Arpit is on board with the basic YIMBY project of undoing the oppressive zoning codes that limit housing construction in so many parts of the country, but he doesn’t think the housing story ends there. Other obstacles will remain even in the case of further YIMBY progress, and in the meantime he has offered a variety of reform ideas that both complement YIMBY ideas and also prepare for a future after a YIMBY victory. Among them are re-thinking property taxes, accelerating depreciation schedules, and making it easier for factory housing to get to market. 

Arpit and Cardiff end with a chat about the ways that AI can help us understand housing regulations, what AI means for the future of finance, and what he is both optimistic and pessimistic about. 

Related links: 

• Remote Work's Impact on Productivity
• Work from Home and the Office Real Estate Apocalypse
• Office to Residential Conversions
• Unlock a Housing Boom through Depreciation Bonuses
• Three Rules for AI in Finance
• Industrial Policy for Housing Construction

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In this episode, Stefanie chats with Cardiff about the findings in her paper (with co-authors Sahil Chinoy, Nathan Nunn, and Sandra Sequeira), “Zero-Sum Thinking and the Roots of US Political Differences,” which was just published in the American Economic Review. 

From the paper’s abstract: 

“We find that a more zero-sum mindset is strongly associated with more support for government redistribution, race- and gender-based affirmative action, and more restrictive immigration policies. Zero-sum thinking can be traced back to the experiences of both the individual and their ancestors, encompassing factors such as the degree of intergenerational upward mobility they experienced, whether they immigrated to the United States or lived in a location with more immigrants, and whether they were enslaved or lived in a location with more enslavement.” 

Stefanie and Cardiff also discuss:

• Rising anger in American society
• The subtle ways that the two major political parties are similar and different when it comes to zero-sum thinking
• The economic geography of zero-sum thought
• The finding that surprised her the most
• The generational gap in zero-sum thinking between young and old
• The policy implications of her research

Finally, Stefanie previews her upcoming work on zero-sum thinking and concerns about AI. 

Related links:

• “Zero-Sum Thinking and the Roots of US Political Differences”
• “To understand America today, study the zero-sum mindset” (Stefanie’s guest essay in The Economist) 
•  “Emotions and Policy Views” (Stefanie’s working paper with Yann Algan, Eva Davoine, and Thomas Renault)
• “Dancing with the Stars” (Stefanie’s paper with Ufuk Akcigit, Santiago Caicedo, Ernest Miguelez, and Valerio Sterzi)

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An excerpt: 

Either AI is so useless that we are in the middle of a bubble that’s about to burst and take the economy down with it, or AI is so powerful it’s going to replace us all and devastate the labor market.

The pessimism in speculation about the economic effects of artificial intelligence is often so overwhelming that these opposing concerns can even come from the same person. AI is evolving fast enough that we should not entirely ignore the economic doomers, though it would be nice if they could at least be consistent.

But it is essential to balance the discussion with some optimism. I can see glimmers of hope in a simple fact: There are many jobs and tasks that easily could have been automated by now — the technology to automate them has long existed — and yet we humans continue to do them. The reason is that demand will always exist for certain jobs that offer what I call “the human touch.”

The specific jobs that require the human touch may themselves change or evolve, but I suspect that such jobs will continue to exist long into the future.

Adam and Cardiff discuss the job that inspired Adam’s post, why the Olive Garden represents a hopeful future for work in an age of AI, the perils and promise of AI for caregiving jobs, and how Adam himself plans to prepare for the eventual automation of his daily tasks.

Related links: 

• Adam’s post
• Agglomerations homepage (subscribe!)

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From the book jacket: 

Freakonomics for criminal justice, The Science of Second Chances presents a groundbreaking approach to criminal justice reform, revealing how small-scale interventions can reduce people’s chances of reoffending and break the incarceration cycle… 

Drawing on cutting-edge economic research and real-world experiments, the book presents a blueprint for reform that runs all the way through the system. Doleac shows how economists like herself approach big, complicated problems as if they were scientists in a lab, carefully testing different approaches and following the data to maximize impact. She explains how shifting the incentives people face can produce dramatic changes in the decisions they make, significantly reducing the number of people cycling through the prison system. 

Jen and Cardiff discuss the unique approach and contributions of economists to understanding the criminal justice system, why erring towards leniency so often leads to less reoffending, and the surprising failures of ideas that seem sensible. Along the way they examine the evidence needed to answer questions like: 

• How long should prison sentences be? 

• How should probation be structured? 

• For people who do go to prison, what kinds of incentives should we give them for how they spend their time there, how they rehabilitate themselves? 

• How should we take into account variables like age or mental health? 

• And what happens when someone gets out of prison? What are the best policies to put them on the path to success?

Jen herself has spearheaded a lot of the research behind this evidence, and she also has detailed knowledge of the work done by other economists in the field. So she’s about as well positioned to evaluate it as anyone Cardiff knows.

And her work is about more than just using limited resources in the best possible way (although that’s great) and more than just making society better and safer (also great). It’s about finding ways to help individuals get their lives back on track, so that a mistake made early in life doesn’t end up defining everything that comes after. 

Related links: 

• Science of Second Chances pre-order links
• Jennifer Doleac’s page at Arnold Ventures

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That’s more than twice the number of workers who belong to unions. And it’s almost ten times the number who earn the minimum wage. But in comparison to those other economic arrangements, curiously little attention is given to the process that governs licensing, the perverse outcomes it so often leads to, and the vulnerable workers who are affected by it. 

Cardiff’s guest on this episode is Vanderbilt law professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth, author of “The Licensing Racket: How we decide who is allowed to work, and Why it goes wrong.” Among Cardiff’s picks for the economics book of the year, it is the product of not just a scholarly understanding of the topic, but of years and years of painstaking reporting, interviewing hundreds of people, and unearthing a variety of frankly shocking anecdotes. 

She and Cardiff discuss: 

• The legal and institutional design behind the boards that oversee licensing in each state
• How the desire to protect the already licensed leads board to impose outrageous requirements for new licenses
• The ludicrous rationalizations of so many licensing boards for erecting obstacles to new workers entering their professions 
• The shocking failure of licensing boards, especially within medicine, to actually fulfill the mission they are set up to pursue: protect public safety
• How the ratcheting up of licensing requirements led to a standoff between nurses and doctors
• How licensing hurts dynamism and entrepreneurship
• The more substantive tradeoffs involved in licensing, including the pride and validation that existing practitioners feel in having a license
• Which jobs shouldn’t require a license, and for those that do, a better way forward 

All throughout, Rebecca shares with Cardiff the tales of the workers, board members, and the others she interviewed.

Related links: 

• The Licensing Racket, by Rebecca Haw Allensworth
• Rebecca Haw Allensworth page at Vanderbilt Law School

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By one estimate, the value of land makes up roughly a third of all the wealth in the entire world. Add the houses and commercial buildings on top of the land and the total value is almost two-thirds. 

And according to Mike, land “defies some of the usual laws of capitalism that apply to other goods and assets.” Its supply is fixed, it is immobile, and it neither decays nor depreciates. 

These special qualities have given land its fascinating history. They’re also the reason that so many economies end up in what Mike refers to as the land trap.

Mike and Cardiff discuss: 

• The definition of a land trap
• Why booming land values are a problem while they’re rising and not just because they often set the stage for a bust
• How land affects older, established companies differently than newer, innovative businesses — and why that matters for the economy 
• The perverse incentives that rising land values can have on a nation’s economy
• The land histories of America, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore 
• Land reform and the development of low-income countries 
• The lessons of Singapore 

And more! 

Related links: 

• The Land Trap, A New History of the World's Oldest Asset
• Housing booms, reallocation and productivity, by Sebastian Doerr, BIS

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Arnab Datta has spent years working on this very question. In the immediate aftermath of the recent rare earths showdown between America and China, Datta and his colleagues at the Institute for Progress and Employ America published a new analysis titled How to Implement an Operation Warp Speed for Rare Earths.

China’s global dominance in rare earths, acquired over decades, allows it to “gain leverage in trade negotiations, retaliate against American restrictions, degrade American and allied technological capabilities, and potentially even to entrench its dominance in downstream rare earth-dependent manufacturing supply chains,” write Datta, Saif Khan, Tim Hwang, and Tim Fist. 

The scope of the report extends well beyond the specific threat of a shock to America’s supply of rare earths. It speaks to the very nature of the ongoing geopolitical dispute with China itself — and more broadly, to the question of how best to respond when a single country has taken steps for decades to distort the global market of a product that the entire world depends on.

Why did the United States fail to spot the emerging threat? How should it respond now — and in such a way that embraces core American economic values like competition and innovation? 

Related links: 

• How to Implement an Operation Warp Speed for Rare Earths
• Arnab’s work at Employ America
• Arnab’s work at the Institute for Progress

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Do struggling places need more market-based solutions (high-skilled immigration, tax incentives for investing in low-income communities) or more straightforward redistribution and pubic investment (in infrastructure, job training, internet access)? 

Are liberals ceding too much ground to anti-immigrant sentiment? And should the most famous museums in the world stop hoarding their artwork? 

Live on stage at the Economic Innovation Group’s annual Power of Place Conference in Washington, DC, Cardiff spoke with Slow Boring author Matt Yglesias about these topics and more. 

Matt also reflects on how things have changed since his two books, The Rent is Too Damn High and One Billion Americans, were released. They close with their respective picks for best movie of 2025 and the likely winner of the NBA Finals. 

Related links: 

• Slow Boring 
• The Rent is Too Damn High
• One Billion Americans

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Jerusalem and Cardiff discuss: 

• Her meaning of liberalism
• How (if?) persuasion works 
• The politics of immigration and why it matters for the economy 
• Drawing lines vs reaching across them
• If Twitter really is “acid on community” 
• How to societally deal with short-form video addiction…
• … and how Jerusalem broke her own TikTok problem
• Why asking if something is cringe is itself the most cringe 

Finally, Jerusalem makes Cardiff look and feel super old when his reference to Reality Bites flies right by her. They close by reflecting on a hopeful trend. 

Related links: 

• The Argument
• On the Housing Crisis (Jerusalem’s book of essays)
• Ezra Klein’s podcast interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates

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And as today’s guest, Alex Armlovich, and his colleagues at the Niskanen Center argue, it is “the first comprehensive bid to tackle the roots of America’s‬ affordability crisis in a generation—it correctly‬‭ identifies, and takes initial steps to attack,‬ the interlocking barriers to housing abundance at every level.” 

Not only that, but the bill is “miraculously‬ bipartisan, and its negotiation and development exhibited a stunning, almost‬ anachronistic return to the old Senate tradition of depolarized collegiality and bipartisan‬ problem-solving.‬”

But before discussing the contents of the bill, Alex and Cardiff first talk about recent shifts in housing-policy alliances, the roots of the housing affordability and availability problem, housing experiments that have worked (and haven’t), the roll of the “Abundance” movement, and the genuine collective-action problems that housing advocates too often ignore. 

Then they break down the ROAD to Housing Act into three main buckets, going into detail on each: 1) Regulatory reform, 2) carrots and sticks, and 3) financing and funding. They also comment on what the bill would fix and what it wouldn’t, and its chances of becoming law. 

Finally, Alex and Cardiff reflect on housing, construction, and the nature of physical change in New York City, where both have spent the bulk of their adult lives. 

Related links: 

• Alex Armlovich about page (at Niskanen Center)
• Niskanen Center home page (where the upcoming ROAD to Housing Act analysis from Alex and his colleagues will appear)

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Armstrong is the Unhedged columnist and podcaster at the Financial Times. He also had a prior career at a hedge fund, which abruptly ended in the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. He also has a PhD in philosophy, making him an unusual figure in the world of finance and economics journalism. The topics he writes about reflect this varied background. 

He and Cardiff reflect on the strangeness of coining a term that has such reverberations in a prominent national conversation, in this case the one surrounding President Trump’s tariff strategy, and whether the trade itself still applies. They also discuss how the feedback loops created by the acronym represent the fundamental nature of markets and the ways that societal narratives get around these days. 

But the main part of their chat is about US markets at the moment. Are they in a bubble? Why has there not been more of a negative effect from tariffs? And why has the US dollar fallen — and stayed fallen — while US stocks have returned to all-time highs just this week? What should we make of the horrific returns on long-term Treasuries this decade? And are higher interest rates truly here to stay? 

They also discuss Rob’s switch from working in finance to writing about it, and his recent column on Rene Girard and the mimetic rivalries that seem to define this political moment. Finally, they close with a surprising topic that Rob frequently also writes and speaks about: men’s fashion. 

Related links: 

• The Unhedged Newsletter (Rob Armstrong)
• Unhedged Podcast (Katie Martin with Rob)
• A Wealth of Common Sense (Ben Carlson)
• The Overshoot (Matt Klein)
• Feed Me (Emily Sundberg)
• Rob’s Life & Arts column
• Rob’s FT style column

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Or will the future bring something else entirely — either between those two extremes or a world that we simply cannot imagine yet? And are we already starting to see signs of that future emerging? 

On this episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff is joined by economist Nathan Goldschlag, Research Director at the Economic Innovation Group. Until recently, Nathan was Principal Economist at the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies, where among other things he led research on the impact of technology, including AI, on the economy. Any worthwhile list of the world’s best economists on the subject of AI and work would have to include him. 

Cardiff and Nathan go through Nathan’s own research* and also filter out the megaton of nonsense on the topic and discuss some of the work done by others — research, essays, meanderings — that they think is actually worth sharing with listeners. 

They discuss, among other things: 

• How many businesses are now using AI to produce goods and services
• How have things changed since the launch and popularization of large language models
• Economic growth consequences of AI
• Whether “learn to code” is still good advice 
• The skills that still matter 
• To steer or not to steer the AI future

* Nathan’s research on AI was done in collaboration with a large team of researchers at the Center for Economic Studies at the U.S. Census Bureau including Emin Dinlersoz, Lucia Foster, David Beede, John Haltiwanger, Zach Kroff, Nikolas Zolas, Gary Anderson, and Eric Childress, along with program area partners including Kathryn Bonney, Cory Breaux, Cathy Buffington, and Keith Savage, as well as academic partners including Daron Acemoglu, Erik Brynjolfsson, Kristina McElheran, and Pascual Restrepo. 

Related links:

• The impact of AI on the workforce: Tasks versus jobs?
• Tracking Firm Use of AI in Real Time: A Snapshot from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey.
• The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI | NBER
• Answering the Call of Automation
• AI-2027.com
• Tyler Cowen - the #1 bottleneck to AI progress is humans
• Driverless trucks are coming and unions aren’t happy about it
• Generative AI at Work

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"Whereas in the past China mainly used basic trade or investment incentives and sanctions," the authors write, "today China is developing, testing, and deploying an entirely new collection of legal and regulatory tools for the explicit purpose of imposing targeted costs on companies and countries it sees as acting against its interests. In effect, these are precision-guided economic munitions, designed to inflict targeted and often substantial pain for political and geopolitical purposes." 

In other words, China has been preparing for exactly this moment. 

Cardiff and Evan discuss these new weapons, the long evolution of the US-China relationship, Evan's own experience in policymaking in the Obama White House, how both American and Chinese leaders have changed in the past decade, and the stakes of the current standoff.

Related links: 

• China's New Economic Weapons
• China and Russia Will Not Be Split
• The Delusion of Peak China
• Evan's Faculty Page

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Among the topics they chatted about: 

• The scale of the potential fallout 
• Where the tariffs stand now — including earlier tariffs already imposed
• The ongoing threat to the American auto industry 
• What it all means for the global liberal trading order 
• The worst-case and best-case scenarios 

…and more! 

Related links: 

• Chad Bown home page
• Trade Talks, Chad’s podcast 
• Chad’s (updated in real time) interview with Kai Ryssdal
• The trade war timeline

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Jared shares with Cardiff his thoughts on the current economic moment, the achievements he was most proud of during the Biden years, and a few regrets. They also discuss: 

• How the econ policymaking sausage gets made
• Trade policy, globalization with allies, and concerns about protectionism
• Inflation challenges, including the impact of the American Rescue Plan
• Unions and worker bargaining power
• The housing supply crisis and the role of federal incentives for local reforms
• Immigration
• AI’s possible effects on labor and productivity 
• How an early musical career led Jared to economics

RELATED LINKS

• Jared’s Substack newsletter
• Jason Furman’s Foreign Affairs article
• Jared’s response to Furman
• 2024 Economic Report of the President
• EIG’s analysis on “Manufacturing jobs boom not reaching places hit by the China Shock”

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1. It massively boosts the rate of economic growth through its effects on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the creation of entire new industries.

1. It reduces inequality.

1. Not only does it cost the taxpayers nothing, it actually saves them huge sums of money. 

That policy is the expansion of high-skilled immigration, a subject that became a source of contentious debate within the American right not long after the 2024 election. As it happens, Adam and Connor are the co-authors (with John Lettieri) of a big new report, Exceptional by Design, which explains how to design a high-skilled immigration that will maximize its benefits for American workers, businesses, and communities. 

In this chat, the three discuss: 

• How bad thinking has led to bad policy 
• The surprisingly nuanced economics of high-skilled immigration
• Three myths about high-skilled immigration
• The flaws in the current system 
• A new policy vision to change it

The three close with a discussion of why high-skilled immigration carries so much promise for the United States in particular — and the enormous, self-inflicted damage of failing to capitalize on it.

RELATED LINK

• Exceptional by Design, by Adam Ozimek, Connor O’Brien, and John Lettieri 

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But this episode’s guest, Jeffrey Ding — a scholar of international relations at the George Washington University and the author of a new book called Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition — has done just that.

And the short version of Ding’s theory goes like this… 

It’s not as important as you might think for a country to be the first one to develop the new technologies of the future. What really matters are two things. 

First, that the technologies a country does develop are General Purpose Technologies. These are technologies that make every sector across the economy more productive, more efficient, more innovative. The personal computer and other information technologies, for example, didn’t just make the tech sector more productive. Workers in every industry use computers to be better at their jobs. 

And the second thing that matters is that a country be especially good at diffusing, or spreading, those General Purpose Technologies throughout the whole economy, precisely so that those technologies can make everyone more productive. 

And as Jeff argues, the US already has big advantages over China on both of these indicators. But why? What makes a country better at technological diffusion? What are the leading contenders for the general purpose technologies of the future? And what policies can a country put in place if it wants to become or remain the world’s dominant economic superpower?   

You’ll find answers to those questions and more in this episode’s chat with Jeffrey Ding. 

RELATED LINKS:

• Jeffrey’s GitHub page
• Technology and the Rise of Great Powers (Jeffrey’s book) 
• ChinAI (Jeffrey’s newsletter about Chinese AI) 
• The Illusion of China’s AI Progress (Foreign Affairs essay)

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Here is how the New York Times framed it recently: “Never in modern presidential campaigns have so many states been so tight this close to Election Day. Polling averages show that all seven battleground states are within the margin of error, meaning the difference between a half-point up and a half-point down — essentially a rounding error — could win or lose the White House.” 

A recent Times-Sienna poll has the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris deadlocked at 48 to 48. Other polls are similarly close — which does not mean they are all telling the same story. Today’s guest, Kristen Soltis Anderson, writes that although “several of them show a dead heat, beneath the surface, they diverge in how they arrive at that result”. 

What stories can we glean from each poll? What theories of this election can we derive from those stories? Are the polls even right? And why, despite verbal gaffes and incendiary rallies and international conflict and general campaign turmoil, have the polling averages remained so steady in recent months? 

Kristen is a founding partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm, and contributing Opinion writer to the New York Times, where she often writes about what is knowable and not knowable based on the polls. We talk about all these themes, including a theory of the election that Kristen came upon while watching football in Phoenix on a Sunday.

Finally, we discuss a detailed survey of American workers that Echelon Insights, Kristen’s firm, put into the field for the Economic Innovation Group — and its most surprising findings. 

All this and more on today’s episode!

RELATED LINKS: 

Opinion | The Polls Show a Dead Heat, but They Don’t All Tell the Same Story

Opinion | Two Weeks to Go, but Only One Way to Stay Calm

Opinion | This Year’s October Surprise May Be That There Isn’t One

Opinion | Why the Election Is Coming Down to Defining Kamala Harris - The New York Times

Opinion | I’ve Studied the Polls. Here’s Why Harris Isn’t Running Away With It.

The American Worker Project Survey: Key Findings Deck

American workers and the 2024 election

Kristen’s website

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On September 21st, Paul Krugman joined host Cardiff Garcia live on stage for a sweeping conversation at the #EconTwitterIRL conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

They discussed not only Paul’s view of the economy and his achievements in economics, but also his approach to communicating his ideas about economics — which is likely to be as important a part of Paul’s legacy as the (Nobel prize winning) economics itself.

Among the other topics they covered: 

• Paul’s hippie-punching days in the 1990s 
• How economic geography has changed through the decades
• Whether place-based policy works
• Why a previous regret no longer bothers him much
• How Paul blends style and substance in his writing 
• Why Democrats seem so bad at running big cities 
• The work Paul is most proud of

And at the end of this fun, dense, and surprisingly humorous chat, you’ll hear Paul answer the questions he fielded from the audience of economists, journalists, think tankers and others in attendance. 

RELATED LINKS: 

• Incidents from my Career

• How I Work

• What isn’t the matter with American Workers

• TPP at the NABE

• How Trump Is Undermining the Economy in Some Struggling Cities

• Geography and Trade

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That's the provocative title of a recent Bloomberg column from economist Allison Schrager. As she looked into the data on how Americans have been spending their time since the pandemic, she noticed that they are spending less time socializing with their friends on weekends and more time in front of screens. Even when they do go out, it's increasingly for an early dinner. That's all in addition to the bigger share of Americans who now work remotely, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic and is unlikely to ever fully reverse.

Who are the winners and losers from these trends? And what's going on?

Obvious explanations include pandemic experimentation, smartphones, better entertainment and telecommunications technologies. But Allison also likes to see these trends through the prism of risk. She tells Cardiff that the "risk-free rate" that Americans can earn from indoor, introverted activity has climbed. With so much choice over the movies, music, and books you can consume in your home, not to mention access to social media and swipe-able dating apps, you are guaranteed to have at least a pretty good time by staying in. Going out means making an "investment" with possibly more upside (meet the love of your life, see a memorable live performance, attend an epic party) but also a vastly more uncertain payoff.

Allison and Cardiff discuss these ideas and whether the economy's new introvert-friendliness is likely to stay. They also talk about other trends that could soon favor extroverts, the risks of AI and automation in the labor market, and the skills and traits that will matter for the jobs of the future.

Related links:

• The Introverts Have Taken Over the US Economy (Bloomberg column)
• Known Unknowns (Allison's newsletter)
• An Economist Walks Into a Brothel (Allison's book about risk)

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The Department of Homeland Security keeps track of a statistic called “border encounters” at the US border with Mexico. This includes primarily the large number of people who try to cross the border without documentation, or illegally, and aren't crossing at a formal port of entry. It also includes people who do try to cross the border at a port of entry but who are then found not eligible to be admitted into the US. 

In the past three years, under the Biden administration, the number of these border encounters each year has been more than quadruple the average of what it was throughout most of the previous decade, under the Trump and Obama administrations. 

The system for processing all these migrants has been entirely overwhelmed. And if you’re a politician or a pundit or someone else pushing an agenda, the temptation is to make it political. To argue that this is either all Joe Biden’s fault for being "too soft" on immigration, or the fault of Donald Trump for not fixing the problem sooner, or Congress for refusing to collaborate on a bill that would address the issue.

Today’s guest does something different altogether. Andrew Selee is the head of the Migration Policy Institute, or MPI, which is the think tank Cardiff turns to when he wants factual, nonpartisan, non-stupid commentary on immigration—but especially when he just wants to inform himself on the topic outside the nonsense of how debates on immigration tend to play out in public.

So Cardiff speaks with Andrew about the real, fundamental reasons behind the crisis at the border, and what can be done about it.

They also talk about legal immigration, which despite many problems has actually been a kind of quiet success of recent years.

Other topics they discuss include the two eras of border management, the multi-layered effects of the pandemic on immigration, and a new idea for how to reform immigration to become more responsive to the needs of the US labor market.

Related links:

• Biden at the Three-Year Mark
• Shifting Realities at the U.S.-Mexico Border
• Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Challenge Decades in the Making
• A New Way Forward for Employment-Based Immigration: The Bridge Visa

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On this fun and oddball episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff speaks with Tyler Cowen, economist and author of GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?

Inspired by the sportswriter Bill Simmons, Tyler wrote his book from the standpoint of a fan—having fun, taking sides, admitting biases, unapologetically trying to entertain the reader instead of presenting sober (boring) analysis.

Cardiff and Tyler—both huge basketball fans—first discuss Tyler's ranking of the great economists and his lament for what economics used to be. Tyler also gives his reasons for releasing the book as a ChatGPT trained on its text, the first such book of its kind.

Then begins the fun. They take turns finding analogs for the great economists from the history of the NBA. And they do the same in reverse for basketball's own GOATs. Which economist changed the nature of the field similar to the way Steph Curry set off the three-point revolution? Is there an economist whose comprehensive genius rivaled the ability of LeBron James to engineer exactly the outcome he wants on the court? What basketball player matched the charisma, brilliance, and even investment success of Keynes?

And why does Cardiff argue that Tyler himself is the Charles Barkley of economists despite their differences in personality, size, and other obvious dimensions?

All throughout the chat, Tyler and Cardiff are exploring the common traits that define greatness in both hoops, the social sciences, and perhaps other domains. A treat for fans of either economics or hoops, or who simply enjoy the virtues of fandom itself.

Related links:

• GOAT
• Marginal Revolution
• The Book of Basketball
• The Kobe Question

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The data analysis included in "Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball's Biggest Questions" normally would have taken Seth, a trained economist, multiple years of writing and running code. But because of new artificial intelligence tools, he finished the book in just thirty days. And he used AI tools not just for the coding, but also for the artwork, copy editing, and even to write the appendix.

He discusses with Cardiff the lessons he learned about using AI, and what such accelerated productivity might mean for the future of the labor market.

Then they discuss the actual findings in the book, an investigation into the backgrounds of the basketball players who make it to the NBA and succeed when they get there. How much of success is genetic? What accounts for the NBA's market failures—the traits of players who get paid too much and too little relative to their contributions? Why do some foreign countries have such astonishing success at sending players to the NBA? Does the choice of college really matter for future success?

The answers to these questions are surprisingly revealing about the experiences of non-basketball players, and about the relationships between luck, skill, parenting, undiscovered talent, the economy, and other familiar variables.

Related links:

• Seth's home page
• Who Makes the NBA? (Amazon page)

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They look back on their time inside an important economic policymaking institution, telling Cardiff about:

• Their favorite projects
• Toughest assignments
• The relationship between CEA and other economic policymakers
• The difference between academia and policy work 
• What they might change about it
• Common misconceptions about the work of economists

And Martha clears up a big misunderstanding about an infamous graph controversy. All this and more!

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It’s great, if also hard to categorize.

Partly it’s a memoir, about his humble origins in Scotland, where he was born; his studies at Cambridge with better-heeled peers; and his subsequent decades as a Princeton University, Nobel Prize winning economist.

The book is also partly a reflection on a lifetime of practicing economics, and the good and bad of the economics profession. There's plenty of both.

And finally it’s a series of observations about the American economy, including a fascinating self-analysis of his own ambivalence towards the US, his adopted country—the many great things here, including the lives that he and his family have led; and also, yes, some of the devastatingly grim things about life here for so many others. 

Related links:

• Economics in America, by Angus Deaton (available for pre-order)
• The Great Escape, by Angus Deaton
• Mortality and the economy, featuring Anne Case and Angus Deaton

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At the moment the economy is doing well. The labor market is still creating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment is low. Inflation has come down over the past year. And economic growth has been stronger than a great many economists and others had forecast heading into the year. 

But that’s just how the economy is doing right now. What about six months from now? Or a year? Forecasting is always hard, and it may well be impossible. But economists sometimes look at “leading indicators” that are meant to give at least a sense of where the economy is headed. And some of those are flashing red, suggesting we might be headed for a recession in the near future. Then again, those same indicators have looked bad for a while now, and still the recession is nowhere in sight, so who knows.

Meanwhile, look at the US stock market. It collapsed last year. But it’s come roaring back this year—and this despite the Federal Reserve continuing to raise interest rates aggressively. Is the stock market now overpriced, too expensive? Is it underpriced, a good time to get in? And what happens if we do go into recession? 

What about bonds and other markets? What happened to crypto and all those meme stocks? 

Returning to the show to discuss all this and more is William Bernstein. Bill is the author of no fewer than three of Cardiff's favorite books on finance and the economy, including “The Four Pillars of Investing”, which just came out in a second edition roughly two decades after the first. It has all new updated information, data, and charts, plus the lessons learned in the intervening years. 

Related links:

• The Four Pillars of Investing
• Bill's other books and writings

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Krugman’s point is that ultimately, how much productivity climbs each year—roughly speaking, how much more efficient an economy’s workers become at producing goods and services—is also what determines how much our living standards also rise from year to year. And so in the long run, there really is almost nothing that matters more. 

Unfortunately, since about the early 1970s productivity has climbed much more slowly than in the earlier postwar decades. We have been stuck in a period that economists have labeled The Great Stagnation. And a big reason why is that the pace of innovation—the kind of scientific and technological innovation that leads to fast productivity growth—has also been slow. 

But now, there’s now a lot of people—including Cardiff!—who are optimistic that maybe the Great Stagnation is ending. That we’ll get back to the faster productivity growth of the past. Among other reasons why:

1. The economy in the last few years has become more dynamic. There’s been a boom in the number of startups that entrepreneurs launch every month. 
2. There has been quite a bit of experimentation in the workplace for how to get things done, most obviously the rise of remote work. 
3. Incredible new technologies like mRNA vaccines have emerged. These also include things like GPT-4 and other language learning models, suggesting that artificial intelligence could soon have a noticeable effect on the economy. 
4. And finally, an intellectual shift, partly brought on by higher inflation, has compelled many people (including policymakers) all across the ideological spectrum to really emphasize the importance of expanding the economy’s capacity for growth, and to figure how best to do that. 

Which policies and institutional designs can best lead to new technologies and innovations? How do we reform public institutions like the National Institutes of Health, with its $47 billion budget, to fund the kind of science research and development that leads to transformative new technologies? What have we learned about the way science is actually done now?

In other words, how do we get right the economics of innovation? 

That effort is where today’s two guests come in. Heidi Williams is an economist and the director of science policy at the Institute for Progress, a think tank. Caleb Watney is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress. 

They discussed with Cardiff not only the Great Stagnation, but also recent industrial policies passed by the US government, like the Chips and Science Act (which is aimed at developing a domestic semiconductor industry) and the Inflation Reduction Act (which will spend money to develop new clean technologies, among other things). 

And they discussed new ideas for how the country’s existing scientific institutions—its commercial labs, universities, and public bodies—should approach the process of scientific discovery.

Related links:

• Heidi's page and work at the Institute for Progress
• Caleb's page and work at the Institute for Progress

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In this episode, Aimee speaks to an executive at the center of Whatsapp’s $19 billion sale to Facebook, Neeraj Arora. He explains how the deal finally came together, the dispiriting conflict that roiled the companies after the deal closed, and how the deal affected the way he thinks about our privacy online. 

Search for The Closer on your podcast app of choice or go to TheCloser.fm.

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But that marriage between capitalism and democracy has always been a fragile one. And in the last decade or two, that system has been under threat from within the very liberal democracies where it exists, especially in the US and across parts of Europe. What happened?

The guest for this episode is Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times and author of a new book called The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. As Martin writes:

The health of our societies depends on sustaining a delicate balance between the economic and the political, the individual and the collective, the national and the global. But that balance is broken. Our economy has destabilized our politics and vice versa… A big part of the reason for this is that the economy is not delivering the security and widely shared prosperity expected by large parts of our societies. One symptom of this disappointment is a widespread loss of confidence in elites. Another is rising populism and authoritarianism. Another is the rise of identity politics of both left and right. Yet another is loss of trust in the notion of truth. Once this last happens, the possibility of informed and rational debate among citizens, the very foundation of democracy, has evaporated.

Martin discusses these themes with Cardiff, what should be done to confront this crisis of democratic capitalism, what a "New New Deal" can look like, the threat (and opportunity) of China as a global superpower, and how Martin's own personal history influenced his values and thinking.

Related links:

• The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
• Martin's columns at the Financial Times

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David interviews Cardiff along with Heather Long of the Washington Post and Ryan Avent of The Economist about their reflections on the last three years.

What they got wrong, what they got right, what shocked them, and what the lessons of these extraordinary, tumultuous times herald for the future.

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In their chat, Avi and Cardiff discuss:

• Why AI is best understood as a "prediction technology"
• Examples of AI already in use
• Which parts of the economy could be transformed by AI, and how
• Historical analogies to previous eras of widespread technological disruption
• How AI will change the way people and companies make decisions
• Why this change will shift institutions away from blunt rules and towards individual discretion
• In the labor market, who will gain and who will lose from the adoption of AI
• What the use of AI might teach us about what it means to be human

And all throughout the chat, they look at the fundamental question of whether artificial intelligence is about to make the economy—and the world—a whole lot weirder. And if so, just how far along that path to weirdness are we already?

Related links:

"Prediction and Power", by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb

"The impact of AI on the future of workforces", The White House CEA and the European Commission

“Before the Flood”, by Sam Hammond

"The golden age of AI-generated art is here", by Tom Faber

"Historical analogies for large language models", by Dynomight Internet Website

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Right now, the white-to-black wealth ratio in the United States is roughly 6 to 1. Which means that when you add up all the wealth that someone can own—their cash, the value of their house, their investments in the stock market, and so on—the average White American has six times the wealth of the average Black American. 

That figure alone should be disturbing enough. But making it even worse is that this wealth ratio of 6 to 1 is about the same as it was back in the 1950s, seven decades ago. 

Some of the reasons for this long-term persistence of a big racial wealth gap are probably familiar to anyone who knows even just a little about American history. Not just the history of slavery, but also what came next: Jim Crow and segregation, the numerous racist laws and policies that were passed, and the history of racial violence—all of which made it impossible for Black Americans to accumulate as much wealth, and to get the same return on their wealth, as White Americans. 

Maybe less understood is another cause. If you consider the immediate aftermath of emancipation and the Civil War as a starting point, Black Americans simply began with much less wealth from which to build more wealth—and that initial difference has continued to have a big lingering effect even a century and a half later. 

These are just some of the conclusions in a new working paper from today’s guest, Ellora Derenoncourt, and from her co-authors Chi Hyun Kim, Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick. Ellora is an economist at Princeton University, where she is also founder of the Program for Research on Inequality. On this episode of New Bazaar, Cardiff speaks with Ellora about this fascinating paper and about some of her other related work.

Related links:

• Wealth of Two Nations: The U.S. Racial Wealth Gap, 1860-2020
• Can You Move to Opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration
• Minimum wages and racial inequality

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The final Season 1 guest is Stefanie Stantcheva. Stefanie is an economist at Harvard, where she also leads the Social Economics Lab, which uses large and carefully designed online surveys to better understand what the public thinks about a range of economic policies and topics. 

On this episode, Stefanie shares some of the lab’s most recent work on what people think about four specific issues: 1) open trade between countries, 2) inequality, and where people rank by income within their country or economic sector, 3) racial economic disparities, and 4) climate change. 

Stefanie also tells us how people are divided on some of these issues, for example by partisanship or by class; how they form their views; what they get right and wrong, and why; and how occasionally some people even change their minds when presented with new information. An illuminating, fun, and hopeful chat.

Related links:

• Social Economics Lab homepage
• Stefanie Stantcheva homepage

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He joins Cardiff to revisit the ideas in Moral Consequences, one of Cardiff’s favorite economics books, which argues that sustained economic growth not only leads to higher living standards but also can make a society more virtuous. They also talk about all that’s happened in the time since the book was published, the events that confirm or complicate its arguments, and the relationship between economic growth and issues like inequality, social mobility, and the environment.

Finally, Ben shares with Cardiff the main themes in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism—and why our thinking about the economy remains influenced by religious schisms that date all the way back to the 16th and 17th centuries. 

Related links: 

• The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth
• Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

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When a company is relatively young… let’s say it’s a startup, and it is privately owned… the owners are usually some combination of the company’s founders, and venture capitalists who bet on the company, and maybe early employees who get paid in shares of the company as opposed to just getting a salary. 

And at some point, a private company like this can decide to go public. In other words, to list on the stock market so that you and I and anybody can buy and sell its stock. And so that the company itself can raise money to fund itself, and to give those founders and employees with early shares a place to sell them and cash in. 

When a private company wants to raise new money and give its existing shareholders a place to sell their shares, it can hire investment banks to start the process of going public and listing on a stock exchange. That process, of course, is the IPO, or initial public offering.

Dakin’s book is about how a lot of private companies through the years have not loved the way that process works. These companies have often been skeptical that the IPO process works as well for them as for the investment banks that they themselves hire. And yet, the traditional IPO model also did not change meaningfully for decades, at least not for the biggest and most prominent companies trying to go public. 

There were occasional one-off attempts to challenge the model, as when Google went public via auction in 2004. But it wasn’t until just about four years ago that a company, Spotify, not only tried a different model but also kicked off a new trend—one that’s still early, but which seems like it’s here to stay. 

And as you’ll hear in the chat, Dakin’s book is also about why getting this process right matters not just for the companies that want to go public and for Wall Street, but also for people who want a chance to participate financially in the economy.

Related links:

• "Going Public" book page
• Dakin Campbell stories at Insider

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First, according to a survey of public opinion by Pew Research taken in May, the public views inflation is the single biggest problem facing the country. 

And—this is a direct quote from Pew Research—”no other concern comes close”. 

Second, inflation right now is really high. The prices of the goods and services that people buy are more than 9 percent higher than they were last year. 

And third, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve—the frontline institution tasked with managing inflation—recently said this while speaking on a panel: “I think we now understand better how little we understand about inflation.”

Even for the people in charge of dealing with it, inflation can be really hard to understand. 

When inflation is high, is it the Fed’s fault? Is it the fault of Congress and the President? Is it Vladimir Putin’s fault? Is it greedy corporations? Is it nobody’s fault, just a thing that happens?

Matt Klein returns to explain the sources of this bafflement, this confusion. In his newsletter The Overshoot, he recently finished a two-part series about inflation that tries to understand what’s going on—and which crucially leaves room for all possible, complex, interacting forces that can drive inflation. 

Matt and Cardiff also discuss how inflation fits into the wider economic context of the last couple of years. And then, to close, they recklessly ask the question: Is inflation finally about to start coming down? 

Related links:

• Matt's inflation series
• Matt on Twitter

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Go to bazaaraudio.com to find the full list of recommended links from the episode. 

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The trend towards remote work has accelerated a lot during the Covid pandemic, as is clear in the data. What we don’t yet know is how much of the trend will last. And if it does last, what kind of economic and societal consequences will it have? What might be its effects on things like how we design our homes, and even our neighborhoods? What will happen to the downtowns of big cities, if their offices stay empty? What will it mean for how people get evaluated and promoted at work. 

Today’s guest is economist Adam Ozimek, the chief economist of the Economic Innovation Group. Adam has done some of the most detailed and original analysis on remote work in recent years—not just chronicling the trend right now, but also looking at how it might conceivably change our lives in the long run.

Related links:

• Adam's personal website
• Economic Innovation Group
• Follow Adam on Twitter

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Nearly four decades later, he is now a Princeton economist and the founder of the African School of Economics. But the experiences and observations from his astonishing early life embedded themselves into his work in economics—not just his research, but his mission to educate a new generation of African economists.

Leonard speaks with Cardiff about those formative events, and then they discuss the following research papers published by Leonard:

— “Education and Human Capital Externalities: Evidence from Colonial Benin” [Co-authored with Marko Klasˇnja and Natalija Novta] 

— “The Curse of Good Soil? Land Fertility, Roads, and Rural Poverty in Africa” [Co-authored with Piero Stanig] 

— “The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa” [Co-authored with Nathan Nunn]

And they also discuss Leonard's goals as founder of The African School of Economics, and why it's so important for African students economists to be taken more seriously inside the economics profession.

Related links: 

• Leonard Wantchekon page at Princeton 
• IMF profile
• Economist profile

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Skanda joins Cardiff to discuss:

— The definition of full employment

— How to investigate all the competing theories for what really causes inflation

— The specific channels through which monetary policy affects inflation

— What the Fed should do now to combat high inflation in the US

— What Skanda has learned about monetary policymaking in the pandemic era

Related links:

• Skanda's Twitter feed
• Employ America main site
• "What Are You Expecting? How The Fed Slows Down Inflation Through The Labor Market"

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Martin joins Cardiff to discuss: 

– How the failures of the social market economy threaten political stability and undermine openness to the rest of the world 

– The pervasive economic effects of the loss of manufacturing jobs 

– How policymakers failed

– Why it’s necessary to be honest about the jobs of the future

– Ideas for how policymakers can improve their management of the economy 

– Why the world is experiencing high inflation, and the case for patience

Related links: 

• The Economics of Belonging book page 
• Martin’s writing at the Financial Times

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This wonderful book complicates and in some cases contradicts many of the prevailing myths and impressions of how immigration works, and it does so using a fascinating and cutting-edge approach to gathering data.

Leah and Cardiff talk about how modern immigration trends resemble those of America's prior immigration peak from 1880 to 1920, the economic mobility of immigrants and their children, the ways immigrants influence their adopted culture (and are influenced by it), and much more.

Related links:

• Streets of Gold book page
• Leah Boustan's Princeton page
• Ran Abramitzky Stanford page

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Matt is Cardiff's favorite economic-data sleuth, and on this episode they discuss:

— The recovery of the US economy, and whether it really did reverse in the first quarter

— What accounts for such high inflation in the US, and whether it will self-correct

— The economic effects of the Ukraine-Russia war

— How the severe China lockdowns will

— The freakout in financial markets this year

More related links:

• Matt's Overshoot newsletter main page
• Matt on inflation
• Matt on the China lockdowns
• Matt's latest on Ukraine-Russia
• Roosevelt Institute: "Increasing Wages for Low-Income Workers Is Key for a Full Economic Recovery"

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Mary is both a finance journalist and herself a recreational painter with a comprehensive knowledge of the art world, and Cardiff asked her to choose an example each of a movie, book, song, TV series, painter, and contemporary artist to chat about on the show. Below are her choices, with links embedded:

MOVIE: American Psycho

BOOK: Lake Success

SONG: Paper Planes

TV SERIES: Succession

PAINTER: Bill Powhida

CONTEMPORARY ARTIST: Sarah Meyohas

Mary and Cardiff then close the episode by talking about Mary's new article in Town & Country on how rich financiers use art to wage cultural battles against each other. "These cases often spin out of control", Mary writes, "because art is always more than its component parts. It can become a manifestation of personal identity and control. Sometimes the art itself becomes a cudgel."

Other related links:

• Mary's stories at NPR
• The Bond King

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Jeremiah clarifies for Cardiff the current Neoliberal position on taxes, unions, healthcare, Universal Basic Income, privatization of public services, trade with China, the minimum wage, regulation, and more issues. They discuss the challenges of shifting the definition of a word that ideological opponents and others have already fixed in their minds, why disputes over definitions are nothing new, and why Jeremiah is hopeful.

This episode is simultaneously being featured on The Neoliberal Podcast, which Jeremiah hosts, and which features economists, academics, and industry leaders—including both advocates and, admirably, critics of Neoliberalism.

Related links:

• The Neoliberal Project
• The Neoliberal Podcast
• Jeremiah Johnson on Twitter

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This episode tells the story of Sir Clive Sinclair, a computer whizz and business mogul to rival Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. He was a visionary who could do no wrong... until he tried to launch an electric vehicle. The C5 “electrically assisted pedal cycle" doesn't seem so outlandish to us now... but 1985 just wasn't ready for the "aerodynamic bathtub" on wheels. Sir Clive was ridiculed and his business ruined. How did it all go so wrong?

You can listen to more episodes of Cautionary Tales at https://link.chtbl.com/newbazaarct.

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He speaks with Cardiff about his findings on topics like autism, suicide, and health. They also discuss how he has navigated a career in which he has chosen topics that are so personal to him.

Related link:

• Jose Fernandez's research

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In her research and in her book, Jenny considers the housing market in all of its complexity, the reasons it’s broken for so many people, the entrenched barriers to fixing it – and some ideas that just might work. She and Cardiff cover all of this in their chat. 

Related links:

• Jenny Schuetz’s expert page at the Brookings Institution
• Jenny’s book, Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America's Broken Housing System

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But whether we’re talking about a glamorous object or a glamorous person, glamour also provides a canvas on which people can project their own desires and longings. So when you find something glamorous, that something is also revealing what you yearn for in life. 

This nuanced understanding of glamour is the subject of a book by one of Cardiff’s favorite writers, Virginia Postrel. It’s called The Power of Glamour, and in the book, Virginia defines glamour and provides specific examples of how it applies to our own lives. She talks to Cardiff about all of this, as well as the ways in which glamour influences our economic decisions. 

Links from the episode:

• Virginia’s books and writing at vpostrel.com
• Virginia’s “Unglamorous background on the red carpet” Pinterest collection

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For the past couple of decades, the emergence of a huge middle class in China has become an incredibly attractive, and maybe even a necessary, market for Hollywood movies.

But the Chinese government carefully censors what kinds of movies can be shown in China. So if you’re a Hollywood studio and you wanna get your movie shown in China, you have to go along with the criteria that the Chinese censors give you.

And Hollywood studios have done just that, often imposing restrictions across the entire creative process of making a movie, starting with the script itself. As Erich explains in the chat, this has fundamentally changed Hollywood’s entire business model, and the kinds of movies it makes.

The deeper story here is about the messy realities of globalization. Deepening economic engagement between nations mostly leads to more prosperity, rising standards of living, and more choices for what people can do with their lives. But it can have bad side effects, especially when the economic engagement is between two countries with different political priorities.  

“Red Carpet” is all about understanding the real-world nuances of how trade with China has sometimes led to a clash of values. On the one side are things like free speech, artistic integrity, the ability to express oneself fully, through movies and other cultural objects, without fear of censorship. And on the other side are the deepening commercial ties between two countries. 

Understanding this clash in all its subtlety is the aim of Erich's book, and of his chat with Cardiff. 

Related link: 

Red Carpet book page

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Related links:

• Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
• What's Your Problem?

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The economy has been shifting away from the material and towards the intangible -- things like data, design, personality, research, ways of expressing ourselves. The importance of these things has grown, reflected in the investments that businesses have made. More money now goes to branding, and research and development, training, and software, and the tech we love to use for pleasure and for work. 

Today’s episode is all about the profound and subtle consequences of this shift. And it’s about why the economy and society have lagged behind it.

Joining Cardiff to explain it all is Stian Westlake. Stian and his co-author Jonathan Haskel wrote a book a few years ago called “Capitalism without Capital”, that chronicled the trend towards the intangible economy. And they have a new book out now called “Restarting the Future”, which explains how people and businesses and policymakers can finally catch up to the trend -- and harness it to make the world better.

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Stacy-Marie Ishmael, managing editor for crypto at Bloomberg, joins the show to un-befuddle Cardiff and explain the implications of this suite of technologies. 

Among other topics, they discuss: 

• How a novice can begin learning about crypto
• Whether crypto goes too far towards decentralization
• The inflexibility of smart contracts and algorithms 
• The correlation between cryptocurrencies and risky asset classes
• How crypto can evolve in societally beneficial ways 

And more!

Related links: 

• Stacy's page at Bloomberg
• Bloomberg's Crypto page

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This episode, recorded on the morning of Monday, February 28th, does touch on the astonishing and fast-moving events in Ukraine and Russia, but it is not principally about them. Nor is it mainly about the economic sanctions against Russia by the US and Europe, or their likely effects. The episode is about the latest trends and possible futures for the markets in oil, gas, renewable technologies, and other parts of the energy landscape.

But the chat also couldn’t avoid talking about geopolitical events like what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine because one of the themes of this episode is how energy markets have increasingly globalized in recent decades. What’s happening in Russia has big effects on what’s happening in Europe, which itself has a big effect on what’s happening in American energy markets. And what happens in East Asia, in Africa, and Latin America – especially in developing nations in those regions – also affects energy markets everywhere else. 

Related links: 

• John Kemp’s newsletter 
• John Kemp on Twitter

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And the story they tell in the book is intense. Back in the mid-2000s, a private equity firm called Apollo bought Caesars, the company that owns casinos and hotels all over the country, like Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The deal to buy Caesars was a leveraged buyout, also known as an LBO. Which just means that Apollo borrowed money through loans and bonds to buy it. And then after the deal, Caesars itself was on the hook to pay back those loans and bonds. This is all quite normal -- it's just how these deals work. 

But the timing was awful. Soon after, the financial crisis of 2008 collapsed the economy. Caesars really struggled because people weren’t gambling anymore, and because its customers were no longer booking big conventions and events in its hotels. And so it was inevitable that Caesars would struggle to pay what it owed on all that new debt. 

And so a bunch of distressed debt investors, including the hedge funds Oaktree and Apaloosa, bought the Caesars debt from the investors who owned it before. So now Caesars owed them the money. So those are the two sides... And they ended up waging an utterly brutal fight in the legal system for control of Caesars, the company. 

This is a story that raises all kinds of fascinating questions about how finance actually works in the real world. Whether this kind of antagonistic, adversarial system is in the best interest of the capital markets, the economy, society. And whether it’s the best way for all these brilliant financiers and lawyers and others to spend their time. But also, if you have any interest in finance, it’s just one helluva suspenseful tale.

Related links:

• The Caesars Palace Coup (Amazon page)
• Sujeet Indap and Max Frumes on Twitter

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Well before the pandemic, Logan was arguing that during the years 2020 to 2024, housing prices in the US would climb to troubling levels, the result of various coinciding trends in the economy. And that is exactly what's happened. In his chat with Cardiff, Logan explains the forces that have been driving up home prices, and what might happen in the next few years. And he and Cardiff also talk about the ways that housing is such a different, even unique, kind of asset -- and why policies towards housing are so often full of contradiction.

Related links:

• Logan Mohtashami's author page at Housingwire

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The "border within" refers to how immigration laws are applied to undocumented residents already living inside the country. And it also refers to how immigration laws, and how these laws are applied and enforced, can also create borders between people. Between neighbors. Between residents. Even between husband and wife, between parents and their children.

In her chat with Cardiff, Tara explains why policies that affect undocumented immigrants also affect the places where they live and the economies in which they work. And since most undocumented residents have lived inside the country for more than a decade, these policies also have big consequences for the families and communities in which they are rooted. Tara also surveys what the economics literature shows about the economics of immigration -- bringing needed clarity and nuance to a conversation that so often features little of either.

Links:

• The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age of Fear
• Tara Watson's home page

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Also on the show: Do "bits" technologies like social media get too much attention relative to "atoms" technologies that directly influence the physical world? What's the latest on gaming? What are the psychology lessons of the government's approach to sending out free Covid tests? How do online creators make a living?

Related links:

• On Tech newsletter (main page)
• "The Tech I Want in 2022"
• "With Activision, Microsoft Bets on the Future"
• "Why Not Copy YouTube’s Good Idea?"
• "Why Free Covid Tests Went Viral"

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The book's thesis was simple, but at the time controversial -- that markets and commerce offer the best societal arrangement for promoting creativity and cultural novelty. The book was initially resisted by popular and academic presses and nearly didn't get published, threatening to undermine its own arguments.

In the book, Tyler argues that markets are not just good for artists themselves and how they make a living, but for the quality and the originality of their work. He responds to right-wing critics who argue that a culture rooted in the artistic creations of markets becomes too permissive, and to left-wing critics who say that the profit motive inherent to markets is bad for artistic purity and integrity. Tyler argues that if you really care about creativity – and about diverse groups having access to becoming creators and artists – then markets are better than previous systems based on patronage, or on the direction of the state or the church.

In his chat with Cardiff, Tyler revisits his original arguments, considering them anew to account for all that's happened in the time since the book was published in 2000. What have been the effects on creativity of the dominance of streaming, the ubiquity of smartphones, and more recently the rise of Tiktok and NFTs?

Also on the show: Why were the Medici overrated and rap musicians underrated? Does the easy reproducibility of historically significant artistic works, made possible by new technologies, threaten to cannibalize emergent artists? Is there a meaningful distinction between high-brow and low-brow art? Where has Hollywood gone wrong? How have sports, cooking, amateur photography and other domains of life become more artistic and creative in recent decades?

Finally, Tyler and Cardiff discuss why it can be seductive and easy to become cultural pessimists -- and why both nonetheless remain cultural optimists.

LINKS:

-- In Praise of Commercial Culture (Harvard University Press)

-- Marginal Revolution (Tyler's blog with Alex Tabarrok)

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On his podcast, Tim draws on history and social science to vividly retell the stories of great crimes, accidents and disasters of the past - pointing out valuable lessons for us all from the dithering, death and destruction.

In this episode, Tim tells the story of Lizzie J. Magie (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter!), who should be celebrated as the inventor of what would become Monopoly - but her role in creating the smash hit board game was cynically ignored, even though she had a patent.

Discrimination has marred the careers of many inventors and shut others out from the innovation economy entirely. Could crediting forgotten figures such as Lizzie Magie help address continuing disparities in the patenting of new inventions?

You can hear more episodes of Cautionary Tales at https://link.chtbl.com/newbazaarcautionary.

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His chat with Cardiff is about exactly that: How the concept of trust applies to all kinds of different economic interactions that we experience throughout our lives. And the research that helps us understand why trust so often breaks down, and potentially how to build it back up. 

For example, how do you write a contract between two people or two companies that enhances trust rather than erodes it. When do prenuptial agreements enhance trust, and when don’t they? What about religion and its role in fostering the kind of trust that matters for the economy? 

Why is gossip actually good for trust? When can we trust our economic policymakers? What affect does social media and tools to monitor online reputations have on our trust in each other? 

All this and much more on today’s episode. 

Links from the episode:

• Ben Ho's website (https://bit.ly/3thfViO)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Aimee and Cardiff take questions about pricing strategies, how they choose topics and guests for the show, the tricky tension between wonky and accessible, the Canadian vs the US economy, why the US economic growth has been weak since the 1970s, and more.

Thanks so much to everyone for listening to us this year! We are taking a short break, and we will be back with the next episode on Thursday, January 12th. Happy New Year!

Links:

• "Some NYC Restaurants Tire of Forking Over Delivery-App Fees" (WSJ)

• "Pricing of Digital Products" (Deloitte)

• "A deluge of data is giving rise to a new economy" (The Economist)

• "Is It Fair to Tax Capital Gains at Lower Rates Than Earned Income?" (WSJ)

• "Life after quitting: What happened next to the workers who left their jobs" (WaPo)

• "Why it's not really a labor shortage" (Insider)

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Links:

-- "The Truth about Hansel and Gretel"

-- "Buried by the Wall Street Crash"

-- "Florence Nightingale and her Geeks Declare War on Death"

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And what sets Tim apart in all these different mediums is his exceptional storytelling. And when it comes to telling economic stories – stories that are meant to grab your attention, and keep you in suspense, and then ultimately land on a message or a lesson that really stays with you – I’m not sure there’s anyone better. 

And Tim’s latest book, The Data Detective, is no different: there’s a lot of great stories in it. But what I really loved about it is that it’s very much also about the craft of storytelling itself. And that’s what today’s conversation with Tim is also about: What are the ingredients of a captivating story? Why is it that stories are so necessary for fighting back against misinformation? (Why aren’t the facts themselves enough?) And how do you wield the power of storytelling responsibly? 

Links from the episode:

• Cautionary Tales, hosted by Tim Harford, from Pushkin Industries (https://bit.ly/3eopqDX)
• "The Problem with Facts", by Tim Harford (https://bit.ly/3Fpvjg2)
• The Data Detective, by Tim Harford (https://bit.ly/3EoekcG)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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And the things she has found that influence our investment decisions are often things we don’t really consider. Like the kinds of households we live in, our health, or even things like the gender of our children. And as you’ll hear in the chat with Cardiff, she is interested in figuring out what is really going on. Not how people should make choices, but how they actually do make choices – and why those choices matter.

Links from the episode:

• Vicki Bogan’s web site 
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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But there has been a lot of experimentation. Workers are quitting in near-record numbers. Working from home is an obvious example of an idea that many more companies are testing. New kinds of automation are taking the place of some jobs. More people are starting their own small businesses. Some companies are trying out a four-day work week. In a tightening labor market, employers have also started trying new ways of recruiting workers. 

But will this experimentation last? And if it does, how will that fundamentally change the labor market -- and how we think about the nature of work itself? 

Links from the episode:

• Julia is on Twitter at @juliaonjobs
• Ziprecruiter articles by Julia Pollak
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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John S Nash, a journalist for Bloody Elbow, joins Cardiff to discuss the economic history of MMA and the sport’s dominant company, the UFC -- and to reveal the many ways that the sport captures the extreme version of so many broader economic trends within the US economy. 

And after the credits, they also give their predictions for UFC 269. 

Links from the episode:

• John S Nash is on Twitter at @heynottheface
• Bloody Elbow (https://tinyurl.com/3chc4ucy)
• John on Crooklyn’s Corner (https://tinyurl.com/yckwmz83)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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That is one of the themes in a new book called Cogs and Monsters, by the economist Diane Coyle, Cardiff’s guest in this episode. The book is also about how the digitization of the economy in particular presents such thorny new challenges for understanding it. Diane never goes for easy criticisms or easy solutions. She burrows deep. And she makes the point that the economy, like society at large, is always in flux. And so the job of the economist can never be finished. 

Links from the episode:

• Cogs and Monsters, by Diane Coyle (https://tinyurl.com/2swtr22n)
• The Enlightened Economist, Diane Coyle’s blog (https://tinyurl.com/wxjruvsd)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Cardiff has no idea anymore. So he invited Karl Smith, an economist and columnist at Bloomberg, to the show. Together they discuss how conservative economics has shifted on the issues of trade, immigration, the deficit, entitlement spending, and more. 

Links from the episode:

• Karl is on Twitter at @karlbykarlsmith
• Karl Smith’s articles at Bloomberg (https://tinyurl.com/cxd9vpym)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Matt is Cardiff’s favorite economic data sleuth because of his rare ability to make sense of an enormous variety of economic indicators, arriving at nuanced but intelligible conclusions. So if you’ve wanted one podcast episode that tells you, in plain language, just where the economy is right now, this is it. And as a bonus, Matt has simultaneously written a special post at The Overshoot, which you can find via the link below, adding details and analysis to their chat. Go check it out! 

Links from the episode:

• Matt is on Twitter at @M_C_Klein
• The Overshoot, by Matt Klein (https://tinyurl.com/7m4ze4ef)
• Trade Wars are Class Wars, by Matt Klein and Michael Pettis (https://tinyurl.com/cf7bj84j)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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An epidemic of these deaths of despair started roughly a couple of decades ago. What Anne and Angus have found is that the increase in these deaths was entirely concentrated in people without college degrees. And they have looked at how other gaps between college and non-college folks have also become bigger and bigger in the last fifty years. 

They’ve also looked at how that societal division also interacts in important ways with other societal divisions, like racial and ethnic inequality, and geographic inequality. And crucially, how those interactions between these different trends can change over time. Or as Anne says in the chat with Cardiff, the battlefield for understanding these trends is dynamic. 

Anne and Angus also discuss with Cardiff the findings of their new study, which shows how Covid has affected mortality rates for people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and also for people without college degrees versus people with college degrees (which they further break down by race and ethnicity, gender, and age).

Links from the episode:

• Case and Deaton's latest paper, Mortality Rates by College Degree Before and During COVID-19 (https://tinyurl.com/datsw4ky)
• Deaths of Despair book (https://tinyurl.com/7rwahs87)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Samuelson Friedman book page (https://tinyurl.com/wykc796w)
• Keynes Hayek book page (https://tinyurl.com/5ade64dz)
• Interview about Keynes Hayek (https://tinyurl.com/4dzk45xd)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Perhaps no longer. Something fundamental has changed. Policymakers are now using trade policy to pursue other goals besides just economic growth. Like national security goals, and goals related to the environment and human rights. Sometimes countries are using trade policy to fight other non-trade disputes with each other.

That is the thesis of this episode’s guest, journalist Soumaya Keynes. Soumaya has just finished a big report for The Economist magazine about this recent shift, and how it ties into the events of the past few years. The rise of populism, and the growing tensions between the US and China, and most recently the thing that’s been on a lot of people’s minds -- the clogging of global supply chains. 

As Soumaya explains, this new logic of trade involves complex tradeoffs for policymakers, as the non-trade goals they are now pursuing are often directly opposed to each other. 

Links from the episode:

• Soumaya is on Twitter at @SoumayaKeynes
• “The new order of trade” by Soumaya Keynes (https://tinyurl.com/5c7m3457)
• Trade Talks Podcast (https://tinyurl.com/25vb6m48)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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And with the return of theater visitors to New York, we may also see the return of jobs for performers and workers on Broadway and at the myriad restaurants, bars, and hotels that cater to these visitors. The labor market remains nowhere close to having recovered these jobs in the leisure and hospitality sectors, and New York City’s own unemployment rate is more than double that of the US overall. 

So, to explore this theory and get a Broadway 101 primer, Cardiff called up Lee Seymour, a journalist who covers Broadway and is himself a Broadway producer and Tony Award winner. They discuss the business of Broadway, how the industry fared through the shutdown, and how its nascent recovery is going.

Links from the episode:

• Lee is on Twitter at @LeemourSeymour
• The Inheritance (https://tinyurl.com/wvv8wnhk)
• Lee’s articles at Forbes (https://tinyurl.com/478hwnbm)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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According to a paper by economist Chang-Tai Hsieh and his co-authors, this deepening integration accounted for an astonishing 40 percent of the per-capita economic growth in the country during this period. Like much of Chang-Tai’s other work, this paper is about what happens when people are finally able to apply their talents in ways that best take advantage of those talents -- and what a tragedy it is, for all of us, when they can’t.  

And that’s why this story is not entirely a happy one. Mainly because there is so much progress that is still left to be made. But also because the progress that was being made appears to be slowing down. And for some people, it might even be reversing. 

Links from the episode:

• “The Allocation of Talent and U.S. Economic Growth” (https://tinyurl.com/988c6a8)
• “Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation” (https://tinyurl.com/wcyh3mtd)
• Chang-Tai Hsieh’s research page (https://tinyurl.com/n86tufvs)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Stacey is on Twitter at @svaneksmith
• Machiavelli for Women (https://tinyurl.com/5cun5du7)
• The Indicator from Planet Money (https://tinyurl.com/4a8pa2cj)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Jerusalem is on Twitter at @JerusalemDemsas
• “What we talk about when we talk about gentrification”, by Jerusalem Demsas (https://tinyurl.com/2kpasxn7)
• All of Jerusalem’s Vox articles (https://tinyurl.com/3sjvp3dc)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Steven Johnson is on Twitter at @stevenbjohnson
• Steven’s website
• Extra Life, the book (https://tinyurl.com/yfksrh82)
• Extra Life, the PBS series (https://tinyurl.com/3hbk3sb7)
• The Ghost Map (https://tinyurl.com/5t48e5vy) 
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups (https://tinyurl.com/95ff3emt)
• A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World (https://tinyurl.com/kn6pdr7k)
• The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created (https://tinyurl.com/v8mw4be2)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Ulrike Malmendier is on Twitter at @umalmend
• Ulrike’s research (https://tinyurl.com/eyv99d4a)
• Ulrike’s AEA/AFRA Joint Lecture (https://tinyurl.com/9x94f8jr)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Maria Konnikova is on Twitter at @mkonnikova
• Maria’s book, The Biggest Bluff (https://tinyurl.com/kexnvd4n)
• “Remembering Walter Mischel, with Love and Procrastination” in The New Yorker (https://tinyurl.com/zrbae2xx)
• Maria’s writing in The New Yorker (https://tinyurl.com/y8n88yy8)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Mark Hugo Lopez is on Twitter at @MHugoLopez
• Pew Research identity report (https://tinyurl.com/y7mv3zn5)
• The growing diversity of black America (https://tinyurl.com/823dm2su)
• Census on race and ethnicity measures (https://tinyurl.com/h2696u3j)
• Mark's book recommendation, Bless Me, Ultima (https://tinyurl.com/zeyw7stu)
• Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane
• Send us an email! You can write to us at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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Links from the episode:

• Peter Blair Henry is on Twitter at @PeterBlairHenry

• The Baker Hypothesis: Stabilization, Structural Reforms, and Economic Growth (https://tinyurl.com/4ykzcn59)

• Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth (https://tinyurl.com/r9asz5xn)

• Cardiff and Aimee are also on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeane

• Send us an email! You can write to use at hello@bazaaraudio.com

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