The American health insurance system is complex, politically divisive, in need of reform, and facing a historic pandemic crisis. Economists Katherine Baicker and Matt Notowidigdo expose healthcare’s most urgent flaws and discuss potential remedies. Then, Dr. Stacy Lindau joins to discuss the crucial consequences for public health.

Economists are always talking about The Pie - how it grows and shrinks, how it’s sliced, and who gets the biggest shares. Join hosts Eduardo Porter and Tess Vigeland as they talk with leading economists from the University of Chicago and other experts about the most pressing matters of today. Hear how the economic pie is at the heart of issues like COVID-19 vaccine development, gender dynamics in the workplace, energy policy, jobs, and more.

Verified: Dust Up is a new investigative documentary podcast produced by Witness Docs that poses the question: Could a product so many of us have in our medicine cabinets be putting us at risk?

In the second season of Verified, Host Natasha Del Toro and the Verified team investigate whether a group of women developed ovarian cancer from dusting their bodies with Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder—an iconic brand associated with innocence and comfort since the 1800s. One woman's mysterious illness snowballs into thousands of court cases; a trusted brand fights to convince consumers and regulators that baby powder is safe while minimizing the work of the scientists who claim it is not.

Verified: Dust Up is out NOW — listen and subscribe wherever you find your podcasts. If you want to get the first two episodes right now and weekly early releases of Verified: Dust Up without ads, sign up for Stitcher Premium at stitcherpremium.com. Use promo code WITNESS for 1 month free.

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If use of cash continues to wane, will cryptocurrency be the new dollar bill? Is it a revolution or just hype? Economists Eric Budish and Luigi Zingales join blockchain experts to help explain how Bitcoin functions and its implications for the future of money.

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When COVID lockdowns started, the use of cash plummeted. But the pandemic only accelerated a trend already underway. Is a fully cashless world on the horizon? Who benefits from using cash? Fernando Alvarez and Raghuram Rajan share research insights on the economic effects of banning – and introducing – cash in today’s markets.

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The US pays roughly twice as much per person for healthcare as other wealthy nations. Yet Americans are in worse health. A group of leading health economists, physicians, and hospital administrators help explain the system’s striking inefficiencies and the difficult choices presented by reform.

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The global pandemic has revealed critical gaps and weaknesses in the US health care system. How is our system structured and how did we get here? In part one of our deep dive into the health care system, Katherine Baicker and Pietro Tebaldi offer their insights into the dynamics that shape health insurance coverage in America.

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How you experience the global energy crisis and climate change depends in large part on where you live. For this special deep dive episode, Michael Greenstone and Amir Jina discuss long-term research on one place – Bihar, India – and the lessons it offers to the rest of the world.

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COVID-19 has prompted a significant decline in carbon emissions, accompanied by extraordinary economic cost. Professor Michael Greenstone discusses what energy economists are learning from the pandemic and how the trade-offs may be misinterpreted. 

If you’ve listened to Pandemic Economics this season, we’d appreciate your feedback. Please take a minute to complete our survey: pandemiceconomics.org/survey.

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What does the 2016 election tell us about mask use in America? Quite a lot. Austin Wright draws on new research and what it can tell us about the relationship between partisanship and wearing a mask.

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