EconTalk
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.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 68 minutes
- Episodes
- 1014
- Years Active
- 2006 - 2025
Thomas Hazlett on Apple vs. Google
Thomas Hazlett of George Mason University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the growing rivalry between Apple and Google. It is commonly argued that Apple with its closed platform and tight…
Matt Ridley on Trade, Growth, and the Rational Optimist
Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about why he is optimistic about the future and how trade and specialization explain the evolution of human develop…
Douglas Irwin on the Great Depression and the Gold Standard
Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the role the gold standard played in the Great Depression. Irwin argues that France systematically accumulated large amo…
Bryan Caplan on Immigration
Bryan Caplan of George Mason University and EconLog blogger talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about immigration. Caplan takes on the common arguments against open borders and argues that they are…
Gary Greenberg on Depression, Addiction, and the Brain
Gary Greenberg, psychologist and author of The Noble Lie and Manufacturing Depression, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the nature of addiction, depression and mental illness. Drawing on i…
Richard Epstein on Regulation
Richard Epstein of New York University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the current state of the economy, particularly the regulatory climate. …
Alain de Botton on the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Author Alain de Botton talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his latest book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. How has the nature of work changed with the increase in specialization? Why is t…
Arnold Kling on Knowledge, Power, and Unchecked and Unbalanced
Arnold Kling of EconLog and author of Unchecked and Unbalanced, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the book and the relationship between knowledge and power. In a modern economy, specializat…
Daniel Pink on Drive, Motivation, and Incentives
Daniel Pink, author of Drive, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about drive, motivation, compensation, and incentives. Pink discusses the implications of using monetary rewards as compensation in…
Michael Munger on Private and Public Rent-Seeking (and Chilean Buses)
Mike Munger of Duke University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about private and public rent-seeking. When firms compete for either private profit opportunities or government contracts, there a…
David Kennedy on the Great Depression and the New Deal
David Kennedy of Stanford University and the author of Freedom from Fear talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Great Depression and its political and economic relevance. Kennedy talks about…
Robert Laughlin on the Future of Carbon and Climate
Robert Laughlin of Stanford University and the 1998 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about energy use and the future of the earth's climate. Drawing on…
David Brady on the State of the Electorate
David Brady of Stanford University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of the electorate and what current and past political science have to say about the upcoming midterm elections…
Robert Service on Leon Trotsky
Robert Service of Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the University of Oxford talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the life and death of Leon Trotsky. Based on Service's biography of…
John Taylor on the State of the Economy
John Taylor of Stanford University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of the economy. Is the economy recovering? What policies have helped and hurt? Taylor gives his views on both …
Paul Gregory on Politics, Murder, and Love in Stalin's Kremlin
Paul Gregory of the University of Houston and a Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about Nikolai Bukharin's power struggle with Stalin a…
Arnold Kling on the Unseen World of Banking, Mortgages, and Government
Arnold Kling of EconLog talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the weird world of banking. Why do mortgages look the way they do? What do banks contribute to economic activity? How does regulati…
Bryan Caplan on Hayek, Richter, and Socialism
Bryan Caplan of George Mason University and blogger at EconLog talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about two books: Eugene Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future and F. A. Hayek's The Road to S…
Scott Sumner on Growth and Economic Policy
Scott Sumner of Bentley University and the blog, The Money Illusion, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the last 30 years of economic policy and macroeconomic success and failure. Sumner arg…
Johanna Blakley on Fashion and Intellectual Property
Johanna Blakley of the University of Southern California talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the fashion industry and the role of intellectual property. In the fashion industry there is limit…