By Amy Willis

Why are so many people interested in ancient Rome and Greece? We often think of these societies as the foundation of  our own. Historian Bret Devereaux, the guest in this episode, agrees. EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes Devereaux to explore his fascination with the ancients, whose history can still serve as a blue...

Author and Microsoft executive Glen Weyl talks about radical reforms of capitalism with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Weyl is worried about the concentration of corporate power, especially in the tech sector. But rather than use the traditional tools of antitrust, he has a more radical strategy for reorganizing corporate...

Author and journalist Johann Hari talks about his book, Lost Connections: Why You Are Depressed and How to Find Hope, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Hari, who has suffered with depression as a teenager and an adult, offers a sweeping critique of the medical establishment's understanding of depression and the fre...

Historian Bret Devereaux of the University of North Carolina talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about our understanding of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Devereaux highlights the gap between the reality of Greece and Rome and how they're portrayed in popular culture. The conversation focuses on the diversity of anc...

Law professors Michael Heller and James Salzman talk about their book, Mine! with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Heller and Salzman argue that ownership is trickier and more complicated than it looks. While we tend to think of something as either mine or not mine, there's often ambiguity and a continuum about who owns wha...

By Amy Willis

On the surface, Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson have a lot in common. They each did pathbreaking work in economics; both won Nobel prizes. Each had a column in Newsweek on alternating weeks for eighteen years. And they were, by their own admission, each other's greatest rivals- Samuelson, the "High Priest of Keynesi...

Journalist and author Nicholas Wapshott talks about his book Samuelson Friedman with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson were two of the most influential economists of the last century. They competed for professional acclaim and had very different policy visions. The conversation includes the...

By Amy Willis

Do you consider yourself to be "free market"? If so, what does that mean? Can you be a fan of the free market, but not necessarily its results? Maybe sometimes you feel like arguing for free markets is like choosing the prettiest pig. Perhaps you've always been uneasy with the idea of free markets. Do you know why? In...

Author and economist Michael Munger of Duke University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the virtues--and the flaws--of free markets. Munger says the best argument for a free market approach is not that it's perfect but that it's better than anything else we've been able to come up with over the centuries. Be...

By Amy Willis

How do we know what we know, or what we think we know? If you ask the guest in this episode, he'll tell you most of what you think you know is wrong. And not just a little, but way wrong. Host Russ Roberts welcomed Jonathan Rauch to talk about his latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge. This constitution, says Ra...

Journalist and author Jonathan Rauch talks about his book The Constitution of Knowledge with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Rauch argues that the constitution of knowledge--the norms and institutions for testing the reliability of new ideas and accumulating knowledge--has been dramatically altered by the internet and soci...

Economist and Nobel Laureate James Heckman of the University of Chicago talks about inequality and economic mobility with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Drawing on research on inequality in Denmark with Rasmus Landersø, Heckman argues that despite the efforts of the Danish welfare state to provide equal access to educati...

Journalist and author Michael Easter talks about his book The Comfort Crisis with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Easter thinks modern life is too easy, too comfortable. To be healthy, he says, we need to move out of our comfort zones and every once in a while try to do something, especially something physically demandin...

By Amy Willis

It's been almost two years since COVID became a part of our lives- personally and politically. In this episode, EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes back Don Boudreaux to talk about the pandemic and our policy response to it. Boudreaux argues that governments overreacted badly to the threat of COVID, using the crisis a ...

Economist Don Boudreaux of George Mason University talks about the pandemic with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Boudreaux argues that a perfect storm of factors created a huge overreaction, including unnecessary lockdowns that accomplished little at a very high cost in physical and emotional health. Instead, Boudreaux a...

Claudia Hauer of St. John's College and the Air Force Academy talks about her book Strategic Humanism with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Topics discussed include war, rage, terrorism, and what a modern warrior might learn from Homer.