Informazioni su questo podcast
"The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." -Adam Smith (WoN, Bk I, Chapter 5)
In which the Knower of Important Things shows how transaction costs explain literally everything. Plus TWEJ, and answers to letters.
If YOU have questions, submit them to our email at [email protected]
There are two kinds of episodes here:
1. For the most part, episodes June-August are weekly, short (<20 mins), and address a few topics.
2. Episodes September-May are longer (1 hour), and monthly, with an interview with a guest.
Finally, a quick note: This podcast is NOT for Stacy Hockett. He wanted you to know that.....
Episodi
I 20 episodi più recenti su 89
- Bookmakers Set Odds To Maximize Profit Not Balance Bets · 1 h 12 minSend us Fan Mail A NOTE OF APOLOGY: I uploaded the raw audio, rather than the podcast. So the first of you who listened heard the raw version, where there was some random stuff…
- Renta Vitalicias: Pension Promises Only Work When Politics Honors Them · 60 min · Stagione 4 Episodio 13Send us Fan Mail We walk through how Chile converts retirement savings into lifelong income and why inflation protection and competition make the design work. Then politics…
- God Speaks Hebrew But Understands Yiddish · 28 minSend us Fan Mail We trace how Hebrew goes from a “museum language” to a living vernacular by treating language as a coordination good with huge network effects and real…
- The Main Course was Transaction Costs: Milton's Dinner with Ronald · 25 minSend us Fan Mail We tell the story of the Chicago dinner where Ronald Coase walks into a hostile room, and by the end everyone votes with him, led by Milton Friedman changing his…
- Regime Uncertainty: Political Risk is Transaction Cost! · 25 minSend us Fan Mail We walk through the weirdly powerful math that makes a stable $10,000 profit stream worth $50,000 in one world and $1,000,000 in another. Then we apply the same…
- The Senate Is The Enemy And Other Friction Stories · 26 min · Stagione 4 Episodio 9Send us Fan Mail We argue that “friction” is not always a flaw and can be a deliberate shield against bad collective decisions. We use Buchanan and Tullock’s public choice…
- Two Bakers Walk Into A Cartel · 32 minSend us Fan Mail We test a simple bakery price-fixing pact and watch it unravel, then use that failure to explain how transaction costs shape institutions, from unenforceable…
- Contracting with Yourself: Akrasia and Transaction Costs · 36 min · Stagione 4 Episodio 7Send us Fan Mail We start with a simple mystery: how the same person can make a proud plan at night and break it in the morning, even while still believing the plan is good. We…
- When Mass Outrage is Cheap: TC Origins of Cancel Culture · 27 minSend us Fan Mail We trace a straight line from a 1697 blasphemy execution to modern cancel culture by focusing on one variable: the cost of turning speech into coordinated…
- You are NOT "Sorry I'm Late"!! · 27 minSend us Fan Mail We tell a story about German academic quarter hours-- akademische Viertel-- and use it to argue that lateness is an economics problem of coordination…
- Transaction Costs Killed the Medical Stars · 48 minSend us Fan Mail We try to make sense of a real problem many of us feel: paying a lot for U.S. healthcare while still waiting months to see a doctor. We trace how engineered…
- Parasites And Property Rights · 50 min · Stagione 4 Episodio 3Send us Fan Mail BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: The information in this episode comes from Red Flags Press. Their main web site is very useful for research purposes, and I recommend it!…
- Books Don't Bet, They Match · 1 h 4 min · Stagione 4 Episodio 2Send us Fan Mail We break down how sportsbooks function as brokers that match contracts, set prices through the point spread, and earn their living through the vig. Kevin Braig…
- Hereditary Monarchy: At Least You Know Which Idiot Is Next · 31 min · Stagione 4 Episodio 1Send us Fan Mail Hereditary monarchy seems like a ridiculous way to pick a leader, yet it dominates most of human political history. We argue the reason is transaction costs…
- Swollen Permits? Call Chile! · 45 minSend us Fan Mail Permits feel like “just paperwork”, until they quietly become the biggest barrier to building, investing, and even basic economic growth. We use Chile’s fight…
- Honor Among Thieves: Anja Shortland and Ransomware · 1 h 6 minSend us Fan Mail A talk with Dr Anya Shortland about the economics of ransomware and the gray-zone institutions that let extortion markets function when nobody can truly enforce…
- Are Transaction Costs Really Just Human Distance · 43 min · Stagione 3 Episodio 21Send us Fan Mail We connect Adam Smith’s moral psychology to the modern idea of transaction costs and argue that the biggest frictions in markets start with the cost of…
- Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 10: Always Contemporary · 1 h 28 minSend us Fan Mail We assess Adam Smith’s enduring ideas—moral authorization of commerce, division of labor, emergent order—and confront where his optimism breaks: how democratic…
- Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 9: Spending, Taxing, and Debt · 1 h 28 min · Stagione 3 Episodio 24Send us Fan Mail We walk through Book Five of The Wealth of Nations to map a state that defends, adjudicates, and builds wisely, then pays for it without killing growth. From…
- Adam Smith Episode 8: A Nation of Shopkeepers · 1 h 25 min · Stagione 3 Episodio 19Send us Fan Mail Smith closes Book IV by dismantling mercantilism through the lens of colonial policy, monopoly, and rent seeking, then weighs physiocracy against the system of…
