Economic Rockstar

Connecting Brilliant Minds in Economics and Finance

113: Jonathan McEvoy on Globalisation, National Autonomy, Capitalism and the Economic Resonance in Timeless Songs

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113: Jonathan McEvoy on Globalisation, National Autonomy, Capitalism and the Economic Resonance in Timeless Songs

Jonathan McEvoy is currently an undergrad student of economics at Waterford Institute of Technology in jonathan-mcevoy-economic-rockstarIreland.

He was recently recognised for being in the top 5% of the Business School at W.I.T, earning the honour of being on the Deans List for Academic Achievement.

Jonathan has a unique understanding of the world around us and, together with his love of economics, has a unique perspective on the economics discipline.

Jonathan’s desire to discover and explore the multitude of economic thinking, from Keynesianism to Marxism, has resulted in him creating a blog called Economics – Thoughts of a Student which can be found at jonathanmcevoy888.blogspot.com.

His recent career history has prepared him well to be great public speaker and communicator.

Jonathan is also an athlete and a top soccer player, having spent time with English Premier League clubs Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.

Jonathan’s interests also include Health, Human Rights, Politics, Civil Rights, Poverty Alleviation and Science and Technology.

Economics:

In this episode, Jonathan discusses and mentions: production possibility frontier, comparative advantage, production, services, efficiency, technology, foreign direct investment, tariffs, income, vertical farming, externalities, capitalism, profit, inequality, welfare, labour costs, GDP, economics of war and economics of romance.

Economists:

In this episode, Jonathan discusses and mentions: Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and David Ricardo.

In this episode you will learn:

  • about the balance required between globalisation and national autonomy.
  • about Ireland’s role in CERN.

  • whether future-tech will improve humanity’s standard of living?

  • how economics and technology are inextricably interlinked.
  • why economists and technologists should increase collaboration for the betterment of society.
  • how the world’s production possibility frontier can move outward to reach once unimagined and unattainable outcomes.
  • whether ‘planetisation’ can be a reality.
  • the use of songs to capture the economic and social setting of an era.
  • and much much more.

People Mentioned in this Episode:

Links:

Where to Find Jonathan McEvoy:

Books:

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086: Philip Pilkington on Determinism and the Reformation in Economics

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086: Philip Pilkington on Determinism and the Reformation in Economics

Phillip Pilkington works in investment and has contributed to numerous online and print media philip pilkingtonoutlets as a freelance economic journalist.

Phillip ran a popular economics blog called www.fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com and will be releasing his book The Reformation in Economics soon.

Phillip earned his B.A. in Journalism from the Independent Colleges, as well as his M.A. in Economics from Kingston University.

All views expressed by Phillip are his own and are not representative of the firm in which he works.

Economics:

In this episode, Philip mentions: utility maximizing, behavioral bias, interest rates, time preference, savings, money, comparative advantage, decision making, consumption function, marginal propensity to consume and the multiplier.

Economists:

In this episode, Philip mentions: Steve Keen, Paul Samuelson, Adam Smith, James Steuart, David Ricardo and G. L. S. Shackle.

Links:

Books:

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068: Daron Acemoglu on Why Nations Fail and Why Inequality Exists Between Countries

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068: Daron Acemoglu on Why Nations Fail and Why Inequality Exists Between Countries

Daron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of daron acemoglu economic rockstarTechnology in Boston.

Daron’s principal interests are political economy, development economics, economic growth, technology, income and wage inequality, human capital and training, and labour economics.

Daron was the winner of the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal awarded to economists under forty judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.

His most recent works concentrate on the role of institutions in economic development and political economy.

Daron received his M.Sc. in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics and his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

Daron is co-author of ‘Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty’ which can be found at whynationsfail.com

Markets are the foundation of long run economic growth but only if they are under guard by inclusive institutions – Daron Acemoglu

Economics: 

In this interview, Daron mentions: capitalism, marxism, inequality, inclusive institutions, extractive institutions, property, public finance,  rights, risks, cliometrics, econometrics, labor, technology, human capital, inequality, creative destruction and comparative advantage.

Economists: 

In this interview, Daron mentions: James Robinson, George Akerlof, Thomas Picketty, Douglass North and Joseph Schumpeter.

In this episode you will learn:

  • why nations fail and others prosper.
  • why Daron despises the term capitalism refereeing it as ‘and ugly term’.
  • why macro variables are second order to the type of institution when explaining the prosperity of a country.
  • why we should study political systems in an economics course.
  • how economic decisions get made.
  • if democracy is good for economic growth.
  • how Daron first became interested in institutions while growing up under a political dictatorship in Turkey.
  • if the political economy or the type of institution of a country explain inequality.
  • what explains inequality within a nation.
  • about Daron’s mixed views on philanthropy.
  • why empires, such as the Roman, Ottoman and British, collapse and whether we could witness the collapse of other institutions.
  • why China will ultimately fail in its present institutional form.
  • what China must do to maintain its economic growth.
  • about the Ireland and how its economy transitioned over the last 100 years.

I think, on the contrary, extractive institutions have great staying power – Daron Acemoglu

Books:

  • ‘Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty’ by Daron Acemoglu.
  • Why the West Rules–for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris.
  • War! What is It Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots by Ian Morris
  • The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium by Ian Morris
  • The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter by Joseph Henrich

Where to Find Daron:

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060: Manu Saadia on Trekonomics – The Economics of Star Trek: Scarcity, Productivity and Public Goods

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060: Manu Saadia on Trekonomics – The Economics of Star Trek: Scarcity, Productivity and Public Goods

Manu Saadia fell into science fiction and Star Trek fandom at the age of eight, back in Paris, France, where he was born and raised.Manu Saadia

Manu  studied history of science and economic history in Paris and Chicago. After many happy years in the Ivory Tower, he yielded to his childhood passion for the future.

Manu embarked on his continuing mission to explore strange new worlds by boldly going where many have gone before: Los Angeles, CA, where he advise and (occasionally) builds tech companies.

Manu received the 2005 Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Chicago.

His book, Trekonomics, is currently available for pre-order at www.inkshares.com and will be released in 2016.

Star Trek offers much more detail about its own world and the way its economics actually works – like the plumbing so to speak. So that’s what I wanted to do. Go into the plumbing of Star Trek. – Manu Saadia

Economics:

In this interview, Manu mentions:  trekonomics, crowd funding, labor, economic history, trade, robots, capitalism, comparative advantage, currency, money, Gold-Pressed Latinum, public goods, conspicuous consumption, scarcity, peak oil, productivity and opportunity costs.

Economists:

In this interview, Manu mentions: Brad DeLong, Felix Salmon, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Hubbert, Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, Romer, Larry Summers, John Maynard Keynes and Angus Deaton,

In this episode you will learn:

  • why Manu Saadia wrote Trekonomics.
  • about the Star Trek Economics panel at Comic Con.
  • why economists love Star Trek.
  • about inkshares and how it can help authors publish their book.
  • how traditional media rather than social media boosted pre-order sales of Trekonomics – an ironic outcome.
  • when Manu’s interested in economics and Star Trek collided.
  • about the work of Isaac Asimov and how his stories are a discourse on economics.
  • how the stories of robots and the future by Asimov influenced and shaped the storyline in Star Trek.
  • about the replicators in Star Trek and how they solve the problem of economic scarcity.
  • about the Ferengi’s and how they represent capitalism and trade.
  • why The Federation or the humans in Star Trek do not use money but have a foreign account to trade with the Ferengi’s.
  • about the Ferengi’s currency, Gold-Pressed Latinum, which cannot be replicable.
  • why owning a replicator is a ‘pain in the ass’.
  • how things that cannot be replicated has value but those that can be replicated has no value.
  • if Keynes’ The Economic Possibilities of Our Grand Children is a rebuttal of the writings of H. G. Wells.
  • about GPS being a public good and the benefits it has brought to the public.
  • why making GPS a public good in 1983 was one of the best decisions Ronald Reagan made as US President.
  • Manu’s favourite Star Trek episode is Lower Decks (The Next Generation).

Quotes by Manu Saadia in Episode 60 of the Economic Rockstar Podcast:

Trekonomics got a lot of support and very nice feedback from a lot of economists – Manu Saadia

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“It always baffles me when you have these very famous and serious economic thinkers were in fact  total Star Trek nerds. I was on a panel at New York Comic Con with Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman and Annalen Newitz from i09. There was Chris Black as well and Felix Salmon.” – Manu Saadia

Brad DeLong came to the panel with a Star Trek hoodie. – Manu Saadia

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On Isaac Asimov: “All of his work is a long meditation on economics, either foundation where there is this science called psychohistory which is in fact a fictional mathematical modelling of human behaviours on the scale of societies on a galactic scale.” – Manu Saadia

“One of the reasons why I wanted to study economics was that I was fascinated by and really wanted to understand the transformation of humanity’s relation to its own labor. This is one of the great questions of political economy because it determines a lot of things when it comes to the shape society and the role of the state and how behaviors are determined and constructed over time. But it’s also the key to understanding where we’re going”. – Manu Saadia

“I would say the replicators are more of a metaphor. If you look at their status in the series, they do not help move the narratives forward. They’re just there to signify that there’s no need to work. They’re a little bit like robots in Asimov. They have the same narrative function, which is to show and demonstrate that post-scarcity does exist and is based on automation and artificial intelligence.” – Manu Saadia

The Ferengi’s are the capitalist, merchant traders of the galaxy – Manu Saadia

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Most of the stuff in Star Trek is basically a public good – Manu Saadia

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I think Star Trek is very much what Keynes described in The Economic Possibilities of Our Grand Children – Manu Saadia

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Books:

  • Scatter, Adapt, and Remember by Annalen Newitz 
  • Isaac Asimov
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
  • The Economic Possibilities of Our Grand Children by John Maynard Keynes

Papers:

  • Romer (1990) Productivity Gains

Links:

Manu’s Favorite Star Trek Epsiodes:

  • City on the Edge of Forever
  • Arena

Where to Find Manu:

Music:

  • Star Trek Episode Amok Time

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053: Helena Norberg-Hodge on Localisation, Trade Treaties and the Economics of Happiness

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053: Helena Norberg-Hodge on Localisation, Trade Treaties and the Economics of Happiness

Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of Local Futures. A pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than 30 years.Helena Norberg Hodge

Helena is the producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness, and is the author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, described as “an inspirational classic”.

Helena has given public lectures in seven languages, and has appeared in broadcast, print, and online media worldwide.

She was honored with the Right Livelihood Award (or ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’) for her groundbreaking work in Ladakh, and received the 2012 Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide”.

Economics:

In this interview, Helena mentions: localisation, globalisation, deregulation, finance, banking, money, real economy, price, demand, subsidies, tax, business alliances, lobbying, competition, trade treaties, unemployment, poverty, natural environment, growth, climate, energy consumption, comparative advantage and GDP.

Economists:

In this interview, Helena mentions: Alex Tabarrok, Adam Smith, David Riccardo,

In this episode you will learn:

  • how and why Helena decided to advocate for and promote localisation.
  • about Ladakh and how it was removed from the rest of the world.
  • how the global market was very destructive to the local market in Ladakh.
  • how globalisation destroyed the livelihood of farms and local businesses and created unemployment.
  • how the happiness and high self-esteem among the people of Ladakh was destroyed after a decade of economic development.
  • why extreme tensions between buddhists and muslims erupted after living in peace for over 500 years in Ladakh.
  • about Ladakh, where the Dalai Lama is the spiritual head.
  • how Ladakh has become a case study on how a local economy has been quickly affected by globalisation.
  • about the phenomenal work Helena is doing to highlight the changing lives and economy of Ladakh and other regions.
  • about the true meaning of the real economy and how cheap money and speculation is destroying it.
  • why the earth is so precious and must be protected before we see irreversible and horrific damage.
  • about the terrific work being undertaken by Local Futures to highlight the need for economic change to protect our earth.
  • why we need to make the local food market a global initiative.
  • how small towns and villages are taking initiatives to feed their community with fresh, organic foods.
  • how schools are integrating nature into their infrastructure to increase the well-being of staff and pupils.
  • how nature provides profound and important psychological healing benefits.
  • how diversifying and staying local can provide more diversified foods per unit of land and water than the large monocultures.
  • why farmers prefer to work closely with the customer than with large-scale supermarkets.
  • whether small farmers and businesses should create a group to represent the their interests and to lobby governments in much the same way as large companies like Volkswagen and Monsanto.
  • how to make small and local businesses more visible.
  • about Helena’s mantra for resistance and renewal – resisting trade treaties and renewing localisation.
  • about the law that was passed in Sweden to have trade treaties to be discussed in secret.
  • how, under the new trade agreements, multinational corporations can sue governments if they inhibit their profit-making ability of that governments country.
  • whether GDP is a good measure of progress and how Helena interprets its true meaning.

Quotes by Helena on the Economic Rockstar Podcast:

“The EU is essentially an economic union and it’s bringing with it a centralised bureaucracy” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

About Earth Being Our Only Economy:

“The earth is our only economy. There’s nothing we use that doesn’t come from the earth. Nothing, nothing. Every iPad, every shoe, every television. And that economy, the real economy, is diversity. It requires and can only continue to live by respecting the uniqueness of every leaf, of every human being. Everything that lives is unique and is changing from moment to moment.” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

“I describe Nature as the economy, but it’s also our Mother. It’s our spiritual home” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

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“Usually when people talk about the economy, they’re just thinking about paper money. They don’t think about culture and farming as having anything to do with the economy.” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

“The global food economy, from beginning to end, is the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions, and it’s not just because of the factory farming with animals. It’s across the board.” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

About the Stock Market and Cheap Money:

“The market is really young lads sitting in front of computers speculating with huge amounts of money. And they inevitably have to and do favour the giant. They’re betting on the giants ‘horses’ like Monsanto, McDonalds and Walmart. And so this connection between that flood of cheap money created out of thin air, now has become a sort of a ‘blind machinery’ that is eating up the real economy, the earth, extremely rapidly and we’re going to see more horrific examples.” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

Other Quotes:

There is a growing local food market that is going global – Helena Norberg-Hodge

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GDP is an outrageous measure of progress. It is simply a measure of commercialisation – Helena Norberg-Hodge

With Riccardo and the notion of comparative advantage, it sounds good on the surface. But let’s remember it was brought in in a time of slavery – Helena Norberg-Hodge

Where to Find Helena:

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046: Shanta Devarajan on The World Bank, Quiet Corruption, Government Failure and Comparative Advantage in the MENA Region

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046: Shanta Devarajan on The World Bank, Quiet Corruption, Government Failure and Comparative Advantage

Shantayanan Devarajan is the former Chief Economist of the World Banshanta devarajank’s Middle East and North Africa Region. Since joining the World Bank in 1991, he has been a Principal Economist and Research Manager for Public Economics in the Development Research Group, and the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network, South Asia, and Africa Region.

Shanta was the director of the World Development Report 2004, ‘Making Services Work for Poor People’. Before 1991, he was on the faculty of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Shanta is the author and co-author of over 100 publications, with his research covering public economics, trade policy, natural resources and the environment, and general equilibrium modeling of developing countries.

Born in Sri Lanka, Shanta received his B.A. in Mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, Berkeley.

People care so much about education. They will not eat if they can send their kid to a better school – Shanta Devarajan

In this episode, you will learn:

  • why Shanta decided to take a sabbatical from lecturing and never went back.
  • about Shanta’s passion to end world poverty.
  • how experiencing living on a $1 a day with a poor family made Shanta realize that the failure lies with government.
  • how empowering people in poverty-stricken countries with information could be the catalyst to end poverty.
  • the huge government failures and market distortions threatening the economy in India.
  • why teachers and doctors in India are absent from work 25% and 40% of the time respectively and how this is affecting progress.
  • how the powerful medical union in India are making healthcare inaccessible to the poor.
  • why poor people in India think that the reason why doctors do not show up at clinics is because ‘the rain didn’t come’.
  • why politicians in India do not have an incentive to fix the problem of doctor absenteeism.
  • what the solutions to corruption in India.
  • about unemployment being the biggest problem in the Middle East and North Africa.
  • that the reason why unemployment is so high in the MENA region is due the industrial sector being highly monopolised.
  • about how crony capitalism is preventing SMEs from growing in the MENA region.
  • why Tunisia has failed to develop into an export-oriented economy due the legacy of the Ben Ali family and their connections to firms operating in heavily protected markets.
  • that the failure for governments to continue with social contracts due to high deficits triggered the Arab Spring.
  • about Colonel Gaddafi’s regime and how he managed to keep peace between tribes.
  • how water subsidies and water-intensive crops are depleting water resources in Yemen.
  • why the addictive habit of chewing qat or khat in Yemen is causing water shortages.
  • why Yemen, who doesn’t have a comparative advantage in qat, continues to use resources to produce the commodity.
  • what is the main purpose of the World Bank and how different is it to the IMF.
  • where the World Bank gets its finance from and how much interest they charge.
  • how the money trickles down to the unbanked people in low and middle-income countries.
  • about biometric identification smart cards and how the unbanked in low-income countries can access capital.

Takeaway:

The problems of poor people are man-made and we as economists can actually help solve them. The way in which we can solve them is by carrying our work toward empowering them. The reason they’re man-made is that poor people lack political power. We can actually strengthen their clout, their political power, by providing economic analysis and making it accessible to them – Shanta Devarajan

Economics:

In this interview, Shanta mentions and discusses: poverty, development, capital markets, government failure, policy distortion, structural adjustment, debt crisis, macroeconomic environment, incentives, quiet corruption, unemployment, monopoly, social contracts, crowding out, finance capital, subsidies, water subsidies, energy subsidies, comparative advantage, imports, exports, budget expenditures, IMF, the World Bank, MENA, public goods, leakages, multiple effect, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, savings, investments, sovereign wealth funds and consumption.

Economists:

In this interview, Shanta mentions and discusses: Chris Blattman, Gerard Debreu , Joseph Stiglitz, Sherman Robinson and Paul Collier 

Influencers:

Gerard Debreu , Joseph Stiglitz, Sherman Robinson , Paul Collier 

Quotes by Shanta Devarajan in Episode 046 of the Economic Rockstar Podcast:

The marginal product of writing an additional paper was lower than my actually trying to go out there and apply what I know to reduce poverty. I became quite passionate about this quest to reduce this poverty. – Shanta Devarajan

The problems of poverty under development are problems of government failure. The problem of government failure is because the political system is one where poor people don’t have sufficient voice and sufficient ability to make sure that politicians take decisions in their interest. – Shanta Devarajan

“The World Banks’ mission is a world free of poverty” – Shanta Devarajan

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On the changing views of The World Bank:

The traditional view of development in the 1950s and 60s was a belief that it was a market failure. Their capital markets weren’t working. Poor countries didn’t have access to capital and so the World Bank had to provide capital. However, in the 1970s and 80s there was a realisation that the problem was not the result of a lack of capital. There  were policy distortions in these countries that made this capital unproductive. The challenge became trying to remove these policy distortions or try to improve these policies so that capital could be productive. – Shanta Devarajan

On Quite Corruption in India:

Quite corruption in India is a deep political problem. There is nothing illegal about this corruption. It is a failure of the system. The political system is geared so that it creates this kind of corruption. – Shanta Devarajan

On Crony Capitalism in Tunisia:

It’s a little bit of a puzzle why Tunisia, which has a very highly educated population, a very nice location right across from Europe and a pretty good infrastructure, hasn’t been able to be a manufacturing, export-driven power-house. The reason is the industrial structure is being monopolised by the cronies of the political elite. – Shanta Devarajan

On Tunisia: “We must protect this economy from elite capture” – Shanta Devarajan

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On Capital Leakages in Chad:

The leakages are higher in resource-rich countries. For instance in Chad, the money that was intended for public primary clinics, that actually arrives at the clinic is 1%. So the leakage is 99%. Chad is an oil-rich country. The reason for that is there is very little accountability – Shanta Devarajan

Reasons Why Yemen is Producing Khat (Qat) Inefficiently

Yemen produces its own qat despite not having a comparative advantage in the commodity. Factors of production, such as land, labor and capital, are used inefficiently to produce khat. So, the question remains as to why Yemen does not import qat. There are two main reasons why the continue to produce it domestically.

The first is that qat is consumed fresh. Domestic production allows qat to be distributed and sold throughout Yemen once it is picked. Freshness is required and it is expected that any imported khat could reduce its quality.

The second reason is that the president’s wife manages the qat monopoly and made a lot of money from it. Any imports would be competition. Given that khat is an addictive substance, the revenue made by this monopoly would have been so large that using resources inefficiently, particularly water, outweighed the costs.

The Difference Between the World Bank and the IMF

  • The World Bank only works on developing countries and the IMF works on all countries.
  • The IMF is concerned with short-term macroeconomic development, whereas the World Bank is concerned about long-term development.
  • Anything that is in the order of one to two years is when the IMF will become involved in order to solve a macroeconomic crisis.  Whereas, if it’s a question of building a road or a bridge or educating children, that’s when the World Bank comes in. Both  the IMF and the World Bank, because they’re across the street from each other in Washington DC, communicate quite intensively.
  • In the past, it may have been viewed that the IMF, because it is more macro-focused, was more interested in the aggregate budget rather than the composition of the budget. In the late 1990s, there were many countries that had fiscal crises. The IMF insisted that they cut their budget in order to maintain fiscal balance. However, just cutting the budget rather than cutting wasteful expenditures and protecting some valuable expenditures makes a big difference.
  • It got to the stage where the World Bank would come in and look at the composition of the budget and suggest where it’s better to cut rather than simply take the targets that the IMF had set.
  • Both institutions have evolved quite a bit since the 1990s. The IMF now looks quite closely at the composition of budget expenditures and the World Bank worries a lot about macroeconomic stability.

How The World Bank Funds its Operations

  • The finance that the World Bank accumulates is obtained by World Bank bonds.
  • The World Bank uses the ‘paid-in capital’ which the original members of the World Bank pledged back in 1947. This has now grown to about $300 billion.
  • This capital is used as collateral to float bonds and because of this capital, the World Bank can get bonds at three-quarters of a percent below the market rate.
  • This capital is then lent to middle-income countries at about half to a quarter of a precent below the market rate. The difference between these rates is what pays the salaries of those working for the World Bank.
  • For low-income countries, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a separate window called the International Development Association (IDA) where concessional loans are offered. These loans are pledged every three years by donor countries. The World Bank collects this IDA money, which is about $50 billion, and lends it to these low-income countries at virtually zero percent interest with a 35 year grace period.

Recommended Resource:

The World Bank Database

Recommended Book:

Where to Find Shanta Devarajan:

Meeting Up With Shanta in Waterford City, Ireland (August, 2015):

Since our conversation in episode 046 of the Economic Rockstar podcast, myself and Shanta met up for a brief period in Waterford City, Ireland. Shanta was on a visit form Washington DC (not work-related, just in case you think the The World Bank are coming in to Ireland!). Check back for a new blog post on what we chatted about.

 

Frank and Shanta

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041: Dermot Hayes on Comparative Advantage, Feeding the Chinese and the Malthusian Catastrophe

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041: Dermot Hayes on Comparative Advantage, Feeding the Chinese and the Malthusian Catastrophe

Dermot Hayes is the Pioneer Chair of Agribusiness, professor of economics, and professor of finance at Iowa State University. He heads theDermot Hayes 2 Trade and Agricultural Policy Division at CARD, a position he also held from 1990 through 1998.

He is co-director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, a research center dually administered through the Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State and at the University of Missouri at Columbia. He is also a leader of the Policy Task Force of the Plant Science Institute at Iowa State.

A native of the Republic of Ireland, Dermot obtained his degree in agriculture science from University College, Dublin and his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley with a major in international trade.

Dermot has distinguished himself with many awards at the college and university levels for his work as a teacher and researcher.

In 2006 he received a Publication of Enduring Quality award from the American Agricultural Economics Association, who subsequently named him a Fellow in 2007.

Besides his analysis of U.S. farm policy and international agricultural trade, Dermot’s other research interests include food safety, livestock modelling, demand analysis, and commodity markets.

Economics:

In this interview, Dermot mentions and discusses: market inefficiencies, government intervention, agricultural economics, property rights, comparative advantage, autarky, incentives, scarcity, Malthusian Catastrophe, free-trade, unemployment, subsidies and taxes.

Economists:

In this interview, Dermot mentions and discusses: Jason Shogren, Paul Dolan, David Zetland, David Simon, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Zilberman, Milton Friedman and Josh Angrist.

Influencer:

Milton Firedman

“Whenever prices rise, farmers and technology companies have an incentive to work harder to take advantage of high prices. And of course they do that by producing more and that brings prices back down again.” – Dermot Hayes

“Malthus was wrong. He was a negative person. But having said that, with more people and less efficient use of land, we are going to have to bring more land into cultivation – this is devastating to the environment.” – Dermot Hayes

In this episode, you will learn:

  • how China is finding ways to feed its people and how self-sufficiency no longer works.
  • about China’s ever-increasing demands for soybeans, sugar, wine, etc and how this is putting demands on the global agricultural industry.
  • how Ireland lost its comparative advantage in milk production by joining the EU.
  • about Kerrygold Irish grass-fed butter and Bullet-proof coffee.
  • why Kerry Group are only ‘scratching the surface’ in the US market.
  • what high-value, labor-intensive products China should concentrate on producing in order to feed their population and trade with other countries.
  • about if the Chinese government owns much of the land and property rights in China.
  • ‘terminator seeds’ and how private companies could be incentivised to manufacture them.
  • about the use of beta agonists, such as ractopomine, in the use of animal food production.
  • why Europe’s method of testing agricultural technologies frustrates Dermot.
  • about Dermot’s work on free-trade agreements between countries.
  • about Dermot’s ‘controversial’ ethanol research paper.
  • why Dermot created a formula that allowed the price of corn to track crude oil prices and how he bought agricultural land based on his findings.
  • how academic research can open up hatred and attacks amongst your peers and the industry to which you maybe researching.
  • what advice Dermot would give a government regarding the taxing and subsidies of goods and services for the purpose of trade.

Takeaway:

“If you haven’t travelled to strange places like Burma or Uruguay, find a way to do so and you’l come back a changed person.” – Dermot Hayes

Recommended Books:

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033: Abdullah Al-Bahrani on the Economy of Oman and How Racial Discrimination Empowered Him to Succeed in Life and in Economics.

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033: Abdullah Al-Bahrani on the Economy of Oman and How Racial Discrimination Empowered Him to Succeed in Life and in Economics.

Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Northern Kentucky University,Abdullah al Bahrani where he serves as the Principles of Economics Coordinator.

Abdullah’s research interests are in the fields of Industrial Organization and Education of Economics. Currently, his primary focus is on innovative approaches to teaching Economics. In Industrial Organization, his research examines market structure and competition in the banking and real estate industries.

Prior to joining academia, Dr. Al Bahrani worked in the mortgage industry from 2003-2006. He has also served as outside economic consult to the Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman and new business ventures entering Oman.

Abdullah received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Kentucky in 2010, where he received an award for Best Economics Graduate Teaching Assistant.

His Master degree in Economic Theory was awarded by American University in Washington D.C. in 2003 and he earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from the University of Louisville in 2002.

Influencers:

My parents are big advocates of education and they instil the value of education and the value of curiosity – Abdullah Al-Bahrani

Personal Habits:

Abdullah has a 5am start and gets to the gym most mornings. It is at the gym where Abdullah creates his to-do list, becomes super-organized and listens to Economic Rockstar!

On dealing with racial discrimination:

You roll up your sleeves and you keep on trying – Abdullah Al-Bahrani

Abdullah’s Philosophy and Affirmations:

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently

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Failing in a business does not need to mean that you failed as a person – Abdullah Al-Bahrani

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Whatever you do, allow your personality to shine – Abdullah Al-Bahrani

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The thing that I appreciate is people that push the boundaries that create new paths – to me that’s what growth is – Abdullah Al-Bahrani

My philosophy is to embrace technology – Abdullah Al-Bahrani

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Find Out:

  • why Abdullah decided to do a Phd in Economics in 2006 and left the mortgage industry just before it imploded.
  • about Abdullah’s economic consultancy work with the Sultanate of Oman.
  • about Abdullah’s connection when reviewing labor market studies in Oman (Hint: She is the Director General of the National Centre of Career Guidance and is as maternal to Abdullah as Oman as a country is to him).
  • how Oman are creating an entrepreneurial spirit to drive is economy in the future.
  • why Oman is faced with difficulties in transitioning to an entrepreneurial economy.
  • how Omani culture is preventing it’s people to take on risk and why incentives do not work.
  • about Abdullah’s suggestion that to create an entrepreneurial spirit in Oman, the labor market must first be liberalised.
  • how ‘Omanization’ has made it costly for foreign firms to set up subsidiaries in Oman.
  • why Omani’s are not hired by foreign firms setting up in Oman.
  • why discrimination exists in the Omani labor market and why US and UK ex-pats would be a preferred employee.
  • how data limitations for Oman make it difficult to conduct an empirical analysis of the labor market.
  • how labor market regulations in Oman is making it costly for firms to hire Omani’s.
  • about some economic indicators for Oman.
  • about Oman’s free trade agreements, the Gulf Corporation Council and the potential Oman offers.
  • about Oman’s tourism initiative to create Oman as an eco-friendly destination.
  • how Abdullah is integrating social media into the classroom, making education a more interactive and conducive learning environment for students.
  • about Abdullah’s clever way of using a students’ mobile phone in explaining the concept of a negative externality.
  • how to create a sense of community in a classroom.
  • why Abdullah received an Easter basket of goodies from a student’s mother.
  • why Abdullah is ‘helping his students to ‘clean’ their social media footprint.
  • how Abdullah encourages his students to connect with him on whatever platform they choose to use.
  • how using ESPN 30 for 30 to teach economics and to keep the economics student engaged.
  • how to teach economics with no math and no graphs.
  • about the research Abdullah is doing on racial discrimination in the labor market.
  • how Abdullah is identifying how racial discrimination is evident in online markets where, unlike traditional markets,  the color of your skin is not a factor.
  • if your last name prevent you from getting a loan, employment or from being priced out of a market.
  • how dropping a letter from your name can get you a job if you’re being racially discriminated against.
  • how Abdullah was racially discriminated against in both the labor market and when selling mortgage loans in the USA.
  • how Abdullah dealt with racial discrimination and how it gave him his Phd dissertation question.
  • how online price comparison websites may actually be anti-competitive.
  • how online stores are eating into the consumer surplus.

Economists:

In this interview, Abdullah mentions:

Darshak Patel, Kim Holder, Gary Becker, Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubnar, Frank Scott, Chris Bollinger and Gail Hoyt, Brandon Sheridan and Roland Fryer.

Economics:

In this interview, Abdullah mentions and discusses:

Labor market, incentives, entrepreneurship, small and medium sized enterprise, venture capital, unintended consequences, business cycle, unemployment, GDP per capita, trade agreements, indigenous industries, multinational companies, Gulf Corporation Council, tourism, factor endowments, negative externality, comparative advantage, search cost, marginal cost, competition and consumer surplus.

Papers:

Books:

Resources:

Where to find Abdullah:

 

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025: Dan Hamermesh on the Economics of Beauty: Attractive People Are More Successful

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025: Dan Hamermesh on the Economics of Beauty: Attractive People Are More Successful 

Dan Hamermesh is Professor in Economics at the Royal Holloway University of London and at thePortraitHamermeshwithoutJacket University of Texas at Austin. Dan researches the economics of beauty. He received his Ph.D. from Yale and has since taught at Princeton, at Michigan State, and at Texas. He has held visiting professorships at universities in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, and lectured at almost 250 universities in 48 states and 33 foreign countries. His research, published in nearly 100 refereed papers in scholarly journals, has concentrated on time use, labor demand, discrimination, academic labor markets and unusual applications of labor economics (to beauty, sleep and suicide).

Professor Hamermesh has received many notable and distinguished honors and awards in recognition for his contribution to the field of economics. These include the Mincer Award and the IZA Prize in Labor Economics, the John R. Commons Award, as well as many teaching of excellence awards.

Daniel’s teaching include Microeconomics; Macroeconomics; Econometrics; Economics of Labor and Economics of Life.

Daniel is the author of many books including Demand for Labor: The Neglected Side of the Market, Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, The Economics of Time Use and Economics Is Everywhere. He is also a regular contributor to the Freakonomics blog and podcast.

Economic Themes:

In this interview, Dan mentions and discusses:

Speculation, inter-temporal maximisation, labor economics, incentives, wages, welfare payments, comparative advantage and externalities.

Economists:

In this interview, Dan mentions:

 John Maynard Keynes, Gary Becker, Gregg Lewis, Robert Lucas and Michael Lewis.

Influencers:

Gary Becker and Gregg Lewis

A lot of my stuff is the weird kind of stuff that Becker pioneered – Dan Hamermesh.

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Gregg Lewis had a concern about data – about doing it right, making sure you were right. That’s a crucial thing. One has to take data seriously – Dan Hamermesh.

Advice:

Do what you think you’ll enjoy, because if you think you’ll enjoy it the odds are pretty good you’ll do well at it. You’ll be motivated to work hard and to succeed – Dan Hamermesh

Find out:

  • how economics can be used beyond the theoretical framework we see in textbooks.
  • why we should think about economics in things we see or do in the real world.
  • how students of economics can inspire their professors in a two-way mutual learning process.
  • how economics is everywhere – we just need to think, see and interpret.
  • how economics is enjoying a revival in reaching to mass audiences.
  • why we should read interesting books on economics.
  • if happiness is related to how beautiful or attractive you are.
  • why better-looking men are happier.
  • how to recognise if you are beautiful.
  • what good-looking attorneys, prostitutes, politicians and NFL quarter-backs have in common.
  • if economists should be studying the effects of being attractive and ugly.
  • if people have an increased need to become beautiful.
  • whether increased spending on cosmetics, hair and clothing by women will have a pay-off in the labor market.
  • if plastic surgery to alter beauty results in higher earnings.
  • about the disability benefits available to obese people.
  • if an obese person is perceived to be less beautiful than a slim person.
  • if there is a relationship between ugliness and where a person lives.
  • why Dan was interested in studying the economic impact of beauty.
  • which economic markets show evidence of the impact of beauty.
  • how Dan first met his wife of 42 years.
  • what Dan thinks of Abercrombie and Fitch’s ‘six-pack’ hiring policy.
  • if being attractive prohibits opportunities in the labor market.
  • if you should work in the private or public sector if you are good-looking.
  • how to identify an externality on the side-walk.
  • why you should do what you’ll enjoy rather than chasing the money.

Why Attractive People Are Happier and Economically Better-Off.

Attractive people have been found to be happier than not-so-good-looking people. Better-looking men receive higher incomes, which make them happier overall. Attractive women are also happier, but their happiness is more direct in that their happiness is the result of knowing that they are good-looking. Attractive women do receive higher incomes but this is not a direct link to their happiness as it is for men.

“The beauty itself is directly more salient to them than it was for men, even though the overall effect was identical for both genders” – Dan Hamermesh.

How someone realises if they are attractive or not is due to the reinforcement by other people in making you aware whether you are good-looking or ugly. “Better-looking babies are treated better by their parents and by other people. Better-looking 5 year olds are treated better in kindergarten than ugly ones. When you’re chosen for teams or go out in High School, the better-looking people do better. And they also, given even the amount of education they attained, they’ll do better in the labor market. They’ll get better jobs, make higher pay, even within the same occupation” (Dan Hamermesh). Good-looking attorneys, prostitutes, politicians and National Football League quarter-backs make higher pay than their uglier colleagues.

In the labor market, the top one-third of people who are considered good-looking will earn 10 to 12% more in income independent of any differences that might exist between them and those not considered good-looking.

A woman’s increased spending on cosmetics, hair and clothing will not increase her perceived beauty and will also have a minimal pay-off on the labor market for her. Plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons does not have a benefit in terms of increasing earnings in the labor market. You do it to feel good. It’s not an economic investment, it’s a feel-good investment.

“Unless a person is morbidly obese, people do not view him or her as being any uglier than anybody else, all things taking together” – Dan Hammermesh.

Does Location Determine Whether You Are Beautiful or Ugly?

I ask Dan whether a person’s good looks are determined by the area in which they live. The reason I ask this is based on our earlier discussion on why attractive people typically earn a higher income. It can be fair to suggest that cities or regions that pay more would consequently attract good-looking people.

Dan states that “if you’re a good-looking person, you’re going to flock to an area where your looks pay off more. And if you’re a bad-looking person, you might want to go away from an area where looks pay off. In the UK, where people who were born in Scotland and Wales, if they’re good-looking, are more likely to migrate to South-East England (London) than other people”.

Also, “people who were born in South-East England (London) who are bad-looking appear to move to outlying areas where their looks aren’t so important”.

“Looks not only affects where we live in terms of what we make, but where we choose to live in terms of where we spend out adult lives. You’ll go where you get the biggest bang for your buck or, in this case, the biggest pounds for your beauty.”

Economic Markets Where Beauty and Attractiveness Are Present:

  1. Labor Markets: Higher wages and better conditions.
  2. Marriage Markets: A good-looking woman will attract a man who earns more.
  3. Market on Unsecured Loans: Attractive people are more likely to get a loan and on better terms.

Recommended Books:

Where To Find Dan Hamermesh:

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017: Marina Adshade on Understanding Economics the Sexy and ‘Hard’ Way

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017: Marina Adshade on Understanding Economics the Sexy and ‘Hard’ Way

Marina AdshadeDr. Marina Adshade, author of Dollars and Sex, engages in original economic research in the area of women in the economy. She has a Ph.D. from Queen’s University in Ontario Canada and currently teaches economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

In 2008, Marina developed a unique specialization in the economics of sex and love  and launched an undergraduate course titled ‘Economics of Sex and Love’, which invited her students to approach questions of sex and love through an economist’s lens. The class was an immediate hit with students and, by the time the first term started, had generated international media attention.

This culminated in the publication of her first book in 2013, ‘Dollars and Sex: How Economics Influences Sex and Love’. Marina converts economic theory into a sexy science by applying the principles of supply and demand and other market forces to matters of love, courtship, sex, intimacy, and marriage. 

Marina is a regular contributor to Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail and the Canadian Business Magazine. She has written for several other publications including The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail in the UK, and Psychology Today. She is a sought after public speaker as well as a radio and television commentator on issues relevant to all women.

Economics Themes:

In this interview, Marina mentions and discusses: The New Household Economics, supply and demand, GDP, standard of living, bargaining power, the uncanny valley, unemployment, game theory, barter and the Big Mac Index.

Economists and Economic Schools:

In this interview, Marina mentions: Gary Becker, Shoshana Grossbard, Betsey Stevenson, Justin Wolfers, Thomas Malthus, Nathan Nunn and Jeremy Greenwood.

Influencers:

Jeremy Greenwood – Engines of Liberation, Gary Becker, Betsey Stevenson and all economists who have been brave enough to take on these topics.

When Gary Becker started on the New Household economics, he was criticised.

It takes a lot of courage to talk about new ideas and to bring new ideas into the economics fold – Marina Adshade.

One has to work very hard to maintain your creativity, to work hard to maintain a willingness to assume risks in the work that you do -Marina Adshade

Advice:

Make sure you know your value on the market – Marina Adshade

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Mantra:

The idea that you can take a risk and be successful and the willingness to think creatively. Apply creative thought to the work that you do can be incredibly valuable – Marina Adshade

Personal Habits:

I spend as little time as possible within my office sitting behind my desk. I like to be out in the world. If I have something that I have to write or a talk that I have to give, a lot of the thoughts that inspire that I get from being outside walking around.

In this episode, you will learn:

  • why we should use sex and love in economics.
  • why Dr. Adshade decided to use the topic of sex in teaching economics.
  • why international media attention from Korea and Russia brought a spotlight to Marina’s Module.
  • why Malthus called economics a dismal science.
  • how sci-fi novels are better at predicting new technologies more so than social change.
  • about the future of sex with androids.
  • how the male contraceptive can increase the bargaining of power of men over women.
  • how economic growth results in liberal attitudes.
  • if there is a causal relationship between economic growth and gay marriage.
  • who makes a better saver: men or women?

  • how Orgasms can be used to explain Game Theory.

  • how the market for sex and love is like a barter economy.

  • the similarities between Economics and Biology.

  • if you met somebody that had a variety of qualities that you valued but didn’t love, would you still marry that person?

  • about the Big Mac Index and the Blow Job Index.

Dollars and Sex ‘A collection of theories and evidence that would give anyone, frankly, a hard-on for economics.’

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Why Using Sex to Teach Economics Improves Student Engagement and Understanding

So much of what we do is about the fundamental unit of the household and so much of that comes form decisions that we make about sex and relationships. The reason why Marina decided on this approach to teaching economics was to simply engage with students. The material could be delivered in such a way that students could apply it to their own lives and internalise the theories that educators want them to understand.

How Sex Can Impact Our Social and Economic Environment and Vice Versa

Thomas Malthus called economics the ‘Dismal Science’ because he felt that economic theory predicts that whenever you have increases in technology, people would just increase the number of children they have in such a way that there would never be any gains in the standard of living. So, we were destined to be over-populated, over-crowded and poor.

The story of Malthus is based on our sexuality. Women couldn’t keep their knickers on as soon as national GDP went up a little bit.

I’m an Economic Historian. I spend most of my mornings thinking about the plough, the hoe and female sexual desire. We have 200 years of fertility changes. We have a hundred years of changes in sexual values. I think so much of this is rooted in our economics system. – Dr. Marina Adshade.

A small technological advance like contraceptives can have big social changes and can lead to the situation where we (US and Canada) are now. In Canada 35% of wives out-earn their husbands and that’s a remarkable change from where we were 30 or 40 years ago.

New technologies (on-line dating is now celebrating its 20-year anniversary) are arriving all the time and they are changing the way that we structure our relationships, the way that we bargain with our spouses and the way that we negotiate our lives within our relationships.

The future of sex with robots could be a reality by 2020. This will most definitely present some genuine challenges for us as a society when that becomes possible. The hypothesis of the ‘Uncanny Valley’ could present some problems for human-robot interaction, due to the possible revulsion or level of discomfort that a human has toward a robot. This problem could only be resolved if the robot improves its natural likeness and appearance as a human. Sex with robots has the potential to structure our relationships. It will have serious implications with our ethical challenges.

There are more imminent changes to our social economy. The introduction of male contraceptives into the market are only a matter of years away now, with human clinical trials taking place. This could potentially reduce the bargaining power of women regarding fertility to increasing the bargaining power of men. Handing the control of fertility to men has the potential to shift those dynamics.

Prostitution and other explicit markets have been transformed by technologies, where sex workers can advertise their services online. This movement expanded beyond the original market and has almost become normalised to the extent that other services are being provided online such as the Sugar Daddy – Sugar Baby concept.

The website SeekingArrangement.com reports year-on-year increases of female university student sign-ups to the site seeking a sugar daddy. Such increases are possibly the result of the mounting student debt faced by graduates and an arrangement with a sugar daddy could be a way of reducing this debt burden. Low wages and unemployment are also other factors that increases the willingness of students to enter such an arrangement. However, supply alone does not create a market, and the demand-side may not be as high. Therefore, the claim that the average amount in cash and gifts that a female sugar baby receives from her sugar daddy may not be as high as the $6,200 level.

The market for sex and love is like a barter economy. There is no currency that prices the supply or demand for sex. Perhaps there is an intangible currency in terms of the millions of stimuli that each person emits. The qualities that are revealed in this economy get picked on by other people.

Economic Growth Can Cause Social Attitudes Toward Sex to Change

Economic growth can change peoples attitudes, transitioning a country’s social norms from a conservative to a more liberal and open outlook. Many developed countries are debating about the right to gay marriage. Currently, Ireland will hold a referendum in May 2015 about right to gay marriage.

Marriage is an economic institution and we’d like to think that they create incentives for behaviour and they structure the way that our markets operate. But the institutions themselves is endogenous. Society chooses institutions that is optimal for them at any point in time.

The traditional marriage between a man and woman has historically been the optimal way of structuring a marriage, especially since men had the comparative advantage in work outside of the home. Men have the comparative advantage in wage labor and women has the comparative advantage in household production, particularly since the Industrial Revolution which caused a strict division between working and home. So, it made sense to structure marriage that way because of the gains from trade – men and women were so different.

This is no longer the case as the change in the nature of the market has eroded the man’s comparative advantage, particularly since it has become more skill-based and less physical. When men and women become similar with each other, then the nature of marriage changes. We no longer experience the gains from trade with marriage.

If marriage is no longer based on the gains from trade, then why limit marriage to men and women. Why not women with women and men with men. Marriage is more so based on love and companionship today and does not have the elements of the need for productivity.

Justin Wolfers and Bestey Stevenson talked about consumption compatibilities was the driving force of marriage in the modern period. It no longer makes sense to talk about the structure of marriage around the idea of production.

Economics and Biology: The Link

When we think of love as a biological response it is much easier to think of it in economic terms – the idea that we choose who we love. The heightened excitement that you get when you meet somebody that you’re attracted to is so similar to reactions to other experiences that people sometimes confuse them.

The height and adrenaline experienced by a person on a roller-coaster, can be the same heightened excitement that a person feels when attracted to someone. Perhaps the best first date could be the amusement park.

Blow Job Index

Instead of the Big Mac Index, The Economist could look at the Blow Job Index. They could look at variations in the prices of blow jobs around the world. There is an enormous amount of variation in the price of this service, which is largely a uniform service.

It is tied to opportunities for women and also for development. A blow job in Vancouver is possibly more expensive than a blow job in Bangkok. The problem is that it is incredibly difficult to get this data. There are web services that post prices but we’re not there yet.

A Big Mac is a standard product, irrespective of the country in which you buy it. In other words, a Big Mac in Canada is the same as a Big Mac in Ireland and beyond. However, prices will differ. A blow job, however, may not be the same in different countries due to the length of a penis. Should a blow job be more expensive in a country where the penis size is larger? If a Big Mac was twice as big in one country compared to another, then should you be expected to pay more?

Should the price of a blow job be correlated with the price of a penis? The Penis Size Worldwide Map, available on TargetMap.com

Recommended Books:

Favourite Internet Resource:

PEW Research Centre: Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.

Where To Find Marina Adshade:

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