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EconTalk: Daily Summaries Delivered
by 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. All 1000+ episodes are available in the archive.
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- 2 days ago1h 4m
Revisiting the China Shock (with Joseph Francis)
What if the results of one of the most influential economics papers of the past 25 years are unreliable? The "China shock" narrative--that a surge of Chinese imports destroyed American manufacturing jobs and the communities that depended on them--became conventional wisdom in Washington and beyond. But economic historian Joseph Francis argues that the claim is much weaker than it looks. Listen as he tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts how a 2022 correction to the paper’s research design cut its estimate of lost jobs in half and erased its findings on wages and living standards. He and Russ then look at what this affair reveals about economics as a field, including the incentives that reward dramatic results, and the problems with peer review.
- 1 weeks ago1h 10m
How Your Situation Shapes You (with Angela Duckworth)
Sure, you can use willpower or grit to break bad habits and build new ones. But maybe the key to success is simpler: change your situation. Psychologist Angela Duckworth explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts why the people and places around us shape our behavior more than we realize--and why we're hard-wired to resist that idea. Listen as they discuss the three-box framework for understanding human behavior, why creating friction to avoid temptation is itself an act of agency, and how the cultures we choose to join end up shaping who we become.
- 2 weeks ago1h 9m
Lives Wasted and Well-Lived: David Wolpe on The Death of Ivan Ilyich
What if you did everything right and discovered on your deathbed that you've wasted your life? Rabbi and author David Wolpe talks about Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Weaving Rabbi Wolpe's own brushes with mortality and his years at the bedsides of the dying into Tolstoy's masterpiece, they talk about the lies we tell ourselves about death, our longing for honesty and human touch at the end, and the way that death forces us to take a clear-eyed look at life. They conclude by offering advice on how we can avoid Ivan's regrets.
- 3 weeks ago1h 11m
The Great Fertility Collapse (with Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde)
For the first time in human history, we're not having enough children to keep the world's population from falling. And fertility is collapsing fastest not in rich nations but in places like Colombia, Thailand, and Guatemala, upending decades of economic wisdom. Economist Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts that falling fertility has accelerated sharply over the past decade and defies easy explanation. Declining religiosity, smartphones and social media, soaring housing costs, and changing gender norms are popular, but unconfirmed, theories. Fernandez-Villaverde offers his own speculative answer, that modern life makes a third child costly and childlessness easy, but admits the puzzle is unsolved. What's clearer is why it matters: as retirees become the dominant voting bloc, spending on pensions and health care crowds out roads, schools, and defense. Shrinking economies make public debt harder to service, and fewer births mean fewer scientists, artists, and inventors.
- Oct 5, 20261h 9m
Addiction, Faith, and the Limits of Willpower (with Meghan O'Gieblyn)
Why do we keep doing things we know we shouldn't? And is that really a failure of will? Author Meghan O'Gieblyn spent years trying to answer that question, first in response to her struggle with alcoholism and her loss of faith, and then by means of Simone Weil, William James, and Iris Murdoch, who argue that the will is powerless over the things we want to change most. Listen as she speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about her new memoir, Will and Attention, which explores why paying attention does what effort alone can't, why we can reason ourselves into doing destructive things, and why the choices that most shape our lives are the "choices in between the choices," or the ones we barely notice making at all.
- Sep 28, 20261h 19m
Public Choice and Politics Without Romance (with Mike Munger)
Before you give the government new powers, try the Munger Test: cross out "government" and insert the name of the politician you trust least. Then see if you still like the idea. In his 52nd EconTalk appearance, Mike Munger talks with host Russ Roberts about public choice, politics without romance, and why treating government like a loving family (or your family like a business), ends badly. Along the way, they talk about why Edmund Burke's famous defense of legislators voting their conscience cost him his seat in Parliament, how a group lunch explains politics, and why voters rationally know so little.
- Sep 21, 20261h 4m
The Death of Reading (with James Marriott)
Are we living in the new Dark Ages? Despite vast technological advances, our societies are increasingly looking like those that preceded the advent of literacy. So argues journalist James Marriott, who sees in our abandonment of reading a threat to democracy and a reversal of many of the Enlightenment's gains. He and EconTalk's Russ Roberts trace literacy from its fragile first days in ancient Mesopotamia through to the printing press and the "Reading Revolution" of the mid-to-late 18th century, exploring how--and whether--its spread shaped major historical events. They analyze Marriott's claim that reading grounds politics in rationality, consider the role of the Republic of Letters in driving Europe's Industrial Revolution, and debate whether a book or a movie is better at conveying complexity. Marriott ends with a consolation: Just as fast food gave rise to the gym, informational junk food may give rise to reading as an intentional discipline.
- Sep 14, 20261h 4m
Incentives Are for Losers (with Adam Mastroianni)
Incentives matter, sure. But what should you do when following the incentives means quietly participating in something wrong? Psychologist Adam Mastroianni argues that obeying bad incentives--shading a headline for clicks, keeping the found wallet because no one's watching--is "loser behavior," a surrender of the hardest and most human task: figuring out right from wrong for yourself. In this wide-ranging EconTalk conversation, he and Russ Roberts explore Le Guin's "Omelas," the "big fish" you glimpse that could upend your whole life, and Charles Sumner's near-fatal courage. They wrestle with whether good incentives or good people matter more, why lavish academic salaries may attract exactly the wrong scholars, and the moral lessons of marriage.
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About 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, the conflicts and history of the Middle East, and more. All 1000+ episodes are available in the archive.
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