Economics In Ten by Economics In Ten

04.12.2024

Rational - A Play About Economics

What if rational economic man existed? How would they view the current state of the planet? How would they solve ‘the economic problem’? If it was to be solved by extreme methods, how would you respond? In this new play...

02.15.2024

Season 7 - Episode 4 - Gary Becker

Imagine looking at the world and seeing economics everywhere. Whether it was in family dynamics, discrimination in the workplace, the criminal mind…absolutely anything!!! When first mooted this was an alien idea to many, including many economists but this was the...

12.04.2023

London Walk Special

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. Ye olde London Town is...

10.17.2023

Season 7 - Episode 3 - William Stanley Jevons

One could argue that the modern discipline that is Economics is, to a large degree, a branch of applied mathematics. This is a far cry from its early roots found in the work of more philosophical thinkers such as Adam...

08.07.2023

Season 7 - Episode 2 - Robert Lucas Jr

Abraham Lincoln once said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” This quote has been...

06.03.2023

Season 7 - Episode 1 - Hyman P. Minsky

At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, the late Queen Elizabeth II asked economists at the London School of Economics the obvious question "why did nobody notice it?". Doubtless there was much muttering and shuffling of feet at...

04.23.2023

Shakespeare Special: The Seven Ages of Man

In Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, the seven ages of man are described by "melancholy Jacques" the professional misery-guts killing the mood in the Forest of Arden. To celebrate the Bard’s birthday, your friendly neighbourhood economists have produced a Shakespearian...

04.03.2023

Season 6 - Episode 5 - Leon Walras

Leon Walras was described as ‘the greatest economist’ by Joseph Schumpeter and in his own lifetime he struggled to have his unique voice heard by economists in his native France, let alone those colleagues across the Channel and the Atlantic....

02.27.2023

Season 6 - Episode 4 - Herman Daly

Have you ever found yourself considering the "economic" view of the world with a sense that something vital is missing? This was very much Herman Daly's viewpoint. He wondered why economic models didn’t include where resources came from and where...

01.18.2023

Season 6 - Episode 3 - Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher was once lauded by fellow economist Joseph Schumpeter as the ‘greatest economist America has ever produced’. This is high praise indeed but one could easily argue that the most recent Economic Nobel Prize laureates owe Fisher a considerable...

11.14.2022

Fiscal Policy Special

When it comes to influencing the macroeconomy, governments have two big levers at their disposal - monetary policy and fiscal policy. In this new special by Pete and Gav, your friendly neighbourhood economists, we delve into the second of these,...

10.21.2022

Season 6 - Episode 2 - Corrado Gini

When economists discuss inequality, they often quote the Gini Coefficient, but who was the man behind the maths? In this episode, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav investigate the life and ideas of Corrado Gini. Was he on the...

10.03.2022

Monetary Policy Special

When it comes to economic policy making, there are two big levers that a government can pull - monetary policy and fiscal policy. In this new special by your friendly neighbourhood economists Pete and Gav, they delve into the first...

09.12.2022

Season 6 Episode 1 - A W "Bill" Phillips

An economist that hunted crocodiles? An inventor who constructed prison camp radios and hydraulic models of the economy? An adventurer that could speak five different languages and was arrested for spying? Who is this ‘Indiana Jones of Economics’ as he...

07.18.2022

Summer Reading Special 2022

George R R Martin once wrote “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” Here at EconomicsInTen we have always been keen to share our love of reading...

05.09.2022

Season 5 Episode 5 - Millicent Fawcett

In 1890, the British Economic Association was formed, which would later become the Royal Economic Society. At that meeting was Millicent Fawcett and ten or eleven other women. Better known as one of the foremost leaders of the movement for...

03.13.2022

Cost of Living Special

At the moment everyone seems to be talking about the cost of living crisis and it's not hard to see why. Drive past a garage forecourt in the UK and you'll see that petrol prices have reached their highest average...

03.01.2022

Season 5 Episode 4 - Arthur Pigou

What should governments do to stop problems such as consumers overeating or producers polluting? Many economists would encourage what is known as a Pigouvian tax that increases the price, reduces demand and creates revenue for the government, all at the...

01.31.2022

Season 5 Episode 3 - James M Buchanan

What do we expect from our public servants? We assume they do their jobs in order to make the world a better place and improve the welfare of society but James M Buchanan had other ideas. He saw those in...

12.06.2021

Christmas Special 2021

It's Christmas!!! AGAIN! And what more could you want this festive season than another Economics In Ten Christmas Special...it's almost becoming a tradition! So grab a mulled wine and a mince pie and listen to your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete...

11.15.2021

Food and Drink Special

As they sing in Oliver! - Food, glorious food...and we LOVE our food. We love being in the kitchen, we love coming up with recipe ideas and we love gifting food-related books like Snoop Dogg’s glorious cookbook... but what can...

10.29.2021

Season 5 Episode 2 - E F Schumacher

'A Study of Economics as if People Mattered' was the subtitle of E F Schumacher's most famous work, 'Small is Beautiful'. It might seem jarring to non-economists that people might not "matter" in economic theory but Schumacher's contention was that...

09.17.2021

Season 5 Episode 1 - Simon Kuznets

To establish whether you are in good shape a doctor might take your pulse. In economics, Gross Domestic Product (aka GDP) is the go-to metric for determining economic health. Governments can be toppled off the back of disappointing GDP data...

08.03.2021

Summer Reading Special 2021

“A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood. Many of the great economists we have looked at in our past episodes were voracious readers, and whilst we in no way put ourselves in their company...

07.02.2021

Season 4 Episode 5 - Esther Duflo

Have you heard of the ‘Randomistas’? Seemingly they are taking the economics world by storm and at the heart of this group of research economists is a French-American named Esther Duflo. With her husband Abhijit Banerjee and colleague Michael Kremer,...

05.28.2021

Season 4 Episode 4 - Muhammad Yunus

Quiz Question: Who is the only economist to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Answer: Muhammad Yunus.... and yet strangely he has never been in the running to win the equivalent Economics Prize. Is there a reason why his ideas, and...

04.12.2021

Season 4 Episode 3 - Amartya Sen

How do you know if a country is "doing well" economically? How can we say that one country is "more developed" than another? For many years incomes (GDP) and other measures of how much "stuff" a country was making were...

03.15.2021

Season 4 Episode 2 - Hernando de Soto

Are you lucky enough to own your own home or business? But do you ever stop and think about what you would do if someone tried to take it from you, or bulldoze it? Do you ever stop and reflect...

02.12.2021

Inequality Special

Have you ever wanted to know about inequality but didn’t know where to start? In this latest special by Pete and Gav, your friendly neighbourhood economists, you will be guided through the economics of inequality. Along the way you will...

01.25.2021

Season 4 Episode 1 - Daniel Kahneman

Did you hear about the psychologist that won the Nobel Prize for Economics? Sounds like the start of a joke doesn’t it? But in 2002 Daniel Kahneman won the award for the revolutionary work on "prospect theory" carried out with...

12.19.2020

Christmas Special 2020

It’s Christmas!!!! But slightly different in 2020. With the coronavirus still here and a full rollout of a vaccine still distant, there might be many who face Christmas on their own or not seeing many people. Therefore Pete and Gav...

10.19.2020

Season 3 Episode 5 - Thomas Robert Malthus

When Thomas Carlyle famously described Economics as ‘the dismal science’ it was said that it was inspired by the writing of Thomas Malthus. His doom and gloom essay on population was to have a legacy that lasted his lifetime and...

09.20.2020

Season 3 Episode 4 - Ibn Khaldun

Who is the founding father of Economics? Adam Smith you say? Who told you that? We did!?! Well…do you remember that famous quote attributed to Keynes (via Paul Samuelson)? It was ‘when the facts change I change my mind, what...

08.11.2020

Sport Special

The summer of 2020 was the festival of sport that was never was. Many have tried to fill this gap, some with more success than others…I mean, who hasn’t enjoyed watching Simon Anthony complete a Sudoku puzzle on YouTube? Or...

07.27.2020

Season 3 Episode 3 - Joseph Schumpeter

The chances are you have heard the phrase ‘creative destruction’ but what do you know about the man that coined it? In this podcast you will find out about Joseph Schumpeter, an economist who was hard to categorise but had...

06.29.2020

Season 3 Episode 2 - Alfred Marshall

Demand and Supply – the cornerstone of economics! But how much do you know about Alfred Marshall, the first man to draw the ‘Marshallian Cross’ that we all use today? Some argue his ‘Principles of Economics’ was the most influential...

06.01.2020

Season 3 Episode 1 - Milton Friedman

Want to know more about Milton Friedman? The marmite of economics! You may have noticed that people either love him or hate him. Mrs Thatcher lauded him as the quintessential ‘intellectual freedom fighter’ but for others he’s the architect of...

05.05.2020

Positivity Special

The coronavirus has meant misery for many and lockdown has been unsettling for all but in many respects, it’s created an opportunity to stop and think about what kind of world we want to live in. Covid-19 has led to...

03.30.2020

Coronavirus Special

The coronavirus crisis represents a huge challenge for humanity. We are seeing policy making at the national level that is unprecedented outside of war-time - so what might it mean for the future of economics and society in general? Will...

03.02.2020

Season 2 Episode 5 - Joan Robinson

George Bernard Shaw once noted: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ What George forgot though was unreasonable women...

02.01.2020

Love Special

What does the dismal science have to say about the affairs of the heart? More than you imagine... You will be amazed at how much economics can teach you about love, lust and other four letter words. . In the...

01.19.2020

Season 2 Episode 4 - John Forbes Nash Jr

We all like games don’t we? But in order to win games you need the best strategy and there is one economist who is synonymous with games and more specifically ‘game theory’. You might know him from the award winning...

12.02.2019

Christmas Special 2019

It’s Christmas!!!! But what does Christmas have to teach us about economics? Well…quite a lot in fact as you’ll soon find out as you listen to this festive special by the Economics in Ten team. What’s the best present you...

11.18.2019

Season 2 Episode 3 - Sir Arthur Lewis

Sir Arthur Lewis was a pioneer. The first black man to win the Economics Nobel Prize, the first black man to be a professor of any university and in any field in the UK and the economist largely seen as...

10.20.2019

Season 2 Episode 2 - Elinor Ostrom

Traditionally economics has been a man’s world reflected in the fact that out of 84 Nobel Prize winners in Economics, only 2 (until last week only 1!) have been women. This dominance is starting to be challenged and people are...

09.22.2019

Season 2 Episode 1 - Thorstein Veblen

Want to know why Cardi B has five super cars but can't drive? Economics has the answer! Or more specifically Thorstein Veblen does. Who is this man and why is he still so relevant today? From Russian oligarchs to Saudi...

06.10.2019

Summer Reading Special

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss If you want to be a great student of economics or just be well-informed about the world,...

05.13.2019

Season 1 Episode 5 - Karl Marx

Interested in Karl Marx? Want to know what Marxism might be? Ever wondered what the impact of 'The Communist Manifesto' and 'Das Kapital' have been on the world? And have you ever considered that Dolly Parton may have been a...

04.30.2019

Environment Special

This week we are once again moving away from our coverage of economic titans and sharing with you another of our topical "specials". So... Climate change…it’s a hot topic but what light if any can conventional economics shed on it? In...

04.14.2019

Season 1 Episode 4 - David Ricardo

Globalisation…it’s a hot topic in economics but why do so many economists emphasise the importance of trade? Many would argue that this began with David Ricardo and his Theory of Comparative Advantage, leading to the interdependence between countries that we...