The New Bazaar

Erich Schwartzel joins Cardiff to discuss his new book, "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy". 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jacob Goldstein, author of "Money: The True Story of a Made-up Thing" and host of the new podcast "What's Your Problem?", joins Cardiff to discuss the surprising origins of money, and why now is a great time to start a podcast about solving problems. Related links: Money: The True Story of a Made-Up ThingWhat's Your Problem? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s episode is about something you might have noticed just by looking around you. Especially if you’re old enough.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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At first it was just Bitcoin. Now when someone refers to crypto, they might be talking about ethereum, NFTs, ICOs, smart contracts, DAOs, and a whole bunch of other technologies too numerous to mention. 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 cryptoWhether crypto goes too far towards decentralizationThe inflexibility of smart contracts and algorithms The correlation between cryptocurrencies and risky asset classesHow crypto can evolve in societally beneficial ways And more! Related links: Stacy's page at BloombergBloomberg's Crypto page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Kemp is senior market analyst at Reuters, where he specializes in oil and energy systems. Having covered these systems for the past quarter-century, John now publishes a newsletter, which happens to be Cardiff's favorite way to keep up with trends in global energy markets.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap are the authors of the book The Caesars Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Power and Greed of Wall Street. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Logan Mohtashami is the lead analyst at Housingwire, where he writes about the housing market and the US economy. And before that, he spent a few decades as a senior lending officer at a real estate company. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tara Watson is an economist and the co-author, with Kalee Thompson, of a new book, “The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age of Fear”. 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 FearTara Watson's home page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shira Ovide writes the excellent On Tech newsletter at the New York Times. On this episode of The New Bazaar, Shira tells Cardiff about the technology she wants to see in 2022, and whether the potential for technology to better connect the world was oversold. And they chat about the metaverse -- as Shira says, "What if we just called the ‘metaverse’ ...the internet?" -- and the lingering questions about its future. 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" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More than two decades ago, economist Tyler Cowen published "In Praise of Commercial Culture" -- his first in a series of books about the relationship between the economy and culture. 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) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we're sharing a special episode of a podcast we think you might like. It's called Cautionary Tales, and it's made by Tim Harford and the team at Pushkin Industries. You may remember Tim from our recent episode on economic storytelling. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Ho’s latest book is called Why Trust Matters: An Economist’s Guide to the Ties that Bind. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To wrap up 2021, The New Bazaar answers questions sent in by listeners. The episode also features, for the first time in front of the mic, executive producer Aimee Keane! 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) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Having guided Cardiff through the craft of economic storytelling in the prior episode, Tim Harford returns to explain the lessons of three economic stories from his own podcast, Cautionary Tales.Links: -- "The Truth about Hansel and Gretel"-- "Buried by the Wall Street Crash"-- "Florence Nightingale and her Geeks Declare War on Death" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim Harford is the author of numerous terrific economics books and the host of two great podcasts: “Cautionary Tales”, about what we should learn from big mistakes; and “More or Less”, about statistics. He also writes columns and essays for the Financial Times. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vicki Bogan is an economist who specializes in financial economics, household finance, and behavioral finance – in other words, a specialist in how people make investment decisions. Whether to invest in the stock market or the bond market; how much; and other kinds of investing too, like whether to pursue a graduate degree.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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The labor market is in a weird place -- millions of fewer workers are employed than before the pandemic, yet millions of more jobs are available and wages are climbing fast.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 @juliaonjobsZiprecruiter articles by Julia PollakCardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you look at some of the big and mostly troubling economic trends in the overall US economy from the last three or four decades, the business of the sport of Mixed Martial Arts captures a stunning number of them: rising income and wealth inequality; increased firm concentration in some economic sectors, sometimes because they bought out their competition; the declining share of the money that companies make that goes to workers; the decline of unions; the gig economy; the lack of bargaining power that workers have when they negotiate wages with their companies. 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 @heynotthefaceBloody Elbow (https://tinyurl.com/3chc4ucy)John on Crooklyn’s Corner (https://tinyurl.com/yckwmz83)Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Economists don’t just try to understand the economy. They also influence it. Because as they share their analysis and understanding of it, people and institutions and companies and politicians start to act differently -- precisely in response to that understanding of how the economy works. Which means that the economy itself then changes, and economists have to catch up and try to understand it again. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At least rhetorically, the politically conservative approach to economics was once associated with lower taxes, deregulation of the economy, cutting government spending, free trade and cutting the budget deficit (In reality, what conservatives have actually done when they have been in power has been different, but that was the governing philosophy). But all that seems to have changed in the last roughly half decade. There’s been a lingering and visible tension between the old-school free-market-y conservatism, and a different “populist” approach that’s largely, though not exclusively, associated with Donald Trump. And that tension has made it hard to answer the question: “What is conservative economics now?” If, or when, Republicans are in power again, what policies will they pursue? What will conservative pundits and policymakers and economists advise them to do? 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 @karlbykarlsmithKarl Smith’s articles at Bloomberg (https://tinyurl.com/cxd9vpym)Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this special collaborative episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff has teamed up with his friend and former colleague Matt Klein, who writes The Overshoot newsletter. Matt and Cardiff spend the episode carefully -- and without jargon -- walking listeners through the data on the US economy. Is the economy back to its pre-pandemic strength? What about jobs? How much are people getting paid? What’s the deal with inflation? Is there anything surprising about the economy that more people should be aware of? They answer all these questions and more. 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_KleinThe 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anne Case and Angus Deaton are the authors of the book Deaths of Despair -- which is also a phrase that refers to the combination of deaths resulting from three causes: suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicholas Wapshott speaks with Cardiff about his new book, Samuelson Friedman, about the fierce economic debates between economists Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman -- debates that have evolved through the decades, yet are still relevant to this very day.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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The common argument for why countries should be open to trading with each other has always been simple: free trade is good for economic growth, economic efficiency, and innovation. Businesses get access to more customers around the world, and consumers can buy a wider variety of goods and services made abroad. And for a long time, that logic was widely accepted. Countries lowered barriers to trading with each other, and global trade boomed.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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cardiff has a theory -- somewhat half-baked, he admits -- that only when Broadway has fully recovered from the pandemic will we know that the overall US economy has also fully recovered. The necessity of proximity to strangers made Broadway as an industry a perfect target for the pandemic, and so it may well be one of the last industries to return to its former health.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 @LeemourSeymourThe Inheritance (https://tinyurl.com/wvv8wnhk)Lee’s articles at Forbes (https://tinyurl.com/478hwnbm) Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1960, only six percent of all the doctors and lawyers in the country were either women (of all races and ethnicities) or men of color. All the rest -- the overwhelming majority -- were white men. Fast forward half a century. By the year 2010, women and nonwhite men were 38 percent of doctors and lawyers. A similar integration occurred in other high-paying professions that required college and post-graduate degrees. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stacey Vanek Smith is the author of the new book, Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace. She is also Cardiff’s former co-host on The Indicator from Planet Money! The two hosts reunite for this special episode, in which Stacey tells Cardiff about the hardheaded wisdom and encouragement she finds in Machiavelli, the economic data and case studies showing the particular set of obstacles that women confront at the office, and why professional advancement requires an understanding of the world as it is, not as we wish it were. Links from the episode:Stacey is on Twitter at @svaneksmithMachiavelli for Women (https://tinyurl.com/5cun5du7)The Indicator from Planet Money (https://tinyurl.com/4a8pa2cj)Cardiff and Aimee are on Twitter at @CardiffGarcia and @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gentrification is a trend that can be confusing, contentious, and widely misunderstood. Perhaps most surprisingly, gentrification can offer “the promise of integration and sorely needed investment that can increase residents’ quality of life — but only if disadvantaged residents are set up to take part in the benefits of increased investment." Thus argues Jerusalem Demsas, policy reporter at Vox. In a wide-ranging conversation, she takes Cardiff through the research and academic literature on gentrification, explaining the nuances and complexities that are so often missing in debates about this controversial trend. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For almost all of human history and pre-history -- going back tens of thousands of years -- the average human life expectancy was about 35 years or less. Steven Johnson, author of the new book Extra Life, describes this fact as The Long Ceiling. But something changed a few hundred years ago. A series of public health innovations started arriving in batches, each innovation building on the success of another, that finally began extending our average life expectancy to where it is now, at more than 70 years. Steven explains to Cardiff why these innovations began so late in the human experience, the institutions and public remedies needed for their benefits to spread, and what lessons they hold for the Covid era.Links from the episode:Steven Johnson is on Twitter at @stevenbjohnsonSteven’s websiteExtra 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In The Delusions of Crowds, finance theorist William Bernstein writes about some of the famous financial bubbles and religious manias of the past. He joins Cardiff to discuss the connection between these two kinds of events, why humans are so susceptible to mass manias, the good that sometimes comes from a financial bubble, and how we can all spot the visible signs of manias when they arise. 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ulrike Malmendier is the premier economic scholar for understanding how our experiences affect our decisions, even in ways we might not recognize. Ulrike joins Cardiff to discuss the nuances and applications of her research, including why daily habits like grocery shopping affect our expectations for the economy; how the crises we live through determine the extent of our lifetime participation in financial markets; and how policymakers at the Federal Reserve are just as susceptible to the effects of their experiences as the rest of us are to our own. Plus, Ulrike offers an optimistic view on how our future decision-making might be transformed by the pandemic. Links from the episode:Ulrike Malmendier is on Twitter at @umalmendUlrike’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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A few years ago, Maria Konnikova took a leave from her job as a psychology journalist at The New Yorker to try something new: become a professional poker player. Hoping merely for a good story to write about, she stunned everyone -- including herself -- with her accelerated mastery of the game, winning big tournaments and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars within just the first couple of years. Maria joins Cardiff to discuss what she learned in the process about her own psychological makeup, her capacity for change, and how we can all take lessons from poker to make better decisions. It’s the subject of her latest book, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, And Win, which is now available in paperback.Links from the episode:Maria Konnikova is on Twitter at @mkonnikovaMaria’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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Hugo Lopez is the director of race and ethnicity research at Pew Research Center. He and his colleagues recently conducted a sweeping survey about how Americans identify their racial, ethnic and foreign country origins.The results show that how we see ourselves isn’t fixed. It fluctuates and evolves -- revealing that identity can be as much a function of how we measure it as how we regard ourselves in a given moment. Cardiff and Mark also discuss immigration trends, how American views on diversity have changed over time, and even a little bit of politics.Links from the episode:Mark Hugo Lopez is on Twitter at @MHugoLopezPew 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Economist Peter Blair Henry has dedicated his career to understanding how a developing country can become more prosperous, lift more people out of poverty, and give its citizens better choices for how to work and live. He joins Cardiff to share his findings on this question from “The Baker Hypothesis”, a newly published paper he co-authored with Anusha Chari and Hector Reyes. Peter also gives his thoughts on the “degrowth” movement, the tricky balance between market-friendly policies and the role of government, and the evolution of economics. Finally, he shares his own personal experience of an economic catastrophe in his native Jamaica, which forced his family to uproot when he was young and sent him down this career path.Links from the episode:Peter Blair Henry is on Twitter at @PeterBlairHenryThe 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 @AimeePKeaneSend us an email! You can write to use at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new podcast about how the economy shapes our lives. The first episode will be available on Thursday, August 12. See you then! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.