Economics & Beyond with Rob Johnson

Jeremy Lent, founder of founder of the Liology Institute and author of The Patterning Instinct, talks to Rob about how values shape our economics and our reaction to the pandemic, and how the pandemic could, in turn, provoke a shift in values in favor of community and against neoliberalism.

Rob talks to Adair Turner—member of the House of Lords, former Chairman of the British Financial Services Authority, and member of INET’s Commission on Global Economic Transformation—about how the COVID-19 economic crash compares to the post-2008 recession: namely, how to deal with a crisis of supply in addition to aggregate demand.

John Ralston Saul, writer and political philosopher, talks to Rob about citizenry and society in light of COVID-19. They discuss models for civic engagement that could better tackle the pandemic, as well as other social problems, such as poverty and inequality.

Roman Frydman, Professor of Economics at NYU and Chair of the Knightian Uncertainty Economics Program at INET, talks to Rob about how behavioral economists model uncertainty and his critique of the rational expectations hypothesis. Frydman also discusses the work and legacy of the late University of Chicago economist Frank Knight, whose students included Milton Friedman and James Buchanan.

Matt Stoller, Research Director at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of the book, Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, talks with Rob about how the pandemic is affecting the power of monopolies in our politics and economics, and the paths forward as supply chain issues are laid bare.

Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and member of INET’s Global Commission on Economic Transformation, talks to Rob about the unique way the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting developing countries. They also discuss the developing global economic crisis, and the way young people in particular are responding.

Gerald Horne is the Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and author of several books including, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music. He talks to Rob about the economics of jazz music and musicians, including financial tensions between primarily black artists and white producers.

Andrew Michael Spence—Nobel laureate, Professor of Economics at the NYU Stern School of Business, and Co-Chair of INET’s Commission on Global Economic Transformation—talks to Rob about how the U.S. government typically errs on the side of doing too little, too late, in response to major crises like the coronavirus pandemic. Spence and Rob compare and contrast how governments in the U.S., Europe, and Asia have responded to COVID-19.

Nobel laureate economist and Professor at Columbia University Joseph Stiglitz talks to Rob (his former graduate student in the Princeton Econ Department and member of the 2009 UN Stiglitz Commission) about what the pandemic has revealed about the U.S. economy’s shortcomings, and how a proper response to other crises—like climate change—could actually stimulate economic growth and innovation.