August 2006

Russ Roberts talks with Milton Friedman about his research and views on inflation, the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, and what the future holds.

Russ Roberts talks with Hoover Institution and NYU political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita about his theory of political power--how dictators and democratically elected leaders respond to the political forces that keep them in office. This lengthy and intense conversation covers a wide range of topics including the evil political genius of Lenin, the dark side of US foreign aid, the sinister machinations of King Leopold of Belgium, the natural resource curse, the British monarchy in the 11th century, term limits and the inevitable failure of the standard methods of fighting world poverty.

Russ Roberts talks with Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine about the ideas in his new book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. Topics include the weird world of internet distribution and production, how the Sears catalog of the 1890s was the predecessor to Amazon books in the 1990s, the economics of choice and the role of filters, and the challenges of wrapping our minds around emergent phenomena.