In standard economic theory monopolies are generally seen as leading to "sub-optimal outcomes" (they are bad!). However in their own discipline one could argue we have seen one particular approach to economics dominate over recent decades. Is this sub-optimal? One economist in particular, Jayati Ghosh, would argue yes, and point to the negative impacts of having just one "voice" dominate theoretical and policy discussions.

The work of Jayati Ghosh highlights irony and suggests that through this monopolisation, economics finds itself in a situation where few new ideas can emerge that might work more effectively than the current offer, especially in a time of rampant inequality, stagnant growth and global warming. As an Asian, female economist, Ghosh offers a different perspective to many Western economists. She has done some outstanding work focusing on the area of unpaid care work but it doesn’t stop there with numerous and substantial contributions to both macro and microeconomics, particularly in the development sphere. In this fifth episode of season 8 of their award winning podcast, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav explore one of Kate Raworth’s favourite economists - Jayti Ghosh. Not only will you discover a more pluralist approach to the subject but you’ll also find out why, through a rather painful experience, she ended up learning the piano and not the violin, how the James Bond theme relates to the Indian classical raga and a super quiz on all things India. Technical support as always comes from ‘buy-me-a-tortoise’ Nic.

The Rolling Stones once sang ‘You can’t always get what you want but sometimes you get what you need’ and when it comes to a rhyming history of economics, the Rolling Stones knew their stuff!!! In this special from your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, they blast off in a time travelling machine to visit some of the greatest economists of our time. Along the way, they muse on some of the contemporary issues in economics and deliver some rip-roaringly bad accents. Make sure you listen closely as there is a quiz at the end (10 questions of course) to see if you’ve been paying attention. We hope you enjoy it. We decided to leave the recording in its entirety so you can get the feel of what it’s like recording an independent podcast! And for the bantz!! Technical support as always comes from the real brains of the organisation Nic.

Paul Samuelson once said ‘I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws or crafts its advanced treatises if I can write its economics textbooks’ and boy did he write the book! Samuelson understood the power of economics and his best selling textbook called (surprisingly) ‘Economics’ was read by millions across America and influenced a number of the economists and policy makers that shape economic policy today. This was far from being his only claim to fame though and throughout his lifetime he wrote an extraordinarily large number of influential papers across a range of micro and macroeconomic topics (in cricket terms he was very much and all rounder or for baseball fans a 'two way player'. His neoclassical synthesis that combined Keynesianism with New Classical theory was a particularly influential advance. He is also seen as the man who brought a far greater mathematical rigour to economics, an approach which has very much outlived him.

In this fourth episode of Season 8 of their award winning podcast, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, dive into the world of Paul Krugman’s (a fellow Nobel Prize winner) favourite economist. Along the way, you will find out about AMSR, a trivia quiz that features a ‘joke’ question that Samuelson got right and so many ideas, you won’t know what to do with them all. Technical support as always comes from our good friend Nic.

In the post-war era in particular the orthodox view in economic and political circles has been that "free" trade is crucial in ensuring that economies grow and prosperity is shared across the world. Arguably, with the Trump presidency we are seeing a departure from this accepted convention. We are also seeing some other, perhaps less charged voices sharing a more nuanced picture of the benefits of trade, for example the Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton who has pointed out the almost wilful ignorance many thinkers display with respect to the downsides of international trade.

In this special episode by Pete and Gav, your friendly neighbourhood economists, you will dive into this dense topic to create your own a guide that can help you see the woods from the trees! If you’re worried that you may have the Marshall-Lerner condition, never fear! They’ll put you straight. In a tizz about the differences between trading blocs, free trade areas and custom unions? Then again, do not fear because all will be revealed. Not only do we cut through the technical language we also have a fun quiz when you can try and work out what the key export is for ten countries. You have a good score to beat, so good luck! Technical support as always comes from Nic, whose comparative advantage is definitely in computer stuff.

PS We were delighted recently in the Feedspot Top 60 Podcasts About Economics. Thanks dear listeners!

All countries seem to have economic growth as their primary economic objective and the received opinion is that the best way to do this is through international trade. Since the end of the Second World War this trade has been facilitated by trade agreements brokered first by the ad hoc assemblies to promote the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and later via the auspices of the permanently instituted World Trade Organisation (WTO). The man behind the idea of an organisation to encourage trade was Nobel Prize winner James Meade, a real economists’ economist. Throughout his life, he worked on numerous areas of economics and had a personal crusade to prevent the malaise of unemployment, With even a cursory look at his thought you can see how influential he is or might be today's world in a broad range of areas e.g. in his prescient ideas about an Universal Basic Income (UBI) In this third episode of Season 8 of their award winning podcast, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, dive into the world of Angus Deaton’s (a fellow Nobel Prize winner) favourite economist. Along the way, you will get a cheese recommendation, a rather coarse quiz and so many policy ideas, you won’t know what to do with them all. Technical support as always comes from our good friend Nic.

How do you achieve the magic formula of low inflation and economic growth? In the 1970s this was beginning to move further and further away from the reach of policy makers using the traditional approach of ‘demand management’, In the post-war era fiscal and monetary policy to manage the vagaries of the economic cycle but this approach was undermined by the curse of "stagflation". The late 1970s and 1980s so the emergence of a "new" approach and policy-making saw a big swing towards the use of what became known as supply-side policies. On both sides of the Atlantic Thatcherism and Reaganomics introduced ‘trickle-down’ economics to the world and a whole suite of new policies to manage (or not manage!) the economy - but what were they trying to do and did they actually work? In this new special by Pete and Gav, your friendly neighbourhood economists, we dive into the world of supply-side economics. As always we discuss 10 questions that we hope will give you a good overview of what supply-side policies are and the key debates surrounding them. Along the way, you will come across a ‘supply’ quiz and find out which economist has actually seen one of our paintings of them! Technical support as always comes from Nic. Enjoy and afterwards, you might think about what kind of graph you might draw on a napkin that would change economics forever!

What makes firms grow? This appears to be an important question, particularly with governments looking for GDP growth to be driven by firms. The normal vehicle for exploring this in Economics would be to use the 'classical' Theory of the Firm but in terms of growth, it doesn’t really have any answers or at least answers that provide any concrete implications for real-world decision-making. It was this question that the late, great Edith Penrose decided to answer and through doing this, created the Resource Based View (RBV) approach to help explain why firms grow (and some of course do not!). In this second episode of Season 8 of their award winning podcast, your friendly neighbourhood economists Pete and Gav, dive into the world of one of Diane Coyle’s favourite economists - Edith Penrose. Discover how Edith Penrose could be described as the Forrest Gump of economics and see how she challenged the economics orthodoxy of her time. Sadly there is no quiz this time but still there is poetry, food recommendations and plenty of bonhomie. Technical support comes from our own RBV Nic.

Have you ever wanted to walk in the footsteps of the great economists? Do you want to breathe the same air they breathed? Do you want to be inspired by the ghosts of Economics past? Well now's your chance. Cambridge is rich with economic history and in this podcast special, recorded on the hoof, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, take you on a 4 mile journey around Cambridge. Starting at Keynes’ family home and ending at Jesus College, you will find out why certain landmarks are important within the world of economics. It should take you 90 minutes to walk and on the journey, you can pay homage to the likes of Robinson, Marshall, Deaton and Malthus. Technical support as always comes from 'I think they are usable' Nic.

One of the fundamental principles of orthodox economics the idea that all economic agents "maximise" - consumers aim to maximise utility (econ speak for happiness) and producers profit. Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon challenged this assumption and in doing so coined a new verb, ‘to satisfice’ to show how consumers and producers in the ‘real world’ behave somewhat differently. This is the first episode of Season 8 of our award winning podcast, with the theme of the season being "the economists' economist'. In this episode, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, enter the world of Ha-Joon Chang’s favourite economist - Herbert Simon. In the course of our journey of discovery we will meet a robot named after Herb, suggest the perfect past-time for long train journeys and discover Simon's surprising and unusual sartorial choices. As always there is a challenging quiz and lashings of bonhomie. Technical support comes from our muse Nic.

PS You may hear background vocals from baby Henry during the course of the episode and we would correct the following errata which occurred during the course of enthusiastic discussions:

Tom Swift was a character from American teen sci-fi books

Mr Miyagi of Karate Kid fame was, in fact, Japanese

A feature of our economic world is how dominated many markets are by a single firm. If you want to search for something, you ‘Google’ it, if you want a cab, you reach for Uber and if you want to shop, Amazon is the place many will go. Standard economics would suggest this is a bad thing as competition is good for the market, so how has this happened? How bad are monopolies? And are there any upsides? In this podcast special, your friendly neighbourhood economists (who were slightly under the weather) Pete and Gav, explore these questions and more! It’s absolutely stuffed with economic terminology, expertly explained, with lots of case studies to apply your new knowledge to. Perfect for students but perfect for everyone! As always there is a quiz and plenty of book recommendations. Technical support as always comes from our own monopoly on production Nic!