Unlearning Economics

How Private Equity Ruined Everything

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:47:55 GMT

Hettie O'Brien is a journalist at the Guardian who has written the timely book ‘The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself’. I was extremely pleased when Hettie sent me this book and a request for an interview/blurb because it was something I’d been thinking about a lot recently - as have many others. Private equity firms generally bear little to no risk for their decisions as they asset strip not just other companies, but care homes and the public services we all depend on. There are few industries where the profit motive sits so blatantly at odds with any discernible benefit for anyone other than the owners. As O’Brien shows, private equity has its claws in a wider array of modern problems than you might first think. We had a really fun chat about the charactewrs in this tale, how private equity really works, and what to do about it.

Get her book here:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-asset-class/hettie-obrien/9781399619288

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Menonomics?

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 05:20:15 GMT

Jumping on the manosphere bandwagon.

References (in rough order of appearance)

https://www.youtube.com/@UCjUb0pALtzJwPDu67lkqHdA

Scott Galloway, Notes on Being a Man

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06838/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/what-did-men-do-to-deserve-this

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/conservatives-and-economy-2010-24

https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/article/41/1/105/8157931?login=false

Housing affordability report, Jan 2025 Nationwide

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/changing-cost-childcare

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-842X.2003.tb00423.x

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1359432X.2022.2106855#abstract

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6926602/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0306180

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yl6JpVZTdM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqloPw5wp48&t=9698s&pp=ygUVY29udHJhcG9pbnRzIHR3aWxpZ2h0

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How Behavioural Science was Hijacked

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 10:26:29 GMT

I spoke to Professor Nick Chater to discuss his provocative new book It’s on You! How the Rich and Powerful Have Convinced Us that We're to Blame for Society's Deepest Problems. As a behavoural economist, I initially went into the field because it offered an alternative to the moribund old theories of rationality and equilibrium. Yet I was gradually disappointed that behavioural approaches only tweaked the model, offering an account of how ‘biased’ individuals strayed from rationality, and how we could ‘correct’ their behaviour. The focus on individuals was retained and the thought was that solving economic and social problems only required minor tweaks to their choice environment, known as “nudging”, an approach which took off in governments and corporations across the world.

The field of behavioral economics has promised that we could solve society’s deepest problems—from the climate crisis to retirement security—by simply "nudging" individuals toward better choices. But Nick and his coauthor George Loewenstein argue that this focus on what they call the ‘individual-frame’ has been a massive distraction. In this interview, we explored how major corporations have used behavioral science as a clever sleight of hand to convince us that we are to blame for systemic failures, all while they quietly lobby against the regulations and taxes that would actually create change. We dove into why it’s time to move past the "nudge" and start rewriting the social and economic rulebook to prioritise the common good over individual responsibility, adopting what they call the ‘systems-frame’.

Nick has a lifetime of research behind him and went from, a nudge convert to a nudge heretic. I was really great to get his perspective on how that happened and how we can use behavioural science for good.

Originally recorded on Tuesday 17th March, 2026.

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What "Abundance" Misses

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:12:45 GMT

We read Abundance in the UE book club (you can join by becoming a member, Patreon, etc. – check details) and I have some thoughts on why it disappointed me.

References (sorted by category)

Abundance

Abundance, Klein and Thompson

An Abundance, of Credulity, Brown https://prospect.org/2025/03/26/2025-03-26-abundance-of-credulity-klein-thompson-dunkelman-review/

Abundance for the 99 Percent, Huber et al https://jacobin.com/2025/08/klein-thompson-abundance-liberalism-socialism

What left-wing critics don’t get about abundance, Schleicher https://www.niskanencenter.org/what-left-wing-critics-dont-get-about-abundance/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The Real Path to Abundance, Vaheesan https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-real-path-to-abundance/

Zoning

New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It, Politano https://www.apricitas.io/p/new-zealands-building-boomand-what?utm_source=publication-search

Zoning Changes Have Small Impact on Housing Supply, Brey 2023

Upzoning Chicago: Impacts of a Zoning Reform on Property Values and Housing Construction, Freemark https://yonahfreemark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Freemark-Upzoning-Chicago.pdf

We Zoned for Density and Got Higher House Prices: Supply and Price Effects of Upzoning over 20 Years, Murray and Limb https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08111146.2022.2124966

Evaluating the long-run effects of zoning reform on urban development, Greenaway-McGrevy https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046224000930

Zoning Change: Upzonings, Downzonings, and Their Impacts on Residential Construction, Housing Costs, and Neighborhood Demographics, Freemark

Post-Neoliberal Housing Policy, Serkin and Sitaram

https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/412/2025/04/22200114/Post-Neoliberal-Housing-Policy.pdf

Other references

Spain's deadly rail accidents prompt maintenance investment debate https://www.reuters.com/world/spains-deadly-rail-accidents-prompt-maintenance-investment-debate-2026-01-23/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncQlqfD5I-k&

Tax Hero, NPR Planet Money https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero

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Everything Was Already AI

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:23:24 GMT

Trialling out releasing my videos in mp3 format on here!

Feedback welcome, hope you enjoy this video which was a lot of fun to make (albeit late)

References (in rough order of appearance)

How to Make Realistic Predictions About AI, Tantham https://curveshift.net/p/how-to-make-realistic-predictions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8enXRDlWguU&

‘Large AI models are cultural and social technologies’, Farrell et al.

Artificial Intelligences, Herbert Simon

Debunking Economics, Keen

https://www.mic.com/articles/107896/scientists-finally-prove-why-pop-music-all-sounds-the-same

The Dorito Effect, Shatzker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRq0pESKJgg&

The Stock Market is a Conventional Wisdom Processor: Why Trump’s Tariffs Crashed the Stock Market While the Trump Musk Payments Crisis Hasn’t (Yet), Tankus https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/04/The-Stock-Market-is-a-Conventional-Wisdom-Processor-Why-Trump-s-Tariffs-Crashed-the-Stock-Market-While-the-Trump-Musk-Payments-Crisis-Hasn-t--Yet-.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqlbn2nPO-A&

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/job-market-hell/684133/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJW4-cOZt8A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW2Zr8Q6Xqw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xeMak4RqJA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfN9wnPvU0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6p3J9dko8&

An Existing, Ecologically-Successful Genus Of Collectively Intelligent Artificial Creatures, Kuipers

AI Integration Is the New Moat, Tim O’Reilly https://www.oreilly.com/radar/integration-is-the-new-moat/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvpw4_O25eU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3HpdNGvJDc&

notes on the industrialisation of decision making, Davies https://substack.com/home/post/p-177016285

the only message the channel can carry is a scream, Davies https://substack.com/home/post/p-151264334

The AI Circular Economy, Blakeley https://substack.com/@graceblakeley/p-176721998

The Case Against Generative AI, Zitron https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

The Map is Eating the Territory: The Political Economy of AI, Farrell https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-political-economy-of-ai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8reiauyQCM

Verdict on the UK Budget

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:00:00 GMT

Had another chat with Helena about the recent UK budget. As always, her encyclopedic knowledge astounds me!

Originally recorded on November 28th, 2025

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Fixing the UK Economy

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Helena runs the channel NoJusticeMTG. She is an active streamer on Twitch and comments extensively on UK politics and economics. With the UK budget coming on November 26th, Rachel Reeves is constrained by her promises to balance the budget while not increasing income tax. Helena and I will discuss the UK economy, austerity, balanced budget ideas, and what we might see economically from this Labour Government. We had chatted a bit via our respective streams but never had a chance to properly discuss things. This was a really fun talk which covered everything UK politics and economics, Helena's knowledge is inimitable plus she's a great conversaionalist! We'll probably chat again after the budget to see where things are headed.

Originally recorded on November 18th, 2025.

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Rent Control: Misunderstood?

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:24:57 GMT

William B. Thorne is a PhD candidate at The CUNY Graduate Center who is researching the effects of rent control. We had a good chat about the pros and cons of this controversial policy.

His website: https://wbthorne.com/

My recent article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/rent-control-is-fine-actually

Originally recorded on October 20th, 2025.

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Global Finance and the Future of Money

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:16:40 GMT

Brett Scott is an anthropologist and former financier who has been working on changing the global financial system since the days of Occupy Wall Street. We read his 2013 book The Heretics Guide to Global Finance in the UE reading club (available to £5+ tier Patrons!) and we really enjoyed it, so I thought I’d ask Brett to reflect over a decade later. I also took a look at his newer book, Cloud Money, on the dominance of fintech in the financial world today. We had a wide-ranging discussion about the future of finance.

Originally recorded on Tuesday 5th August, 2025.

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Liberal Socialism

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:57:05 GMT

Matt McManus is a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan. He has written the book The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism, which threads together thinkers from Mary Wollstonecraft to John Stuart Mill to Karl Marx. Matt asks whether liberalism and socialism should be considered at loggerheads in the way they usually are today. The book is mostly an exercise in ‘retrieval’ i.e. recovering the liberal socialist tradition, but McManus considers himself a liberal socialist and I’m now wondering whether I do too!

Originally recorded on July 29th, 2025.

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Ricardo's Dream

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 16:22:04 GMT

Nat Dyer is an author, journalist, and economist. His recent (and first) book is Ricardo’s Dream: How Economists Forgot the Real World and Led Us Astray. I’ve seen Nat’s work with the organisation/website Promoting Economic Pluralism, but I didn’t realise he had a book in the works! He emailed me offering to send a copy over and we agreed to chat about this topic. Obviously, the idea of economists getting lost in modelling is one that I’ve spoken about plenty.

Nat's book was excellent, as I told him in the interview, and it was a fun and freewheeling discussion about some really important stuff. Enjoy!

You can get Nat’s book here:

https://www.natdyer.com/ricardos-dream/

Originally Recorded on Jun 18, 2025

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Is Economics Education Fit for the 21st Century?

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:47:23 GMT

Rethinking Economics is an organisation that I have been affiliated with for a long time. They are a registered charity who are committed to transforming economics education across the world. For so long, students have complained that the curriculum is too abstract, focused on rote learning of ideas set in stone instead of critical assessments of our economic system. Rethinking Economics acts as an umbrella organisation for the countless student societies that have sprung up to campaign for a better education more in line with the needs of the 21st Century.

In 2014, I was a member of Post Crash Economics Manchester, who made a big impact with our 2014 report on the state of economics education in Manchester. We found that most courses were focused on mathematics and were detached from what was going on outside the classroom. Recently, PCES have updated the report for 2024 in Manchester, while RE have released a report on twenty universities across the UK. I spoke to Kasvhi Singh and Shloka Murarka about the report, and it was just great to see how the student movement is going stronger than ever!

You can read the reports here:

https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/edu-material/uk-curriculum-healthcheck-is-economics-education-fit-for-the-21st-century/

https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/blog/2024/05/01/is-economics-education-fit-for-the-21st-century/

Originally recorded on 5th June, 2025.

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The Care Economy is the Everything Economy

Thu, 29 May 2025 14:37:30 GMT

Emma Holten is an economist from Denmark who has written the book Deficit: How Feminist Economics Can Change Our World. Holten details how much of what we consider ‘the economy’ is really underpinned by care of various kinds, mostly done by women. This is very much in line with my own interests around GDP and austerity, as I think our prevailing economic analysis devalues the unseen and leads to policies which hurt people, hurting the economy too. Emma and I had an excellent chat that I think was one of my best on this podcast, I hope you all enjoy it!

Originally recorded on May 20, 2025.

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The Time for Cybernetics Has Come

Tue, 13 May 2025 14:45:56 GMT

Dan Davies is an economist, blogger, and former regulator. He has written a book called The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind. I've followed Dan on his substack and on the blog Crooked Timber for some time and I've always found him brilliant, so I was excited to read his book. I wasn't disappointed - it is a witty and insightful guide to the importance of accountability in economic systems which draws heavily from the work of the underappreciated economist Stafford Beer. We had a really great chat about cybernetics and economics, hope you enjoy!

Dan's Substack: https://substack.com/@backofmind

The Unaccountability Machine: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo252799883.html

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Populism and Economists

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:36:45 GMT

Dr Anna Killick completed her postdoc at University College London. She works on the relationship between economists, the economy, and politicians and overt the pandemic researched and wrote the book Politicians and Economic Experts: the Limits of Technocracy. As I have previously written about economic expertise gone wrong, I thought this would be an excellent chat and I was right! We explored her extensive research into how politicians view economists across the UK, US, France, Denmark and Germany, and reviewed both her work and mine in light of the current moment.

Originally recorded on 31st March 2025.

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"Homelessness is Not a Monolith"

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:43:57 GMT

Arthur got into contact with me to chat about his experience with homelessness in the USA. He was born into a stable family, but they ended up differing on how he should live his life. Through this plus a confluence of factors including accidents, discrimination, health issues, love, and the failure of numerous institutions, he ended up being homeless a few times - with one for a much longer period of time. He is now living in an apartment with a stable partner, but is worried about the future given the current administration's aggressive policies.

Arthur's passion is music and you can check him out at: https://www.youtube.com/@blueberryseason

Originally recorded 18/03/2025

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Chatting to Someone Who Has Experienced Homelessness

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 11:46:56 GMT

Diamon or "Goose" is a regular contributor on my Discord and reading group. It emerged in a recent session that he had experienced homelessness in the past and I thought it would be great to let him tell his story. As you will hear, Diamom has a comprehensive assessment of the homelessness situation in the USA, from the people themselves to the conditions that cause it. One of my most important chats in a while!

Originally recorded on 18th February, 2025

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A Random Physicist Takes on Economics

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 07:00:44 GMT

Jason Smith is a physicist who took to economics. He has used modern information theory to build a different approach to analysing and predicting economic data. Jason always has a fresh and unexpected approach to things and remains an empiricist through and through. We had a super interesting chat that ranged from economic methdology to machine learning and AI to workers' rights and unemployment.

His academic paper on information theory and economics is here:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3094757

He has a well circulated article critiquing Hayek’s approach to information: https://evonomics.com/hayek-meets-information-theory-fails/

He has a substack: https://substack.com/@infoeqm but also check out his old blog: https://informationtransfereconomics.blogspot.com/

He has written two books: A Random Physicist Takes on Economics and A Workers' History of the United States 1948-2020.

Originally recorded on 16th December 2024.

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Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 18:08:17 GMT

Dr Stuart Mills is a behavioural economist with a background in economics and political economy. He is is interested in the intersection of technology, data and behavioural science and has written several papers exploring the digital economy, including recent ones on AI and how to make sense of it. Stuart is a co-author and former colleague of mine and we have previously written about the limitations of nudge in the context of the environment. We discussed his work on AI and the digital economy, which links to broader issues in behavioural economics and in society.

Originally recorded on 5th December, 2024.

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The Economic Vibes Are Off

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 13:47:31 GMT

Kyla Scanlon is an economist, author, and influencer. She coined the term 'vibecession' in 2022 as a reference to the historically unprecedented mismatch between subjective consumer sentiment (or vibes) and more objective economic indicators like GDP, output, and wages. Scanlon wrote a subsequent book In This Economy?: How Money and Markets Really Work, which dove into the issue of vibes and economics, while at the same time serving as an excellent and modern economics explainer. Kyla and I had a fun and wide-ranging (if tech-interrupted) discussion about why the vibes are off and the challenges of using hard data versus being connected with the 'real world'.

Originally recorded on 19th November, 2024.

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How to Build A Better Economy

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 12:21:00 GMT

Claudia Sahm is an economist who became known for the Sahm Rule, an indicator that reliably predicts recessions and tells us when to engage in active Keynesian-style policy to prevent and ameliorate them. Sahm ha sbeen a tireless campaigner for better economic people that reduces economic volatility, increases growth, and above all is done with the aim of improving things for the average person. Claudia blogs at https://stayathomemacro.substack.com/, mostly about the US economy, combining an eye for data with compassion for those underneath it. We had an excellent chat and I was shocked by quite how much Claudia knows about policy on the ground. Enjoy!

Originally recorded on 24th October, 2024.

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Perfectionism and Capitalism

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:02:31 GMT

Dr Tom Curran is an Associate Professor at the Psychological and Behavioural Science Department at LSE. Tom has released a book called The Perfection Trap, which explores the disease of perfectionism as it runs through ourselves and our society. Although the book contains self-help elements, I was personally surprised at how much of the blame Tom lays at the feet of our economy and our culture. From a grade-obsessed education system to pushy parents to insecure workplaces, we have an idea of perfectionism constantly reinforced on us, punishing us if we dare to opt-out. This was a great conversation that could have gone on much longer, and I can't recommend Tom's book enough!

Originally recorded on October 8th, 2024.

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The Tyranny of Nations

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 11:00:01 GMT

Palak Patel is an investor who spent a decade specialising in South Asia and Latin America. His book The Tyranny of Nations: How the Last 500 Years Shaped Today's Global Economy draws an analogy between the Dutch and British Empires, as well as the US today. Via the dominance of their currency and financial institutions, they each shaped the global economy and steered it in their favour when they were dominant. All three seem to have followed similar cycles, and Patel argues that we can foresee the trajectory of the USA by understanding this.

We discussed this book and these long cycles, as well as broader points about political actions and how we can change our institutions for the better.

Originally recorded on 17th September 2024.

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The Great Housing Hijack

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 11:35:20 GMT

Dr Cameron Murray is the author of The Great Housing Hijack: The hoaxes and myths keeping prices high for renters and buyers in Australia. Cam is an urban economist who specialises in housing and he has, for a long time, been pushing against the idea that a more free market approach to housing will solve the crises of high rents, homelessness, and housing bubbles. In this, he has also drawn from his experience as a landlord and working in commercial real estate. He makes a conscious effort to understand how housing is built beyond econ101 fairy tales and has some really interesting takes for that reason.

You can find the book here: https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Cameron-K.-Murray-Great-Housing-Hijack-9781761470851

Cameron has a new YouTube channel too: https://www.youtube.com/@fresheconomicthinking

He also writes at https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com/

Originally recorded on 22nd August, 2024.

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Shadow Banking 101

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:35:20 GMT

Conner Howell is a graduate student in economics at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. He does research on securitization and shadow banking through a Post-Keynesian lens. I learned a lot about this important and mysterious sector, and how it can inform our approach to economics. We also touched on some broader issues surrounding money and capitalism!

Conner's Bluesky/Subtack account is here: https://bsky.app/profile/connernhowell.substack.com

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Do Rich Countries Keep Poor Countries Poor?

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:09:24 GMT

Dr Ingrid Kvangraven is a senior lecturer in International Development at King's College London. Ingrid specialises in dependency theory, a branch of scholarship that emphases that poorer countries are kept dependent on richer countries. This can happen through a variety of means: trade relations, finance, military. Dependency theory fell out of fashion in mainstream academia but is experiencing something of a renaissance. I discuss its ongoing relevance with Ingrid and crucially how it can help us to understand modern narratives about global development.

Originally recorded on 9th July 2024.

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Policy Without the Rubbish Bits

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:45:48 GMT

Josh Mason is an Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York, as well as a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

I already spoke to Josh about more abstract and general topics in economics, including Marxism and its relation to the framework he subscribes to:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5LiNPSr5b80XSzKCdrXGEG?si=6c020a375d194bbc

This time, we spoke about new and exciting approaches to policy issues including inflation, climate, and housing, which are being pioneered by people like Josh.

For pre-reading, check out Josh's paper on climate policy from a Keynesian perspective:

https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/contentgroups/economics/cliamte_policy_from_a_keynesian_perspective_may_2022.pdf

...and his paper on supply chain constraints with ArjunJayadev:

https://jwmason.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Rethinking-Supply-Constraints-1-23-23.pdf

Originally recorded on October 3rd, 2023.

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How Consultancy Firms Con Us

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 16:38:39 GMT

Dr Rosie Collington is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Organization at the University of Copenhagen. She is the co-author, along with Marianna Mazzucatto, of The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies. This is a scathing but balanced dive into how the consulting industry rips us off. It also makes a more fundamental point about the role it plays in an era when governments are increasingly hollowed out. We had a really wide-ranging chat about the book and some of the broader questions it raises, including what we do now.

Originally recorded on 18th June 2024.

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Why Austerity Fails

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 14:23:32 GMT

Jo Michell is a Professor of Economics at the University of West England, Bristol, and a friend of mine. We previously chatted about Keynesianism on the podcast, see here if you want a refresher:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/70HlACXJTARA6bf7599vDM?si=8fb79491d4e24263

Last year Jo, Natassia Nasciemento, Rob Calvert Jump, and James Meadway wrote a report on austerity in the UK so I was keen to chat to him again on an issue that is close to my heart. You can see the report here:

https://progressiveeconomyforum.com/publications/the-macroeconomics-of-austerity/

I'm releasing this now (25th June 2024) because it is relevant to the UK elections (4th July), where neither of the major parties have disavowed austerity and balanced budgets despite its dreadful failings. It was originally recorded on September 5th, 2023.

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Decolonising Universities

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 06:00:06 GMT

Dr Deema Awad and Dr Miriam Tresh are both Associate Professors at the Psychological and Behavioural Science Department at LSE, where I used to work and with which I am still affiliated. For a few years, Deema and Miriam have been working on a campaign to decolonise the department. We chat about what this means: including a broader range of thinkers, teachers, experimental participants, and students? Changing teaching and research practices? Rethinking the university model entirely?

This was a very fun and collegial chat on a controversial topic. Enjoy!

Originally recorded on June 11, 2024.

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A Theory of Everyone

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 12:48:07 GMT

Michael Muthukrishna is an Associate Professor of Economics Psychology at the London School of Economics and therefore a colleague of mine. His book A Theory of Everyone: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going does what it says on the tin: presents a theory of humanity which weaves between psychology, biology, sociology and economics. It's a big task to bring this all but the book is extremely readable and packed with insights. I had a really interesting conversation with Michael, you can find out more/order the book here:

https://www.michael.muthukrishna.com/book/

Originally recorded on February 6th, 2024.

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Thinking Like An Economist

Mon, 20 May 2024 12:50:59 GMT

Professor Elizabeth Popp Berman is known for her book Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy. This is an excellent book which looks at the influence of the economics profession, a topic which is close to my heart as I have my own book on the topic: The Econocracy.

We had a fantastic discussion about economic expertise and I can't recommend her book enough!

Originally recorded on Jan 22, 2024.

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Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: British Economic History

Fri, 03 May 2024 14:57:04 GMT

Duncan Weldon is a British economist who currently works at The Economist newspaper. He has previously worked at the BBC and the Resolution Group. He wrote a book on UK economic history called 'Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through'. We discussed what muddling through means, popular myths about British economic history, and whether we can do better.

You can buy Duncan's book here: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/duncan-weldon/two-hundred-years-of-muddling-through/9780349144276/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DuncanWeldon

Substack: https://duncanweldon.substack.com/

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How to Fix Society

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:29:58 GMT

James Plunkett is the author of a book called End State: 9 Ways Society Is Broken & How We Fix It. I read the book not too long ago and really loved it, so I invited James to join me for a chat. James and I ended up having an optimistic take on the problems facing the modern world, because we've seen and overcome similar scale challenges before.

Originally recorded on August 2nd, 2023.

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Can Nudges Save the Environment?

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 12:22:43 GMT

Dr Ganga Shreedhar is an Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science in the LSE Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. She is interested in ecology and the environment, including how it relates to human psychology and behaviour. We had a wide-ranging discussion about Ganga's academic background, her interest in the environment and how this has made her into a kind of nomad who has worked in many different disciplines. We discussed Ganga's (and my) current discipline of behavioural science and what it can contribute.

Behavioural science has focused on the idea of 'Nudge': how small shifts in people's decision making environments can alter their behaviour. In a recent paper, Ganga, myself, and Stuart Mills argued that this may be limited for the environment because of what we call' brown sludge': the sea of restrictions and limitations individuals face when trying to behave pro-environmentally. You can find the paper here:

https://osf.io/preprints/osf/yc4zg

This took us into a wide-ranging and in my opinion, extremely interesting conversation about the role of social science in promoting pro-environmental behaviours. We touched on climate (dis)information and media, car-centric cities, and degrowth. Enjoy!

Originally recorded on 12th April 2024.

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The Limits of YIMBYism

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 15:04:08 GMT

Dr Max Holleran is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Melbourne. He is focused on urban development including gentrification, tourism, and recently the YIMBY/NIMBY debate. Max wrote the book Yes to the City: Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing, which documents the rise of the YIMBY movement from San Francisco and beyond. Holleran takes an even-handed approach, trying to understand where they came from and their demands. He documents the pros and cons of the movement and where it may go from here. You can find Max's book below:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691200224/yes-to-the-city

Max and I discussed the rise of the YIMBYs, including the YIMBY/NIMBY divide and why YIMBYism is a just cause in the face of arbitrary, dysfunctional, and exclusionary zoning laws. We then had a wide-ranging chat about cities and housing, which touched on cars, pollution, race, suburbia, the pandemic, and broader social issues. The latter was a somewhat unexpected direction for the conversation to turn but it allowed us to explore the limits of YIMBYism in its current form, which is a key theme of Max's book. Enjoy!

Originally recorded on 9th April 2024.

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The Global Economy is Rigged

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 14:09:08 GMT

Dr Dean Baker is an economist who co-founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He wrote the book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. The book argues that trade deals, copyright laws, macroeconomic policy and other laws have funnelled money upwards across the global economy, costing everyday people trillions of dollars.

Dean's analysis is exactly the type of concrete and specific economics that I find so valuable and I emailed him on a whim asking him if he'd like to speak to me. To my delight and frankly surprise, he agreed! We had a really interesting discussion about all of this, I think the parts on health and on full employment were especially interesting.

You can get Dean's book free here:

https://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm

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Reflecting on the 'Vibecession'

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 07:00:04 GMT

Joseph Politano is an economist who runs a substack called Apricitas Economics. He blogs about the US and world economies. Late last year he was heavily involved in the debate about whether there was a 'vibecession'. This referred to the massive disconnect between subjective feelings about the economy and economic indicators like wages, GDP, and employment, mostly in the USA.

We had a really interesting talk trying to understand this puzzle. However, after some controversy in chat I felt the need to add a disclaimer at the start of this re-upload to try and explain what we are and are not doing. The Vibecession is a puzzle in the data which needs to be explained; it's not us imploring you to be happy and thankful because everything is fine. Statistics can't speak to individual cases, but they are still the best hope we have for measuring the economy most of the time!

Joey's substack is available here, pretty graphs and all:

https://www.apricitas.io/

Originally recorded on March 25th, 2024.

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Socialism with Democratic Characteristics

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 22:01:44 GMT

Matt Bruenig is an economist, lawyer, and policy analyst. He runs the think-tank the People's Policy Project, which focuses on practical welfare and socialist policies in the USA. We had a really interesting chat about practical socialism and how to implement it, including what socialism means to both of us. Find more of Matt's stuff bekiw, including his podcast with Elizabeth Bruenig:

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/

https://www.patreon.com/thebruenigs

https://twitter.com/MattBruenig

Originally recorded on June 5th, 2023.

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The Wall Street Consensus

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 15:37:42 GMT

Daniela Gabor is a Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance at UWE Bristol, England. She specialises in shadow banking and capital markets, and has become known for her idea of the Wall Street Consensus which guides policy in the rich and poor worlds alike.

We chatted mostly about that in what was a slightly technical but, in my view extremely important discussion for the future of development policy, finance, and industrial policy. Find out more about Daniela's work here:

https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/DanielaGabor

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Rethinking Economics and China

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 12:25:59 GMT

Yuan Yang is the Financial Times' Europe-China correspondent and, like me, a founding member of Rethinking Economics (RE). We chatted about RE, the economics profession, economics education, and education in general. We also talked about writing and our career paths, and finished by discussing several of the pressing issues with China. This was a great chat and I look forward to discussing Yuan's upcoming book about social mobility in China with her next time!

You can find Yuan's FT columns here:

https://www.ft.com/yuan-yang

Note that this conversation was originally recorded on Jul 7, 2023.

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The History of Economic Thought

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 09:26:03 GMT

Dr Beatrice Cherrier is an associate professor at CREST, CNRS, ENSAE/Ecole Polytechnique in France. She specialises in the history of economic thought since World War 2. Beatrice and I have had many interesting exchanges in the past so I was excited to chat to her about her work and views. The chat didn't disappoint, and we covered the importance of the history of thought, the changes in economics post-WW2, women in economics, and values in economics.

Beatrice's website is here, where you can find her work, is here: https://beatricecherrier.wordpress.com/

This podcast was recorded on July 10th, 2023.

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Should We Just Get Rid of Peer Review?

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 10:15:55 GMT

Adam Mastroianni is a psychologist who wrote a viral blog post about the failure of peer review, which you can read below. We discussed how to do good science, including some of his interesting research in psychology. The conversation was really wide-ranging and went in directions I hadn't planned, it was a fascinating chat for me. Hope you all enjoy it.

Also, I can't recommend Adam's substack enough!

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review

This podcast was recorded on April 17th, 2023.

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Rethinking Economics in the USA

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 14:57:53 GMT

I spoke with Nouhalia Oudija and Abigail Acheson, two students from the USA who have helped push forward Rethinking Economics there. We had a lovely chat about all things economics education, as well as how they see the movement pushing economics debate forward.

This podcast was recorded on January 31st, 2023.

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Defunding the Police

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 14:07:36 GMT

Alex S. Vitale is a Professor at Brooklyn college. He is the author of the book The End of Policing, which has become a bible for the Defund the Police Movement. I had the pleasure of reading the book recently and was surprised by how persuasive it was. To my further delight, Prof. Vitale responded to my post about it on Twitter and we agreed to have this chat. We talk through some of the main arguments in the book and how to propagate them, and reflect on the huge impact the book has had.

This podcast was recorded on December 13th, 2022.

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Inequality, Hierarchy, and Marxism

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:09:59 GMT

Blair Fix is an economist who works on issues of income distribution and hierarchy. He is a staunch critic of mainstream economics and has also critiqued Marxism in the past. I've used Blair's work in my videos and we had a great chat about all of these issues, as well as the environment and inflation.

Blair blogs at https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/ and his Patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/blairfix/posts

This podcast was recorded on December 19th, 2022.

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Marxism without the Rubbish Bits

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 16:05:54 GMT

Josh Mason is an Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York, as well as a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

He is one of my favourite heterodox economists and we had a fantastic chat about capital and wealth, as well as the good and bad bits of Marxism.

This podcast was recorded on November 14th, 2022.

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Race, Power, and Economics

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 14:55:58 GMT

Professor Trevon D. Logan is an Economics Professor at Ohio State University. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Trevon's work spans the fields of economic history, demography, and applied microeconomics. He has researched such issues as criminal justice, education, and household resource allocation. You can find his profile here: https://economics.osu.edu/people/logan.155

We chatted mostly about his work on race and economics, including the reconstruction period, stratification economics, and how we need more than purely quantitative/economic approach to understand race.

This podcast was recorded on October 21st, 2022.

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The Cost of Living Crisis

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 13:54:58 GMT

Grace Blakeley is a well-known UK based political and economics commentator. She writes regularly for Tribune magazine and appears on UK television shows like Good Morning Britain.

Grace and UE had a brief but wide-ranging chat about the causes of current inflation and how we might hope to rescue ourselves from the intertwined crises we currently face.

This podcast was recorded on August 25th, 2022.

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Jordan Peterson and Gender Discrimination

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 13:52:04 GMT

Matt Darling is an employment Policy Fellow at the Niskanen Center and used to work at ideas42, which is a lab which uses behavioural economics to tackle social and policy problems.

Matt has a broad range of interests, but what made me ask him to have this discussion was an exchange Matt Darling had with Jordan Peterson years ago about gender discrimination. In the exchange, it seemed that Peterson's knowledge of the literature on gender discrimination was lacking and Darling was able to fill in the gaps.

Check out the relevant exchange between Matt and Peterson here: https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8m21kw/i_am_dr_jordan_b_peterson_u_of_t_professor/dzkaid3/?context=3

This podcast was recorded on July 7th, 2022.

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Doughnut Economics

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 13:46:22 GMT

Kate Raworth is an economist who is well-known for her work on Doughnut Economics, which attempts to balance human needs and environmental constraints. The original book was released in 2017 and has been one of the most influential heterodox economics books I've seen. Kate's website is at: https://doughnuteconomics.org/

UE and Kate had a fantastic chat. Kate uses a lot of visual cues so you may miss a little just from listening, but she is still an excellent speaker. If you want to watch the whole video you can do so at: https://youtu.be/Ir8HJjKdzhY

This podcast was recorded on November 2nd, 2022.

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Inflation and the Cost of Living Crisis

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 13:00:37 GMT

Richard Murphy is a chartered accountant and Professor of Political Economy at Sheffield. He regularly blogs about issues around tax avoidance/evasion, as well as general economics, at https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/

Richard and UE discuss the cost of living crisis, the UK Government's cack-handed attempts to deal with it, the Green New Deal, the role of taxes in society and much more.

This podcast was recorded on October 12th, 2022.

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Critiquing Steven Pinker and New Optimism

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 09:51:02 GMT

Rodrigo Aguilera is a Mexican economist who has extensively critiqued Steven Pinker in his book 'The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century', which you can get here:

https://repeaterbooks.com/product/the-glass-half-empty-debunking-the-myth-of-progress-in-the-twenty-first-century/

UE and Aguilera discuss the general worldview and philosophy of 'new optimism', the attitudes of people like Pinker, the data on poverty and inequality, the data on democracy and violence, and what we can do to create a better world.

This podcast was recorded on September 27th, 2022.

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What Good is Economic Expertise?

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 17:31:06 GMT

Dr Danielle Guizzo is a lecturer at Bristol University who specialises in economic expertise, economics education, and diversifying and decolonising economics. Check out her page here:

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/danielle-guizzo

She and UE discussed economic history (with a focus on Latin America), the role of economists as experts, and how to improve the teaching of economics.

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The People's Quantitative Easing

Sun, 23 Oct 2022 14:59:43 GMT

Frances Coppola is a former banker, an economist, and blogger. She wrote a book called 'The Case for People's QE'. She and UE chatted about the book, the details of monetary policy, and how to build a better world. Frances' book is available below:

https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/The+Case+For+People's+Quantitative+Easing-p-9781509531301

This podcast was recorded on September 13th, 2022.

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Inequality and People's Economics

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 14:55:09 GMT

Gary Stevenson is an economist and former financial trader in the City of London. He also runs a YouTube channel called Gary's Economics. He and UE discuss inequality and how it has changed over the coronavirus pandemic. They also talk about the failures of the economics profession: both in understanding these crucial characteristics of the economy, and in communicating economics to the public in an understandable manner.

This podcast was recorded on July 26th, 2022.

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Post-Keynesian Economics

Sat, 08 Oct 2022 13:08:02 GMT

Jo Michell is an Associate Professor at the University of West England. He and UE ask: what is post-Keynesian economics? They chat about Keynes, inflation, international money flows, among other things.

This podcast was recorded on June 7th, 2022.

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Toxic Culture in Economics

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 11:31:59 GMT

Ben Harrell is an economist from Vanderbilt University in the USA. UE and Ben discuss LGBTQ economics, diversity in the profession, and the toxic culture that plagues the economics profession.

This podcast was recorded on April 1st, 2022.

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Class and Economics

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 14:26:02 GMT

Anna Stansbury is an Assistant Professor in Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan. Anna's work focuses on labour and macroeconomics. Unlearning Economics and Anna chat about her recent paper about socioeconomic diversity in the economics profession, which is available here:

https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/socioeconomic-diversity-economics-phds

This podcast was recorded on June 9th, 2022.

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The New Left Economics

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 14:22:25 GMT

Antonia Jennings is Associate Director at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies and a Chair of Rethinking Economics. Unlearning Economics and her chat about what the new left economics means, including current issues such as regional inequality, the cost of living crisis, and climate change.

This podcast was recorded on May 10th, 2022.

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Decolonising Economics

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 14:19:35 GMT

Devika Dutt and Surbhi Kesar are founding members of Diversifying & Decolonising economics. They speak to Unlearning Economics about what their mission means for the discipline and for the world. Check out their website at:

https://d-econ.org/

This podcast was recorded on April 26th, 2022.

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Housing, Rent Control, and Pluralism

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 14:09:00 GMT

Cameron Murray is an Australian economist, currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Henry Halloran Trust at The University of Sydney. He and Unlearning Economics discuss policies in the housing market, including the controversial policy of rent control, as well as broader issues in the field of economics and how we teach it.

Produced by Hobbie Stuart

Music by Frank Hopkins

This podcast was recorded on February 23rd, 2022.

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