Economic Rockstar

Firstly, I’d like to apologise to all listeners to the Economic Rockstar podcast for what seemingly appears to be me turning my back on the podcast and on you. I honestly never had planned for this and I had always intended to work hard and deliver great quality episodes to the best of my abilities with the most amazing, thought-provoking and inspiring economists to you every week.

However, personal circumstances changed in my life and this impacted on the podcast. I felt that I couldn’t commit 100% to the time I had allocated to the podcast.

In the meantime I’d like to thank all of you who have contacted me on Facebook, Twitter and by email enquiring about the podcast and wishing me well. I truly appreciate it and it was really nice to have my listeners get in touch and show a desire and hunger for more interviews.

The realisation kicked in when I struggled to feel the natural enthusiasm that I previously had in the lead up to and during each interview process. I honestly felt that it wasn’t fair to my guests and to you by not being fully present.

The last interview that I recorded (prior to this most recent one) was early in 2017 with the distinguished economist and Nobel laureate Professor Vernon Smith and ironically I felt that it was my best interview to date.

I decided that I just wanted to know about the person rather than the discipline and I felt that this approach uncovered great insights into Professor Smith’s thinking and role as an economist.

And perhaps it’s a coincidence that i’m releasing the first episode in almost a year on the day of Professor Smith’s birthday, January 1st. Happy 91st birthday Vernon. I’ll release my interview with Vernon soon.

If you’re a fan of the podcast and would like to show your support in anyway, please check out my Patreon page at patreon.com/economicrockstar where you can sign up for any of the awards for as little as $1 a month or you can simply follow me on the Economic Rockstar Facebook page or on Twitter or simply recommend the show to a friend, especially if they have never had the opportunity to study economics.

So to begin again… In this weeks episode of the economic rockstar podcast I speak to Professor Robin Hanson, associate professor of economics at George Mason University. Professor Hanson has been on the podcast on two previous occasions, episodes 73 and 91 and has kindly joined me again for a hat-trick of episodes. We talk about his new book The Elephant In the Brain: Hidden Motives in everyday life, co-authored with Kevin Simler and available to buy in all good bookstores and, of course, online through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository and more.  Check Robin and Kevin’s website elephantintheroom.com to explore the book in finer detail as well as some great content such as interviews, reviews and a Ted talk on the subject.

You can download or stream this 122nd episode as well as find all the links mentioned above at economicrockstar.com/robinhanson3

Douglas McKee is a senior lecturer at the Department of Economics at Cornell University. Dr McKee teaches Econometrics, Probability and Statistics and has previously taught at Yale.

Doug’s research interests include Development Economics, Labor Economics, Health Economics and Structural Estimation

Edward O’Neill consults and serves to solve teaching & learning problems for professors, and supports academic and other projects with learning design and technology services.

Both Doug and Edward cohost the ‘Teach Better’ podcast focusing on expert-level university teaching & pedagogy.

You can check out the podcast over at teachbetter.co and on iTunes where there are currently 45 amazing episodes on teaching in the classroom and the education system.

Check out the resources, books and links mentioned by Doug and Edward at www.economicrockstar.com/dougandedward

Check out the links to the podcast episodes that feature in the Best of 2016 Part 2 at www.economicrockstar.com/bestofpart2

During the year I had the absolute honor to converse with some of the brightest minds in the economics. They shared with me their thinking, research and teaching methods and I personally learned a lot from them. I hope that you benefited from these conversations and that you personally felt part of it.

It was difficult to choose who to include, or more accurately who to leave out. I decided on a number of common themes for this 'Best of 2016' episode. So I hope you enjoy these sound bites and if you're new to the show, I hope that this episode will give you a taste of the content in the catalogue of episodes that lie await for you on the Economic Rockstar podcast. Enjoy!

The following are the episodes that I have chosen to include this year:

068: Daron Acemoglu Inequality, Philanthropy, Inclusive Institutions and Creative Destruction.

108 Steve Horowitz on the Micro Foundations of Macroeconomics and What Caused the Great Recession.

088 Denise Cummins Reciprocity and Fairness.

069 Diane Coyle GDP, the Happiness Index, the Human Development Index, The Soulful Science and How Very Human a Science Good Economics is by Being Concerned About Improving the Well-Being of People.

104 Russ Roberts Definition of Economics, Adam Smith and Happiness.

082 Peter Boettke Hayek and Keynes.

085 Michael Roberts Capitalism, Marxism, Protecting Resources and Ecology.

081 Julie Nelson Ecology and Gender.

114 Deirdre McCloskey The change that brought about the equality of liberalism and her gender transformation.

Check out the links to these full episodes at www.economicrockstar.com/bestofpart1

Zachary Feinstein is Professor joined the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis in 2014.

While earning a doctorate at Princeton University, Zachary supervised the senior thesis-writing group and assisted in teaching several courses.

Previously, he conducted research at Hunan University in China and was an intern at Millennium Partners LP and Lehman Brothers Inc., both in New York City.

Professor Feinstein works in the broad fields of operations research and financial engineering and he heads The Operations Research and Financial Engineering Laboratory Washington University.

His research focus has been on the applications of set-optimization to financial risk measurement, with projects studying and defining dynamic risk measures in markets with transaction costs and measures of systemic risk.

You can find Professor Feinstein’s work on Star Wars and more by Googling Fictionomics.

You can check out al the links. books and resources mentioned by Professor Feinstein at www.economicrockstar.com/zacharyfeinstein or at www.economicrockstar.com/starwars

Courtney Conrad is a senior undergraduate economics major at Susquehanna University. 

At Susquehanna, Courtney serves as a research assistant, teaching assistant for principles of microeconomics, and tutor. 

Courtney’s research interests include labor economics, experimental economics, behavioral economics, and the economics of education. 

After completing her Bachelor’s degree in economics, Courtney plans on furthering her economics studies and research at the graduate school level with the aspiration of becoming an academic.

Since being hand-picked as a research assistant during her first year at SU, Courtney has actively assisted her mentor, professor and department chair Dr. Matthew Rousu, on a variety of projects over the years. 

As a first-year and sophomore, Courtney managed and conducted experimental auctions for a National Institute of Health grant-funded study in which tobacco smokers’ demand for e-cigarettes was assessed. 

Additionally, Courtney collaborates with Dr. Rousu in creating the videos and accompanying economics concept call-outs, discussion questions, and video descriptions for BroadwayEconomics.Com.

Brian O’Roark is University Professor of Economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. He is the Co-Director of the Robert Morris Center for Economics Education and has a Ph.D. from George Mason University.

In 2014, Brian was given the Undergraduate Teaching Innovation Award by the Middle Atlantic Association of Colleges of Business Administration. He teaches the Survey of Economics course, and Principles of Micro and Macro Economics.

Brian is the co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Essentials of Economics where hundreds of teaching tips is compiled into one essential, thoughtfully designed teaching resource making it easy for new instructors to incorporate best teaching practices into their courses and for veteran teachers to find inspiration to enliven their lectures.

Professor O’Roark has integrated economic content in songs with many topics being covered in the music videos available at  http://www.criticalcommons.org/author/oroark.

To me Brian has become synonymous with superheroes and I could be forgiven for calling him Super Econ Man.

Check out the show notes page for all the links, books and resources mentioned by Professor O'Roark at www.economicrockstar.com/brianoroark

Edward Conard is the author of the New York Times top-ten bestselling book, Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong (2012), and his recent book The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class which reached #7 on the New York Times Bestsellers list and is #1  on the New York Times business book list month. He is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. and former Bain Capital partner.

Ed Conard has debated economists, policymakers and journalists on topics related to inequality, the 2008 mortgage crisis, and the U.S. budget. He has appeared on television over 150 times, most notably when he debated Jon Stewart in one of the longest interviews in the Daily Show’s history. Ed has also written opinion pieces for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs and many other respected publications.

Check out all the links, books and resources mentioned by ed conard at www.economicrockstar.com/edwardconard.

Deirdre McCloskey taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication.

She was also adjunct professor of Philosophy and Classics there, and for five years was a visiting Professor of philosophy at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Since October 2007 Deirdre has received six honorary doctorates. In 2013, she received the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award from the Competitive Enterprise Institute for her work examining factors in history that led to advancement in human achievement and prosperity.

Deirdre’s main research interests include the origins of the modern world, the misuse of statistical significance in economics and other sciences, and the study of capitalism, among many others.

Deirdre has written 17 books and around 400 scholarly pieces on topics ranging from technical economics and statistical theory to transgender advocacy and the ethics of the bourgeois virtues.

Her latest book, Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World is part of the Bourgeois Era trilogy described as an "apology" for capitalism.

Deirdre describes herself as a "post-modern, quantitative, free-market, feminist, Episcopalian, Midwestern, gender-crossing, literary woman”.

Deirdre’s website deirdremccloskey.org contains information and links to her books, articles, interviews and much more.

Check out the show notes page at www.economicrockstar.com/deirdremccloskey for all the books, links and resources mentioned by Deirdre in this episode.

Jonathan McEvoy is currently an undergrad student of economics at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland.

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.

You can check out the shownotes page for all the links, books and resources mentioned by Jonathan at www.economicrockstar.com/jonathanmcevoy