conversation closes with an evaluation of the Enlightenment.

Duration:01:20:02

Maeve Cohen on Rethinking Economics

12/3/2018

Maeve Cohen, Co-director of Rethinking Economics, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her organization and its efforts to change economics education. Cohen, who co-founded the Post-Crash Economics Society, argues for a more human-centered approach to economics that would be less confident in its policy prescriptions and more honest about the significance of its underlying assumptions.

Duration:01:02:02

Anat Admati on the Financial Crisis of 2008

11/26/2018

Anat Admati of Stanford's Graduate School of Business talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the financial crisis of 2008, the lessons she has learned, and how it has changed her view of economics, finance, and her career.

Duration:01:05:57

A.J. Jacobs on Thanks a Thousand

11/19/2018

Journalist and author A. J. Jacobs talks about his book, Thanks a Thousand, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Jacobs thanked a thousand different people who contributed to his morning cup of coffee. In this conversation, Jacobs talks about the power of gratitude and different ways we can express gratitude in everyday life. He and Roberts also explore the unintended web of cooperation that underlies almost every product we encounter in a modern economy.

Duration:01:01:27

Julia Belluz on Epidemiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism

11/12/2018

Science writer Julia Belluz of Vox.com talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of epidemiology, nutrition, and the relationship between obesity and metabolism.

Duration:01:05:21

Alan Lightman on Science, Spirituality, and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

11/5/2018

Author and Physicist Alan Lightman talks about his book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. This is a wide-ranging conversation on religion, science, transcendence, consciousness, impermanence, and whether matter is all that matters.

Duration:01:12:00

Michael Munger on Sharing, Transaction Costs, and Tomorrow 3.0

10/29/2018

Economist and author Michael Munger of Duke University talks about his book, Tomorrow 3.0, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Munger analyzes the rise of companies like Uber and AirBnB as an example of how technology lowers transactions costs. Users and providers can find each other more easily through their smartphones, increasing opportunity. Munger expects these costs to fall elsewhere and predicts an expansion of the sharing economy to a wide array of items in our daily lives.

Duration:01:10:18

Ran Abramitzky on the Mystery of the Kibbutz

10/22/2018

Economist and author Ran Abramitzky of Stanford University talks about his book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Abramitzky traces the evolution of the kibbutz movement in Israel and how the kibbutz structure changed to cope with the modernization and development of the Israeli economy. The conversation includes a discussion of how the history of the kibbutz might help us to understand the appeal and challenges of the socialism and freedom.

Duration:01:06:43

Kevin McKenna on Characters, Plot, and Themes of In the First Circle

10/18/2018

Russian Literature Professor Kevin McKenna of the University of Vermont talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the characters, plot, and themes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece, In the First Circle. This is the second episode of the EconTalk book club discussing the book. The first episode--a discussion of Solzhenitsyn's life and times--is available on EconTalk.

Duration:01:16:19

John Gray on the Seven Kinds of Atheism

10/15/2018

Philosopher and author John Gray talks about his latest book, Seven Types of Atheism, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Gray argues that progress is an illusion and that most atheisms inherit, unknowingly, a religious belief in progress that is not justified. While Gray concedes that technological know-how and scientific knowledge improve over time, he argues that morality and political systems are cyclical and that there is no reason to be optimistic about the future.

Duration:01:36:03

Neil Monnery on Hong Kong and the Architect of Prosperity

10/8/2018

Neil Monnery, author of Architect of Prosperity, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book--a biography of John Cowperthwaite, the man often credited with the economic success of Hong Kong. Monnery describes the policies that Cowperthwaite championed and the role they played in the evolution of Hong Kong's economy. How much those policies mattered is the focus of the conversation. Other topics include the relationship between Hong Kong and China and the irony of the challenges...

Duration:01:13:30

Noah Smith on Worker Compensation, Co-determination, and Market Power

10/1/2018

Bloomberg Opinion columnist and economist Noah Smith talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about corporate control, wages, and monopoly power. Smith discusses the costs and benefits of co-determination--the idea of putting workers on corporate boards. The conversation then moves to a lively discussion of wages and monopoly power and how the American worker has been doing in recent years.

Duration:01:15:17

Rodney Brooks on Artificial Intelligence

9/24/2018

Rodney Brooks, emeritus professor of robotics at MIT, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the future of robots and artificial intelligence. Brooks argues that we both under-appreciate and over-appreciate the impact of innovation. He applies this insight to the current state of driverless cars and other changes people are expecting to change our daily lives in radical ways. He also suggests that the challenges of developing truly intelligent robots and technologies will take much...

Duration:01:05:37

Paul Bloom on Cruelty

9/17/2018

Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about cruelty--what motivates cruelty, the cruelty of small acts that accumulate into something monstrous, and the question of whether the abuse of a robot is a form of cruelty.

Duration:01:22:35