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, the conflicts and history of the Middle East, and more. EconTalk has been taking the Monday out of Mondays since 2006. All 1000+ episodes are available in the archive. Go to EconTalk.org for transcripts, related resources, and comments.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jul 2, 2007 • 1h 3min
Michael Munger on Recycling
Mike Munger, professor of economics and political science at Duke University and frequent guest of EconTalk, talks with host Russ Roberts about the economics and politics of recycling. Munger argues that recycling can save resources, of course, but it can also require more resources than production from scratch. Some curbside recycling, for example, makes sense, while other forms (such as green glass) may be akin to a form of religious expression rather than a wise policy that is environmentally productive. The conversation is based on Munger's recent essay at the Library of Economics and Liberty.
9 snips
Jun 25, 2007 • 1h 21min
Bryan Caplan on the Myth of the Rational Voter
Bryan Caplan, of George Mason University and blogger at EconLog, talks about his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Caplan argues that democracies work well in giving voters what they want but unfortunately, what voters want isn't particularly wise, especially when it comes to economic policy. He outlines a series of systematic biases we often have on economic topics and explains why we have little or no incentive to improve our understanding of the world and vote wisely. So, it's not special interests that are messing things up but the very incentives that lie at the heart of a vote-based system. This is a disturbing and provocative lens for viewing political outcomes.
Jun 18, 2007 • 1h 15min
David Weinberger on Everything is Miscellaneous and the Wonderful World of Digital Information
Author David Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute for Internet and Society, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in his latest book, Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. Topics include the differences between how we organize and think about physical and digital information, the power of the internet to let us consume information in unique and customized ways and the implications for retailing, politics and education.
Jun 11, 2007 • 1h 7min
Dan Pink on How Half Your Brain Can Save Your Job
Author Dan Pink, talks about the ideas in his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. He argues that the skills of the right side of the brain--skills such as creativity, empathy, contextual thinking and big picture thinking--are going to become increasingly important as a response to competition from low-wage workers overseas and our growing standard of living.
Jun 4, 2007 • 1h 7min
Amity Shlaes on the Great Depression
Amity Shlaes, Bloomberg columnist and visiting senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, talks about her new book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. She and EconTalk host Russ Roberts discuss Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the economics of the New Deal and the class warfare of the 1930s.
11 snips
May 28, 2007 • 1h 12min
Robin Hanson on Health
Robin Hanson, economist and professor known for prediction markets and signaling ideas, offers unconventional takes on health, medicine, and policy. He explores puzzling healthcare findings, argues our brains bias health decisions, proposes signaling and loyalty as drivers of medical consumption, and champions prediction markets as tools to evaluate policy.
May 21, 2007 • 1h 6min
Vernon Smith on Markets and Experimental Economics
Vernon Smith, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics, talks about experimental economics, markets, risk, behavioral economics and the evolution of his career.
13 snips
May 14, 2007 • 1h 5min
Cass Sunstein on Infotopia, Information and Decision-Making
Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago legal scholar and author of Infotopia, explores how groups produce knowledge. He discusses prediction markets as incentive-based aggregators, the limits of deliberation like polarization and hidden profiles, and how wikis and institutional practices can better capture dispersed information.
May 7, 2007 • 57min
John Allison on Strategy, Profits, and Self-Interest
John Allison, CEO of BB and T Bank, lays out his business philosophy arguing for the virtues of profits, self-interest and production. His definition of justice, one of the core values of his firm, is that those who produce more, get more. He argues that Bill Gates would do more for the world improving Microsoft than running his foundation and giving away money. Allison praises Atlas Shrugged and refuses to let his bank make loans to companies that use eminent domain to acquire property. Is this any way to run a company? Does Allison really run his company this way? How does he deal with the gap between his philosophy and our popular culture's view of business and profits? Listen as Allison and host Russ Roberts discuss BB and T's unusual business strategy.
Apr 30, 2007 • 1h 24min
Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Black Swans
Nassim Taleb talks about the challenges of coping with uncertainty, predicting events, and understanding history. This wide-ranging conversation looks at investment, health, history and other areas where data play a key role. Taleb, the author of Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan, imagines two countries, Mediocristan and Extremistan where the ability to understand the past and predict the future is radically different. Taleb's contention is that we often bring our intuition from Mediocristan for the events of Extremistan, leading us to error. The result is a tendency to be blind-sided by the unexpected.
