EconTalk
Russ Roberts
EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious is an award-winning weekly podcast hosted by Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford's Hoover Institution. The eclectic guest list includes authors, doctors, psychologists, historians, philosophers, economists, and more. Learn how the health care system really works, the serenity that comes from humility, the challenge of interpreting data, how potato chips are made, what it's like to run an upscale Manhattan restaurant, what caused the 2008 financial crisis, the nature of consciousness, and more. EconTalk has been taking the Monday out of Mondays since 2006. All 900+ episodes are available in the archive. Go to EconTalk.org for transcripts, related resources, and comments.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 22, 2013 • 1h 4min
Edward Glaeser on Cities
Edward Glaeser of Harvard University and author of The Triumph of Cities talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about American cities. The conversation begins with a discussion of the history of Detroit over the last century and its current plight. What might be done to improve Detroit's situation? Why are other cities experiencing similar challenges to those facing Detroit? Why are some cities thriving and growing? What policies might help ailing cities and what policies have helped those cities that succeed? The conversation concludes with a discussion of why cities have such potential for growth.
Apr 15, 2013 • 1h 8min
Jeffrey Sachs on the Crisis, the Recovery, and the Future
Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and author of The Price of Civilization talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of the American economy. Sachs sees the current malaise as a chronic problem rather than a short-term challenge caused by the business cycle. He lists a whole host of issues he thinks policymakers need to deal with including the environment, inequality, and infrastructure. He disagrees with the Keynesian prescriptions for stimulating the economy and believes that the federal government budget deficits are a serious problem. The conversation closes with a discussion of the state of economics.
Apr 8, 2013 • 1h
Anat Admati on Bank Regulation and the Bankers' New Clothes
Anat Admati of Stanford University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her new book (co-authored with Martin Hellwig), The Bankers' New Clothes. Admati argues that the best way to reduce the fragility of the banking system is to increase capital requirements--that is, require banks to finance their activities with a greater proportion of equity rather than debt. She explains how debt magnifies returns and losses while making each bank more fragile. Despite claims to the contrary, she argues that the costs of reducing debt are relatively small for society as a whole while the benefits are substantial.
Apr 1, 2013 • 1h 4min
Eric Topol on the Creative Destruction of Medicine
Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Institute and the author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in his book. Topics discussed include "evidence-based" medicine, the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, how medicine is currently conducted for the "average" patient, the potential of genomics to improve health care and the power of technology, generally, to transform medicine.
Mar 25, 2013 • 1h 10min
Scott Sumner on Money, Business Cycles, and Monetary Policy
Scott Sumner of Bentley University and blogger at The Money Illusion talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the basics of money, monetary policy, and the Fed. After a discussion of some of the basics of the money supply, Sumner explains why he thinks monetary policy in the United States during and since the crisis has been inadequate. Sumner stresses the importance of the Fed setting expectations and he argues for the dominance of monetary policy over fiscal policy.
Mar 18, 2013 • 1h 9min
Angus Burgin on Hayek, Friedman, and the Great Persuasion
Angus Burgin of Johns Hopkins University and the author of The Great Persuasion talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the idea in his book--the return of free market economics in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Burgin describes the reaction to Hayek's Road to Serfdom, the creation of the Mont Pelerin Society, and the increasing influence of Milton Friedman on public policy.
Mar 11, 2013 • 1h 3min
Doc Searls on the Intention Economy
Doc Searls, author of The Intention Economy and head of Project VRM at Harvard University's Berkman Center talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the how the relationship between buyers and sellers might evolve as the internet evolves. Searls imagines a world where buyers would advertise their intentions and desires and sellers would respond with offers. Other topics discussed include Google and Apple's business strategies and the role of the cable and telephone companies in providing access to the internet.
Mar 4, 2013 • 1h 11min
Leigh Steinberg on Sports, Agents, and Athletes
Leigh Steinberg, legendary sports agent, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his career as a sports agent. He discusses the challenges of building a clientele, how sports agents spend their time, strategies for building a brand as an athlete, and safety issues currently affecting the National Football League.
Feb 25, 2013 • 1h 3min
Yanis Varoufakis on Valve, Spontaneous Order, and the European Crisis
Yanis Varoufakis of the University of Athens, the University of Texas, and former economist-in-residence at Valve Software talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the unusual structure of the workplace at Valve. Valve, a software company that creates online video games, has no hierarchy or bosses. Teams of software designers join spontaneously to create and ship video games without any top-down supervision. Varoufakis discusses the economics of this Hayekian workplace and how it actually functions alongside Steam--an open gaming platform created by Valve. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the economic crisis in Europe.
Feb 18, 2013 • 60min
Glenn Reynolds on Politics, the Constitution, and Technology
Glenn Reynolds of the University of Tennessee and blogger at Instapundit talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the political malaise in America, whether it could lead to a Constitutional Convention, and what might emerge were such an event to occur. Reynolds also gives his thoughts on the suggestion advanced in a recent episode of EconTalk that we should ignore the Constitution. The conversation concludes with Reynolds's views on the decentralizing power of technology and Reynolds's music career.
