The Pie: An Economics Podcast

Which economies will suffer most from global warming, and by just how much? Will others see benefits? The differences are key to understanding how the global economy will look in the coming years. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg and co-authors are using a dynamic economic assessment model to answer these questions in detail, for the first time. He presented his research as part of the Becker Friedman Institute’s Friedman Forum Series for students.

Inflation has spiked, even while the economy still recovers. What can the Fed do? It’s one of the biggest and most rapidly evolving questions facing macroeconomists today. In this Extra Slice of The Pie, Chicago Booth’s Christina Patterson provides a crash course in how monetary policy works and what economists have learned by studying it empirically.

How can a small nudge make a big impact? Since publishing the first edition of Nudge more than 10 years ago, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler have changed the way businesses and governments design rules and regulations to influence people’s behavior and decision making. Tess Vigeland sat down with Thaler to discuss new material covered in Nudge: The Final Edition, including COVID-19, healthcare, retirement savings, credit card debt, home mortgages, organ donation, climate change, and even “sludge.”

Economists and policymakers alike rely on the “value of a statistical life” to make important trade-offs. What are the merits of such a calculation? Can it be improved? Economists Michael Greenstone and Kyle Greenberg join to discuss groundbreaking research examining army reenlistment choices to show how US soldiers, in effect, price the risk of certain career options.

More than a dozen states have announced large lotteries to incentivize vaccinations. On this episode, Steve Levitt and Jeff Severts examine the economics and likely outcomes of the policy strategy. Is this a lottery where everyone wins big? When it comes to cash prizes, does magnitude matter?

With the rise in federal spending over the last several years, there are questions on how the US will pay those bills. Chicago Booth economists Austan Goolsbee and Eric Zwick demystify which rate changes actually impact revenue and expose how economists think about infrastructure spending. Delving into the details on capital gains taxes, they discuss strategies to close loopholes and, ultimately, increase total revenues.

Division I schools make billions off athletic programs, with close to two-thirds coming from men’s basketball and football alone. Economist Matt Matt Notowidigdo has calculated that due to NCAA restrictions, only 7% of those revenues are paid to student athletes, with important distributional consequences. He joins this week with sports attorney Michael McCann to discuss the economic dynamics, who benefits most, and what is at stake in future court cases over this controversial issue.

Preventing people from entering careers where they could maximize their potential places massive costs on society, and economists can measure the real impact. Chang-Tai Hsieh and Erik Hurst have discovered that declining barriers to careers for women and Black men over the last 50 years accounts for 25-40% of all productivity growth in the US. They join to discuss the implications of their critical findings.

Some of the world’s largest companies (and biggest emitters of CO2) boast big investments in carbon offset programs to reduce their reported carbon footprint. Do these programs work ? If so, for whom? Michael Greenstone and Barbara Haya join to take a close look at proposed solutions to reducing on carbon emissions.

The pandemic forced many Americans into a mass social experiment: working from home (WFH). Now, economists like Steve Davis are measuring the immediate and long-term impact of this massive shift. Davis and Kate Lister join this week to help us explore how time away from the office will change life — for workers, employers, and our cities.