Animal Spirits: A Q&A With George Akerlof
…of confidence, usually associated with a financial collapse. They both feed into each other: the financial collapse feeds into the loss of confidence, and the loss of confidence feeds into…
John Ray is an emergency C.E.O., a bankruptcy expert who takes over companies that have succumbed to failure or fraud. He’s currently cleaning up the mess left by alleged crypto…
For most of us, the athletes are what make sports interesting. But if you own the team or run the league, your players are essentially very expensive migrant workers who…
You said, “I’m sorry,” but somehow you haven’t been forgiven. Why? Because you’re doing it wrong! A report from the front lines of apology science.
Physicist Helen Czerski loves to explain how the world works. She talks with Steve about studying bubbles, setting off explosives, and how ocean waves have changed the course of history….
…of confidence, usually associated with a financial collapse. They both feed into each other: the financial collapse feeds into the loss of confidence, and the loss of confidence feeds into…
…major internet poker sites for American players. Forgetting about my own moral standards, which are probably of interest and relevance only to myself, there are four other reasons why the…
…people make so many of them. (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or read the transcript here.) But recent news out of Italy seems to take the…
Is evolution stacked against healthy eating? What policies could increase demand for nutritious food? And does Popeyes count as a cultural icon?…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
Economist Michael D. Smith says universities are scrambling to protect a status quo that deserves to die. He tells Steve why the current system is unsustainable, and what’s at stake…
…feature in professional sports. In fact – as The Wages of Wins indicated– relative to non-sports industries, labor disputes are about 25 times more likely in professional sports. So the…
…North America. The weather has given equal opportunity; 15 different teams have had games called off in their ballparks. PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Chicago’s Wrigley Field are the “leaders”…
Each year, millions of people get sick or die from diseases caused by their own unhealthy behavior. Getting people to change their bad habits – to quit smoking, eat better,…
For our latest podcast, “The Economist’s Guide to Parenting,” (you can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen live via the media player, or read a transcript here) we…
How much does the President of the United States really matter? And: where did all the hitchhikers go? A pair of “attribution errors.” This is a “mashupdate” of “How Much…
That’s the worry. Even the humble eyeglass industry is dominated by a single firm. We look into the global spike in myopia, how the Lemtosh got its name, and what…
…(You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or read the transcript here.) But predictions about world politics and the economy are hard — there are so many moving…
No, it’s not your fault the economy crashed. Or that consumer preferences changed. Or that new technologies have blown apart your business model. But if you’re the C.E.O., it is…
…he must first master the small stuff. He’s also a polymath who relies heavily on data and new technologies. Could this be what modern politics is supposed to look like?…
Innovation experts have long overlooked where a lot of innovation actually happens. The personal computer, the mountain bike, the artificial pancreas — none of these came from some big R&D…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
Americans are so accustomed to the standard intersection that we rarely consider how dangerous it can be — as well as costly, time-wasting, and polluting. Is it time to embrace…
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.”…
…the early clinical results, which seemed to indicate that the minimally invasive surgery the robot enabled made for better patient outcomes with fewer complications. Fast forward to 2009, and there…
He’s a pioneer of using randomized control experiments in economics — studying the long-term benefits of a $1 health intervention in Africa. Steve asks Edward, a Berkeley professor, about Africa’s…
…the future look like for clean tech? We asked George Tolley, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago and president of RCF Inc.; John Whitehead, professor in the…
Only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. Why? Research shows that female executives are more likely to be put in charge of firms that are already…
…roots of the obesity epidemic. He also argues for a style of capitalism and politics that at this moment seems like a fantasy. What does he know that we don’t?…
