EconTalk
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David Autor on the Future of Work and Polanyi's Paradox
David Autor talks with host Russ Roberts about the future ...
David Autor talks with host Russ Roberts about the future of work and the role that automation and smart machines might play in the workforce. He stresses the importance of Polanyi's insight that many of the things we know and understand cannot be easily written down or communicated. Those kinds of tacit knowledge will be difficult for smart machines to access and use. In addition, Autor argues that fundamentally, the gains from machine productivity will accrue to humans. The conversation closes with a discussion of the distributional implications of a world with a vastly larger role for smart machines.
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Martha Nussbaum on Creating Capabilities and GDP
Martha Nussbaum talks with host Russ Roberts about an alternative ...
Martha Nussbaum talks with host Russ Roberts about an alternative to GDP for measuring economic performance at the national level. She is a proponent of the capabilities approach that emphasizes how easily individuals can acquire skills and use them, as well as the capability to live long and enjoy life. Nussbaum argues that government policy should focus on creating capabilities rather than allowing them to emerge through individual choices and civil society.
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Thomas Piketty on Inequality and Capital in the 21st Century
Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and author ...
Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century talks to host Russ Roberts about the book. The conversation covers some of the key empirical findings of the book along with a discussion of their significance.
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Elizabeth Green on Education and Building a Better Teacher
Author Elizabeth Green talks with host Russ Roberts about her ...
Author Elizabeth Green talks with host Russ Roberts about her new book, Building a Better Teacher. They discuss the art of teaching and the history of various reforms--mostly failed--trying to improve teaching in America. Specific topics include the theoretical focus of undergraduate education programs and various techniques being used in charter schools and elsewhere to improve teaching performance.
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Paul Pfleiderer on the Misuse of Economic Models
Paul Pfleiderer talks with host Russ Roberts about his recent ...
Paul Pfleiderer talks with host Russ Roberts about his recent paper critiquing what he calls "Chameleon Models," economic models that are thought to explain the real world with little analysis of the accuracy of their assumptions. Also discussed are Akerlof's market for lemons model, Friedman's idea that assumptions do not have to be reasonable as long as the model predicts what happens in the real world, and the dangers of leaping from a model's results to making policy recommendations.
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Nathan Blecharczyk on Airbnb and the Sharing Economy
Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and chief technology officer of Airbnb, talks ...
Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and chief technology officer of Airbnb, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about Airbnb, one of the earliest companies to use technology to allow individuals to share underused resources, and in the case of Airbnb, housing. Blecharczyk and Roberts discuss how a design conference and the Democratic National Convention got Airbnb started, how the company aligns incentives to overcome the trust problem of house-sharing, and the rise of technology and online social networks to make a new business model possible. Along the way, Blecharczyk gives his take on the role of luck vs. skill in entrepreneurial success and how Airbnb plans to expand its product offerings in the future.
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Daphne Koller on Education, Coursera, and MOOCs
Daphne Koller talks with host Russ Roberts about online educational ...
Daphne Koller talks with host Russ Roberts about online educational website Coursera and the future of education both online and via bricks-and-mortar. Koller explains how Coursera partners with universities, how they try to create community and interaction, and the likely impact of widespread digital education on universities and those who want to learn. The conversation includes a discussion of why Koller left a chaired position in computer science at Stanford U. to run a for-profit start-up in a crowded field.
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Terry Anderson on the Environment and Property Rights
Terry Anderson talks to host Russ Roberts about free-market environmentalism, ...
Terry Anderson talks to host Russ Roberts about free-market environmentalism, the dynamics of the Yellowstone ecosystem, and how property rights can protect natural resources.
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Barry Weingast on Law
Barry Weingast talks with host Russ Roberts about the nature ...
Barry Weingast talks with host Russ Roberts about the nature of law. Weingast takes issue with some of the standard views of law, and proposes a better way to understand law. The two discuss the fundamental principles of law, how it can emerge in a decentralized way to resolve disputes over property and other commercial and social interactions. Examples include Iceland, Ancient Greece, and California during the gold rush. Also considered are how laws coordinate expectations and the way that social pressure can be used to enforce law in a decentralized fashion.
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Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha on LinkedIn and The Alliance
Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha talk to host Russ Roberts ...
Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha talk to host Russ Roberts about LinkedIn and their book The Alliance. Hoffman and Casnocha discuss the founding and vision of LinkedIn along with their ideas in The Alliance on how to improve employee/employer relations when turnover is high and loyalty on each side is low.
