EconTalk

Addiction, Faith, and the Limits of Willpower (with Meghan O'Gieblyn)

Public Choice and Politics Without Romance (with Mike Munger)

Public choice theory provides a framework for understanding politics by stripping away romanticized notions of government as a benevolent, unitary actor. Instead, political outcomes emerge from the complex interactions of self-interested individuals operating within specific institutional constraints. This perspective ...

The Death of Reading (with James Marriott)

Incentives Are for Losers (with Adam Mastroianni)

Incentive-based analysis often fails to explain human behavior because it ignores the necessity of individual moral agency. While external rewards shape choices, relying solely on them leads to "loser behavior," where individuals outsource their values to systems rather than cultivating a personal sense of right and wr...

Meritocracy, Exams, and the Knowledge That Matters (with Daisy Christodoulou)

The intersection of meritocracy, civil service governance, and the efficacy of standardized testing reveals how institutional gatekeeping shapes societal stability. In 19th-century China, rigid civil service exams based on ancient classics created a surplus of disenfranchised, highly educated men, fueling the devastati...

Hamas and the Future of Gaza (with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib)

Gaza’s political and social future hinges on the emergence of Palestinian agency and the rejection of Hamas’s destructive governance. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gazan-American analyst, contends that the majority of Gazans have turned against Hamas due to its corruption, reliance on jihadi nihilism, and the catastrophic co...

Are We Alone? Cosmic Loneliness and the Longing to Believe (with Adam Kirsch)

The recent mainstreaming of UFO and UAP discourse reflects a broader societal shift toward skepticism of institutional experts and a growing desire for meaning in a secular age. While government reports and military testimonials have elevated the topic, no empirical evidence—such as physical artifacts or clear imagery—...

The Hidden Cause of the Industrial Revolution (with Ben Southwood)

The Glorious Revolution of the late 17th century provided the institutional foundation for the Industrial Revolution by fundamentally reshaping property rights in England. By empowering Parliament, the revolution enabled a systematic, case-by-case untangling of complex land ownership, allowing for the consolidation of ...

Ben Sasse on Faith, Family, and Facing Death

Human mortality and the health of American democratic institutions converge in this conversation between host Russ Roberts and former U.S. senator and university president Ben Sasse. Sasse, currently navigating a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis, reflects on how facing death clarifies priorities, shifting focus fro...

The Political Economy of Palestine (with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour)

The word "Palestine" functions as a self-reproducing system of political-economic extraction, transforming localized victimhood into symbolic capital across global ideological markets. This phenomenon, which originated in Middle Eastern power politics, now permeates Western institutions, where diverse actors—from autoc...

Savage Landscapes (with Cal Flyn)

Wilderness exists as a paradox in a world dominated by human presence, functioning more as a cultural and spiritual construct than an untouched, pristine reality. Author Cal Flynn examines how historical and modern human interactions—ranging from theological quests at Mount Sinai to the reintroduction of apex predators...

Dwayne Betts on the Iliad

From Sawdust to Paw Patrol: The Spin Master Story (with Ronnen Harary)

EconTalk Book Club on the Iliad (with Ido Hevroni)

Do Less, Heal More: The Case for Medical Conservatism (with John Mandrola)

Can a Phone Be a Cow? (with Philip Auerswald)

The Case for Sunshine (with Rowan Jacobsen)

The Self, the Crowd, and Social Contagion (with Luke Burgis)

Making Your 80,000 Hours Count (with Benjamin Todd)

Facing Death (with Sebastian Junger)