At The Margin

Today I am joined by Prof. Brian Lucey of Trinity College Dublin who has carried out a lot of research in recent years on cryptocurrencies. We go through the basics behind crypto/blockchain and the dynamics in the market. Brian offers some words of caution for any central bankers that might have one eye on digital currencies!

We move on to other areas of financial markets including the recent GameStop/wallstreetbets short squeeze. Prof. Lucey has done some interesting work analysing the sentiment expressed on reddit threads to see if this really was a case of all the little guys standing up to the man or whether it was a lot of scared little guys following a few heavy hitters. 

We also discuss NFTs or non-fungible tokens. These have recently entered the public consciousness and Brian takes us through what they are and where they may get their value. 

This is part one of a two-parter on crypto. Here we cover a lot of ground and go through the economic fundamentals, with a second part lined up to discuss more recent developments. 

If you like the podcast, tell your friends and share on social media! Every 5* review on Apple podcasts pushes us up the rankings and attracts the attention of someone new - so please help me to get the word out to new listeners!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we are chatting to Dr. Josue Ortega of Queen’s University Belfast. Josue is an expert in matching markets. These are essentially markets without money. Normally we use prices to allocate goods to those who value them the most - How do figure this out when we don’t have money? And what if both sides of the transaction have preferences, like matching employees to jobs or single persons to a romantic partner?

This last point is something which Josue has done a lot of work on. In particular, he has explored the impact that online dating has had on the matching process – what factors result in matching ‘success’ and how online dating has changed the pattern of matching, particularly with respect to the diversity of romantic couples.

A very interesting topic and hopefully we don’t take the romance out of dating by discussing it here!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode of at the margin I am joined by Dr. Flavio Toxvaerd to discuss the economics of vaccines. Flavio is a lecturer in economics at the University of Cambridge and has published widely on the economics of vaccines, immunisation and social distancing. Check out his extensive research on the topic here: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/people/faculty/fmot2

There’s something here for everybody really. There is insight for policymakers on how to approach social distancing and vaccine rollout; something for the nerdy economists like myself who want to think about applications for academic economic concepts; and also something for the current affairs junkie interested in better understanding issues such as vaccine nationalism and how to manage vaccine IP.

Thanks very much to Flavio and thanks very much to all the patrons for keeping the show on the road. Check out http://www.patreon.com/atthemargin if you would like to become a patron!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, I am joined by Linus Mattauch of the Technical University of Berlin. Linus is also a research affiliate with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the University of Oxford.

Linus speaks to us about his work on making carbon pricing work for citizens. We discuss ways in which we can maximise the political acceptability of a carbon tax. This includes framing and the use of carbon tax revenues to make carbon taxes palatable to citizens. We go through some advice for policymakers, conditional on the political landscape that they face.

Linus is working at the cutting edge of this field of research so I am very grateful to him for taking the time to speak to us.

This episode is a complement to the previous carbon pricing episode with Muireann Lynch of the ESRI – please do check that out if you get a chance. In that episode, we go through the basic argument in favour of carbon pricing. Now we are taking this a step further – how best can we translate the theory into practice, taking into account some of the obstacles we face in the real world. .

Support: http://www.patreon.com/atthemargin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to a new series of At the Margin! This episode is a bit earlier than expected – I wanted to share it with you as soon as possible. We’ll be back to our usual Tuesday release date in due course.

Seamus Coffey joins to discuss corporation tax. Seamus is an economics lecturer at University College Cork and is a former chair of Ireland’s Fiscal Advisory Council. He is also the go-to person when it comes to discussing Ireland’s corporate tax rate having published an independent review for the Irish government in 2017.

If you’re like me, you will have kept one ear tuned to the ongoing debate surrounding Irish corporation tax but may not have fully read up on the topic to give a well-informed take. Hopefully this conversation will fill in the gaps. We discuss the basics surrounding corporation tax, how Irish tax rates interact with US tax policy and how this may change with proposals put forward by the OECD and the US.

Enjoy!

https://www.patreon.com/AtTheMargin if you'd like to help cover the costs of the podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I am joined by Dr. Fergal O’Connor, finance lecturer at University College Cork. Fergal is an expert in gold and other precious metals.

We go through everything you wanted to know about gold. We discuss the historical reasons why gold is valuable and how this has translated into the modern world. We go through the various economic drivers and we also touch on other related commodities such as bitcoin. Fergal really knows his stuff and is very easy to listen to so I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I make a few jokes throughout that we are not giving any investment advice but maybe I should be clear – we are not giving any investment advice. We accept no liability for any losses incurred if you decide to follow any investment strategy on foot of this podcast.

The patreon page is at http://www.patreon.com/atthemargin. If you like what you hear and want to throw a few bob in the tip jar then take a look at the patreon. There’s some bonus content, hot takes and a bit of career chat on there. Some new content coming soon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am joined by Dr. David Zetland – David is a lecturer at Leiden University and an expert on the political economy of water management. We discuss the economics behind water management and how politics can get in the way. We discuss the economics and politics surrounding water charging throughout the British Isles and discuss the ongoing Irish water charge saga.

David is a great speaker and this is a topic I really enjoyed. I’d recommend you check out David’s podcast called jive talking (https://soundcloud.com/jivetalking) where he discusses these topics and others in greater detail.

David also has a book and other relevant online material that may be of interest:

1) The struggle for residential water metering in England and Wales

https://www.kysq.org/pubs/Art9-1-6.pdf

2) David's book (free to D/L)

Living with Water Scarcity

https://www.kysq.org/lwws/

3) Citizen regulators

https://kysq.org/aguanomics/2014/07/do-you-trust-your-neighbors/

Just a quick note to say thanks to the patrons. If you enjoy the podcast and want to throw a few shillings in the tip jar check out patreon.com/AtTheMargin.

I hope you enjoy the converation

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is Anja Shortland, Professor In political economy at King’s College London. Prof. Shortland does some really interesting work on the economics of crime and will speak to us today about the economic dynamics at play in hostage situations. Yes, that's correct – today’s episode is on the economics of kidnapping!

Prof. Shortland has a book entitled "Kidnap" that I would recommend if you would like to learn more about this topic.

Don't forget the patreon - www.patreon.com/AtTheMargin. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support this work, please consider subscribing to the patreon.

Thanks!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and wlecome to this episode of "At the margin"! I have a great episode lined up with Tim Harford, Oxford economist and all-round economic raconteur. Tim joins to discuss statistics – how we can get it wrong, such as when our emotions influence our interpretation, and offers some basic rules of thumb when it comes to making sense of the information we see around us. 

Tim’s most recent book is entitled "How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers". Available: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Make-World-Add-Up/dp/1408712237

If you enjoy the podcast, you can subscribe to the patreon at patreon.com/AtTheMargin. We’re on twitter and Instagram with the handle @AtTheMargin too.

Enjoy! 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome everyone to a special week for the podcast! We have a change in name to "At the Margin" – same great podcast, new great name!

this week we have a very special double bill. In this first part we welcome Prof. Patrick Honohan, honorary professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin. Prof. Honohan has held many positions, most notably as governor of the Irish Central Bank during the financial crisis of 2008. He has also held positions at the ESRI, the World Bank and as economic advisor to Garret FitzGerald. We discuss the role of Central Banks, the financial crisis from his perspective and Prof. Honohan gives his view on financial regulation into the future

Prof. Honohan has recently published a book entitled "Currency, Credit and Crisis" which discusses much of the material covered in the episode in greater detail. It is highly recommended: https://www.easons.com/currency-credit-and-crisis-patrick-honohan-9781108741583?gclid

If you enjoy the podcast, you can subscribe to the patreon at www.patreon.com/AtTheMargin. I’ve updated the patreon handle to reflect the new name. We’re on twitter and Instagram with the handle @AtTheMargin too.

Enjoy!  

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.