Economics Detective Radio

My guest for this episode is Mark Koyama of George Mason University. Our topic is a recent paper titled, "States and Economic Growth: Capacity and Constraints," which Mark coauthored with Noel Johnson. Just recorded at great podcast with @GarrettPetersen on my work on state capacity (with @ndjohnson). — Mark Koyama (@MarkKoyama) May 24, 2017 As stated in the paper, "state capacity describes the ability of a state to collect taxes, enforce law and order, and provide public goods." That said, state capacity does not mean big government. A state may have the power to impose rules across its territory, but it doesn't have to use that power in a tyrannical way. Another way of saying that is to say that having a high state capacity is compatible with Adam Smith's desire for "peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice." One metric that researchers use to measure state capacity is tax revenue per capita. But as Mark is careful to point out, a state with less state capacity can still sometimes achie

My guest for this episode is Nuno Palma, he is an assistant professor of economics, econometrics, and finance at the University of Groningen. Our discussion begins with the monetary history of England. Nuno has authored a study that reconstructs England's money supply from 1270 to 1870. We discuss his methods and findings. We also discuss the influx of precious metals into European markets after the discovery of the New World. We discuss the impact of empire on economic development with reference to Nuno's work on the Portugese empire. We revisit some topics from my previous interview with Jari Eloranta. Later in the conversation, we discuss the effect of trade on economic growth during the industrial revolution. Nuno places a greater importance on international trade than McCloskey and Mokyr, but a lesser importance than historians like Wallerstein. Although gross trade flows were not particularly large, trade created new domestic industries like the porcelain industry that was created to compete with Chines

My guest for this episode is Jari Eloranta, he is a professor of comparative economic and business history at Appalachian State University. Jari's work focuses on the economic history of national defense. In this far-reaching conversation, we go all the way back to pre-modern societies' methods of financing their militaries, then trace the transitions up through the early modern period and into the 20th century. We discuss the way war has shaped modern states and institutions. Books mentioned: The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It, by David A. Bell. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, by Tonio Andrade.

My guest today is Alex Lubinsky, co-founder of the Silicon Valley startup Rentberry. Rentberry is a platform that lets landlords post units for rent so that tenants can bid on them. Once a landlord posts a vacancy, different potential tenants can make offers and the landlord can select which one to rent to. Importantly, the landlord doesn't have to select the highest bidder. Potential tenants on Rentberry put in their personal characteristics up on the site, so landlords can select for the type of tenants they want. Maybe they're willing to accept a lower rent from a quiet single woman than a family of five with four dogs and six cats. There has been some controversy about the site, stemming from the fact that it leads tenants to bid against one another, potentially pushing up prices. One tenant advocate said, "I think it's incredibly arrogant and incredibly concerning in light of the fact that we have the highest number of homeless families since the Great Depression. For them to do something to increase the

Hello and welcome to the fiftieth episode special of Economics Detective Radio! Today we have Ash Navabi back on the program, but we’re flipping the script: Ash will be interviewing me about the show and about all the things I’ve learned while making it. In this episode, I alienate the political right by discussing the importance of labour mobility and the desirability of open borders. I also alienate the political left by expressing a lukewarm position on climate change. I also discuss my own research plans relating to law and economics. Finally, we discuss literature! Really, if you like Economics Detective Radio, you have to hear this episode.  

Returning to the podcast is Vincent Geloso of Texas Tech University. Our topic for this episode is anthropometric history, the study of history by means of measuring humans. Doing serious historical research into the distant past is difficult work, because the further you look back in time, the less information you can access. For the 20th century we have wonderful thing like chain-weighted real GDP. Going back further, we have some statistics, lots of surviving physical evidence, and loads of documents and writings. Going further than that, we're left with the odd scrap of thrice-copied surviving manuscripts and second-hand accounts from people who lived centuries after the events they describe. And going even further than that, we have just bones and dilapidated temples with the occasional inscription. Anthropometric history allows us to look into the distant past at what economic historians like Vincent hope might be a good measure of different populations' health and standards of living: their heights. Pe

Today's guest is Kate Raworth, she is a senior visiting research associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and the author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. In this interesting and wide-ranging discussion, we discuss Kate's critiques of the standard models taught to economics undergraduates, as well as her views on development, economic growth, inequality, and the environment. You might think our viewpoints would be very different on these topics, but we find a surprising amount of common ground. During our discussion of inequality and the patterns noticed in the 1950s by Simon Kuznets, I bring up Geloso and Magness' work on inequality in the early 20th century. You can hear my conversation with Vincent Geloso about that research here, as well as his comments on it here.  

Today's guest is Akin Unver of Kadir Has University. He uses geospatial data to study political events such as the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016. The coup was an attempt by certain rogue elements of the Turkish armed forces to oust President Erdogan. However, unlike past coups in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997, the Turkish people documented and coordinated their opposition to it on social media in real time, leaving a rich record of events as they unfolded. Akin's research, which was featured in an extensive and detailed article for Foreign Affairs, shows how, when, and where the opposition to the coup occurred. He shows, for instance, the importance of mosque networks in coordinating resistance. And while the media put a lot of importance on Erdogan's personal appeals through FaceTime and Twitter in galvanizing support, the data show that resistance started organically almost as soon as the coup began, hours before Erdogan appeared on television to rally support. The discussion delves deep into specific detai

This episode features Anton Howes of Brown University. He is a historian of innovation, and in this conversation we discuss his work on the explosion of innovation that occurred in Britain between 1551 and 1851. You can check out his Medium blog for some of the articles we discuss. Anton has collected a data set of over 1,000 British innovators who worked during this period. He has documented their education, their experience, and their relationships with one another. Some of the interesting patterns that emerge in his data are the large fraction of innovators who developed technologies in industries outside of their areas of expertise, as well as the high degree of interconnectedness between innovators. Innovation, it seems, is a mindset; one that can be spread from person to person like a contagion. As far as Anton can tell, this mindset seems to have spread from Italy and the Low Countries during the Renaissance and taken hold in Britain to usher in its Industrial Revolution. With his view of innovation a

What follows is an edited partial transcript of my conversation with Stephen M. Jones. He is an economist for the US Coast Guard. However, we are discussing his own research, so nothing in this conversation should be taken to represent the official views of the US Coast Guard. Petersen: So Stephen, let's start just by defining regulatory discretion. What does that mean in this context? Jones: Sure. So, I think first off, we should probably define regulation because when Congress writes a law, they pass the law on to regulatory agencies and it will say something to the effect of "agencies: issue a regulation." So, when we talk about regulations this point isn't always clear because people just aren't familiar with this process. The regulation is a statement that kind of clarifies existing congressional law or is written in direct response to congressional law. And this could be as specific as, say, Congress can direct an agency to set an exact amount of pollution that is permitted for an industry to as broad

What follows is an edited transcript of my conversation with Maxime Bernier. If you like his ideas, I encourage you to go to his website to learn more about them. Petersen: You're listening to Economics Detective Radio. Before we start let me give a quick disclaimer that although today's guest is a politician this show is nonpartisan and doesn't endorse any particular candidate for office. My guest and I are also Canadian so we'll be talking about some Canada-specific issues. I know I have an international audience but sometimes it's fun to learn about what's going on in other countries. So I hope you'll listen nonetheless. And now on to the episode. My guest today is Maxime Bernier, he is the Member of Parliament for Beauce, Quebec and a contender for the Conservative Party leadership race. Maxime, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. Bernier: Thank you very much for having me. Petersen: So, our topic today will be Canada's economy and its economic policy. There's a lot to get to on this topic but let's st

What follows is an edited transcript of the first part of my conversation with Gret Glyer, creator of DonorSee. For the full conversation, listen to the episode. Petersen: My guest today is Gret Glyer, he is the creator of a new app called DonorSee. Gret, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. Glyer: Thank you for having me, Garrett. How are you? Petersen: I am great! So, DonorSee is a charitable giving app with a very interesting twist which---we'll get to the app itself in a little bit---but first let's start with some background. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with the nonprofit sector. Glyer: Sure. So, I graduated from college in 2012 and immediately started working at a rental car company and did that for about a year and did really well. And I was promoted very quickly and I was told by upper management I was going to skyrocket through the ranks and that whole idea of being very successful having six or seven figure income, getting a company car, that kind of stuff, was jus

What follows is an edited partial transcript of my conversation with George Bragues of the University of Guelph-Humber. We discussed his new book, Money, Markets, and Democracy: Politically Skewed Financial Markets and How to Fix Them. This is his second appearance on this show, you can hear the first one here. Petersen: So your book looks at the interaction between Democratic politics and financial markets. In your introduction, you quote the Greek Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras, who claimed that "democracy cannot be blackmailed." And this was in the context of the 2015 bailout referendum that would have helped pay some of the massive Greek debt but at a cost of forcing them to adopt fiscal austerity. So, can you talk a little bit about that situation and how it played out and also what it tells us generally about the relationship between democracy and finance? Bragues: Yes, sure. That situation has its origins about a year or two after the financial crisis of 2008. The financial crisis of 2008 initially aro

What follows is an edited transcript of my discussion with Ray March about the economics of medicine and health insurance. We had a fascinating and far-reaching discussion about health care policy, both in the United States and Canada, as well as some cases of entrepreneurship in the medical sector. This includes a slightly awkward discussion of the development of sexual pharmacology, the early experiments with nitrates and Viagra, and the, uhhh, "firmness" those drugs produce. Enjoy! Petersen: My guest today is Ray March of Texas Tech University. Ray, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. March: Thanks for having me. Petersen: So our topic today is the economics of medicine. Ray's research concerns entrepreneurship and regulation in medicine. Let's start by talking about this idea of entrepreneurship in medicine. The medical field isn't like Silicon Valley. You can't just launch a pharmaceutical company out of your parents' garage. In fact, the whole field is tightly regulated and controlled by the governme

What follows is an edited transcript of my conversation with Judy Stephenson. Petersen: You're listening to Economics Detective Radio. My guest today is Judy Stephenson of Oxford University's Wadham college. Judy, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. Stephenson: Thank you very much. It's nice to be here. Petersen: So, our topic for today is economic history. Specifically we’ll be looking at some interesting research Judy has done on wage rates in the early modern period in London. This period is particularly interesting because it's the start of the Industrial Revolution which leads to a dramatic increase in the growth living standards and of technology and that trend of course is what has shaped our modern world and made it different from the world of the past. So, it's very important of course to understand this period if we want to understand the world as it is now. So Judy, start by giving us historical background. What was the world like in the period you study? Stephenson: Well, I work mostly on resea

What follows is an edited transcript of my conversation with Samuel Gross. Petersen: You're listening to Economics Detective Radio. My guest today is Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan Law School. Sam, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. Gross: Great to be here. Petersen: So our topic for today is criminal justice, in particular, we're going to be looking at the issue of wrongful conviction. Dr. Gross was part of the establishment of the National Registry of Exonerations which has provided valuable data in this area. So let's start by talking about the registry. What is it? How was it developed? And what was your part in it? Gross: I'm the founder of the registry. It was created because after doing work on false convictions and exonerations for half a dozen years it became clear that the only way to get any sort of systematic information on exonerations that have occurred in the United States would be to put together the wherewithal to collect that information directly because nobody else was doing

What follows is an edited transcript of my conversation with Otto Lehto. Petersen: You're listening to Economics Detective Radio. My guest today is Otto Lehto of King's College London. He is formerly the chair of Finland's Basic Income Network. Otto, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. Lehto: Oh it's my pleasure to be here. Petersen: So our topic for today is the basic income guarantee. Otto, you approach this idea from the perspective of political philosophy, so let's start by discussing that. How about we start by talking about two of the major figures in political philosophy: John Rawls and Robert Nozick. What do each of them have to say about the welfare state and where do your views diverge from theirs? Lehto: That is a good point to start indeed, although it is I think a bit lamentable that we have to start from those two figures because they have dominated the discussion so much during the last 50 years. In fact, it's very hard to have a conversation outside the boundaries set by those two figures,

What follows is an edited transcript of my conversation with Sam Hammond. Petersen: My guest today is Sam Hammond. He's a policy analyst at the Niskanen Center. Sam, welcome to Economics Detective Radio. Hammond: Hi! Petersen: Our topic today is supersonic air travel. Sam has written an article titled "Make America Boom Again" along with co-author Eli Dourado which revisits the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's ban on supersonic flight over the United States. So Sam let's start at the very start. Let's start by talking about the history of flight. How do we get from the Wright brothers to supersonic flight? Hammond: Well I think the most notable thing about the early history of aviation is how quickly and how rapidly we innovated. So the Wright brothers flew their initial voyage, their milestone flight in 1903 at seven miles per hour and within forty years we were already breaking the speed of sound. And actually very shortly after that not only were we breaking the speed of sound within military jets b

Today's interview features Joanna Szurmak of the University of Toronto. Our topic for today is the second proposed bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon. Joanna has written a paper titled "Care to Wager Again? An Appraisal of Paul Ehrlich's Counter-Bet Offer to Julian Simon" along with coauthors Vincent Geloso and Pierre Desrochers, both former guests of this show. We mentioned the original Simon-Ehrlich bet briefly in my conversation with Steve Horwitz, but in this episode we talk about it in more detail. Julian Simon had a cornucopian vision of development and humanity. In his view, things are getting better as we develop new ideas for improving our lives and our world. Paul Ehrlich has precisely the opposite vision. He has been predicting environmental catastrophe since the 1960s. Julian Simon famously challenged Ehrlich to a wager. Simon challenged Ehrlich to choose any five commodities whose prices were not controlled by governments, betting that their inflation-adjusted prices would fall rather than

My guest today is Ed Conard, here to discuss his recent book, The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class. He is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former managing director at Bain Capital. His 2012 book, Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong was a New York Times bestseller. Because his business partner Mitt Romney was running for President at the time, many people expected the book to be a defense of the one percent. It wasn't, but this new book is! We had a wide-ranging discussion that touched on inequality, immigration, entrepreneurship, finance, and housing.