EJW Audio
Episodes
Lars Magnusson on the History of Economic Thought in Sweden
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2022, Swedish historian of economic thought Lars Magnusson published a major book (in Swedish) about Swedish economic thought, from the late Midd...
George Selgin on the New Deal and Economic Recovery
31 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
George Selgin discusses his book False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947 (University of Chicago Press, 2025), which was trea...
Ivan Katchanovski on Maidan and Ukraine 2014
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Ivan Katchanovski discusses his article examining the Maidan massacre and the ouster of President Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014. This...
Jeffrey Sachs, An Established Anti-Establishment Economist
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University is interviewed by Daniel Klein about being an economist, his favorite economists, his economist mentor...
Nicolás Cachanosky on Liberalism in Argentina from 1816 to 1884
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on his EJW article coauthored with Alejandro Goméz, Nicolás Cachanosky guides us through classical liberalism at work in Argentina from 1...
Glenn Diesen on Russophobia from Cobden’s Time to Today
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Glenn Diesen discusses Russophobia historically considered. He is the author of Russophobia: Propaganda in International Politics (2022)...
Michael O’Connor on Sharpe Ratios and Investing
15 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Michael O’Connor is interviewed by David Barker on O’Connor’s major critique of the use of Sharpe ratios in hypothesis testing and investing....
John Hand on McKinsey Studies on Executive Race/Ethnic Diversity
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Hand discusses his EJW article coauthored with Jeremiah Green, a quasi-replication of a series of studies by the consulting firm McKinsey, on f...
Dan Klein on Classical Liberalism by Country: Lessons for Liberal Civic Virtue
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Klein tells of the EJW series Classical Liberalism by Country and draws lessons about liberal civic virtue. His remarks are based on a published...
Edwin van de Haar on the History of Classical Liberalism in the Netherlands
30 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Edwin van de Haar discusses the classical liberal movements in the Netherlands from the Dutch Golden Age, through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries,...
Paul Robinson on Russian Liberalism
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Robinson is the author of Russian Liberalism, published by Northern Illinois University Press, due September 2023. Robinson is Professor at the...
Vlad Tarko and Radu Nechita on Liberalism in Romania, 1829 to 2023
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vlad Tarko and Radu Nechita discuss their EJW article on liberalism in Romania, which is the latest contribution to the Classical Liberalism in Ec...
Sheilagh Ogilvie on 900 Years of European Guilds
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sheilagh Ogilvie, the Chicele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford, explains European guilds from 1000 to 1900. The topic relates...
Art Carden on William H. Hutt
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Art Carden discusses his EJW article with Phil Magness vindicating William H. Hutt from “racism”/“white supremacism” charges leveled by Wil...
David Barker on Temperature and Economic Growth
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David Barker criticizes the article in Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, by Federal Reserve researchers, which concluded that climate change wo...
Eva Forslund and Magnus Henrekson on English vs. the Native Language
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Illustrating with Sweden and economics, Eva Forslund and Magnus Henrekson explore the pull toward using English in academics, and the downsides, b...
Phil Magness on Quinn Slobodian on Mises
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on his EJW article coauthored with Amelia Janaskie, Phil Magness criticizes Quinn Slobodian’s work on Ludwig von Mises and criticizes the...
Michael Weissman on GREs in Physics Education Research
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Weissman, a physicist, criticizes three papers published in Physical Review Physics Education Research, based on his EJW article published i...
Sebastián Rodríguez on Liberalism in Colombia
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sebastián Rodríguez discusses his article with Gilberto Ramírez on liberalism in Colombia, which is the 22nd article in the Classical Liberalism ...
Dan Klein, in Praise of Ideological Openness
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Echoing Gunnar Myrdal, Dan Klein praises ideological disclosure, viewing it as similar to the disclosure of vested interests. He shares survey resul...
Benoît Malbranque on Marquis D’Argenson and Liberal French Economic Thought circa 1750
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Benoît Malbranque discusses an early statement of the laissez-faire principle that emphasized the impossibility of the state gathering sufficient kn...
Jens Grandell on Liberalism in Finland in the Nineteenth Century
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jens Grandell discusses the rise of liberal ideas in Finland over the 19th century, and the role of language—Finnish versus Swedish—in making an ...
Austin Sandler on Quality Control in Anthropometry
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Austin Sandler finds that an ill-founded rule is being mechanically applied in anthropometry to discard datasets, and he argues that it harms science...
Enrique Guerra-Pujol on Adam Smith’s Love Life
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Enrique Guerra-Pujol discusses the primary source evidence about Adam Smith’s love life, what to make of it, and why we care. The conversation is b...
Lucas Berlanza on Liberalism in Brazil
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lucas Berlanza discusses the rich history of Brazil, its “patrimonial” politics, and its veins of liberalism, based on his EJW article “Libera...
Scott Drylie on Scholarship on Adam Smith on Schooling and Government
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Building on his EJW article, Scott Drylie reads Adam Smith on schooling and government, and the secondary literature. He challenges the orthodox vi...
Karen Horn and Stefan Kolev on Menger vs. Schmoller
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Karen Horn and Stefan Kolev led a group effort to produce the first-ever English translation of Carl Menger’s The Errors of Historicism in Germ...
Arnold Kling on Why Edward Leamer Deserves a Nobel Prize
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Arnold Kling is interviewed by econometrician Brendan Beare about his EJW article on the sage who took the con out of econometrics.
Evan Osborne on Joan Robinson’s Little-Repented Maoism
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Evan Osborne discusses Joan Robinson’s communism and how it has been treated by scholars, based on his EJW article “Captive of One’s Own Theor...
Nicholas Curott on Bias in Money and Banking Textbooks
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Curott discusses six leading undergraduate textbooks in money and banking, based on the thorough EJW article coauthored with Tyler Watts a...
Young Back Choi on Liberalism in Korea
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Young Back Choi provides a crash course in Korean political history and the role of liberalism, up to the present, based on his EJW article coauthor...
Martin van Staden on Classical Liberalism in South Africa
18 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Martin van Staden, of the Free Market Foundation in Johannesburg, discusses his article on classical liberalism in South Africa during the period 191...
Ron Michener on Why It’s Important to Get Colonial U.S. Monetary History Right
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ron Michener explains his belief that cliometricians are getting colonial money wrong, and in ways that prevent a proper understanding of the why the...
Patrick Mardini on the Political Economy of Lebanon
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick Mardini discusses the history of Lebanon and struggles for freer enterprise there, based on his article for the EJW series on Classical L...
Ivo Welch on Critical Finance Review
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
UCLA finance professor Ivo Welch discusses the prestigious journal that he founded and edits, Critical Finance Review, a journal of critical commen...
James Forder on Milton Friedman’s Early Work on Stabilization Policy
31 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
James Forder explains one of the reasons Milton Friedman received the Nobel prize: his early insight on the complexities of stabilization policy. The...
Leo Krasnozhon on Liberalism in Ukraine
25 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Leo Krasnozhon discusses the history and current status of liberal currents in Ukraine, based on his EJW article with Mykola Bunyk.
John Cairns on the 1758 Pamphlet about Hair-Cutting in Edinburgh
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John W. Cairns of the University of Edinburgh discusses the remarkable pamphlet that in 1758 roasted barbers’ claim to an exclusive privilege to ...
Lanny Ebenstein on Hayek’s Personal Affairs
30 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
New light has been shed on Friedrich Hayek’s divorce and second marriage, his move to the United States, and his position at the University of Chica...
Dwight Lee on the Two Moralities and Teaching Econ 101
23 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dwight Lee discusses the ancestral band, Hayek’s two-worlds hypothesis, and teaching economics, based on his EJW article co-authored with J. R. Cla...
Patricia Saenz-Armstrong on Economic Liberalism in Peru
31 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Patricia Saenz-Armstrong describes “the other path” in Peru—the liberal path—following on her contribution to the Classical Liberalism in E...
Dan Sutter on U.S. Department of Energy Propaganda
29 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Sutter discusses propagandistic research by DOE, regarding (1) how mindful Americans are about household energy efficiency and (2) justificati...
George DeMartino on Professional Economic Ethics
30 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
George DeMartino discusses the emergent field of professional economic ethics—its topics, themes, and numerous nudges for practitioners—as explor...
Björn Hasselgren on Erik Gustaf Geijer
14 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847) is rediscovered with the new book Freedom in Sweden: Selected Works of Erik Gustaf Geijer (2017). The editor Björn...
Evan Osborne on Liberalism in China
30 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on his paper coauthored with Xingyuan Feng and Weisen Li, Evan Osborne discusses the history and current trends of liberal thought and poli...
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel on Kenneth Rogoff’s “The Curse of Cash”
19 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Hummel discusses Kenneth Rogoff’s The Curse of Cash. Hummel’s review of the book, along with a response from Rogoff, appeared in the M...
Hannes Gissurarson on Liberalism in Iceland
31 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Iceland’s leading liberal Hannes Gissurarson tells of the history of liberalism in Iceland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, based on hi...
Daniel Schwekendiek on Korea’s Incentivized Exports
16 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on his EJW article, Daniel Schwekendiek discusses how South Korea has used export strategies to deal with corruption, first in industry and...
Alberto Mingardi on Liberalism in Italy
31 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Alberto Mingardi discusses liberalism in Italy, from the unification period (1860s) to the present, based on his contribution to the now 13-article...
Benny Carlson on Swedish Economists
19 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on his EJW article coauthored with Lars Jonung, Benny Carlson discusses the remarkable tradition of public discourse actuated by the five t...
Erwin Dekker on Carl Menger on Adam Smith
30 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Erwin Dekker and Stefan Kolev have provided in EJW a first-ever English translation of a remarkable 1891 essay by Carl Menger. In this podcast Dekke...
Frank Machovec on Perfect Competition
18 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Apropos Friedrich Hayek’s essay “The Meaning of Competition,” Frank M. Machovec discusses his book Perfect Competition and the Transformatio...
Samuel Fleischacker on Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator
28 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Fleischacker discusses the impartial spectator and the role it plays in Adam Smith’s moral system, based on his contribution to the EJW sympo...
Pavel Kuchař on Liberalism in Mexico
15 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Pavel Kuchař, a Czech teaching in Mexico, tells of his EJW paper exploring the complex history of liberalism in Mexican economic thought and its st...
David Cushman on Transitory and Permanent Shocks to GDP
29 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Interviewed by Garett Jones, David Cushman discusses his article “A Unit Root in Postwar U.S. Real GDP Still Cannot Be Rejected, and Yes, It Mat...
Hugo Faria on Venezuela and Liberalism
24 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Hugo Faria, a Venezuelan economist and expat now teaching at the University of Miami, tells the sad story of his home country, based on his EJW paper...
Shruti Rajagopalan on Liberalism in India
29 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Shruti Rajagopalan narrates the history of liberal ideas and policy in India, from the 1920s to today, based on her coauthored article “Liberalism...
Arthur Melzer on the History, Analysis, and Significance of Esotericism
01 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur Melzer is the author of the landmark book Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (University of Chicago Press, 2...
W. Robert Reed on Replication in Economics
30 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Reed reports on the progress of replication at economics journals, based on the investigation conducted and coauthored with Maren Duvendack and...
Jon Diesel on Economists and Organ Liberalization
31 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Diesel discusses his article “Do Economists Reach a Conclusion on Organ Liberalization?” The interviewer, Lawrence H. White, adds insight a...
Jason Briggeman and Daniel Klein on Publishing in Econ Journal Watch
20 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What should you know if you want to publish in EJW? Jason Briggeman and Daniel Klein discuss what EJW is, how it works, and what it is looking for...
John Horowitz on Public Finance and the Welfare Costs of Taxation
15 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
John Horowitz discusses his EJW article (co-authored with Cecil Bohanon and James McClure) showing that public finance textbooks very often fail to...
Morris Kleiner on Occupational Licensing
19 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Morris Kleiner discusses his research as represented in Licensing Occupations: Ensuring Quality or Restricting Competition? (2006) and Stages of O...
Robin Klay and Victor Claar on Economics in Religious Perspective
30 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In conjunction with the Acton Institute co-sponsored symposium “Does Economics Need an Infusion of Religious or Quasi-Religious Formulations?,” ...
Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys on Sports Subsidies
23 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys discuss their EJW paper finding that economists mostly frown on government subsidies for professional sports fra...
Lanny Ebenstein on Milton Friedman’s Ideological Evolution
30 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Based on his EJW article “The Increasingly Libertarian Milton Friedman” Lanny Ebenstein discusses how Friedman’s support for liberalization b...
Daniel Klein on the Ideological Migration of the Economics Laureates
21 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Klein describes and summarizes the project in EJW that investigates the ideological outlook of each of the 71 Nobel laureates in economics (...
Frank Stephenson on Occupational Licensing and Labor Economics
24 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Stephenson discusses his 2009 EJW article with Erin Wendt on the scant coverage of occupational licensing (OL) in labor economics textbooks. ...
Catherine Hakim on Work-Lifestyle Preference and Erotic Capital
20 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast, Catherine Hakim first discusses “preference theory,” her theory that women have different attitudes than men about work and lif...
Hugh Rockoff on Free-Banking Episodes
31 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Hugh Rockoff discusses his EJW paper (with Ignacio Briones) on the findings of economic historians with regard to periods during which banks were l...
David Lipka on Deirdre McCloskey, Max U, and Prudence in Adam Smith
30 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
David Lipka brings Adam Smith’s ideas about prudence to Deirdre McCloskey’s suggestion that the Max U approach represents prudence. In this discu...
Roland Vaubel on the Euro: A Political Narrative
13 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Roland Vaubel discusses the Euro as a creature of politics. He explains the particular political machinations behind its history, current state, and ...
James Tooley on Education in Developing Countries
22 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
James Tooley discusses the treatment of schooling in Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. He argues, as in his EJW article, that B...
Robin Lindsey on the Economics of Road Pricing
09 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Robin Lindsey discusses the economics of road pricing, in theory and practice. The discussion is based on his EJW article showing that economists a...
Pierre Desrochers on Freedom Versus Coercion in Industrial Ecology
22 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast, Pierre Desrochers discusses his research on the tendencies in free enterprise to make wealth from waste. In May 2012, EJW published...
Daniel Sutter on the Near Absence of Math-free Economics Articles
31 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In an EJW article, Daniel Sutter and Rex Pjesky asked “Where Would Adam Smith Publish Today?” Their research shows that an overwhelming share ...
Clifford Thies on the AEA and Richard T. Ely
28 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The American Economic Association takes pride in celebrating its founder Richard T. Ely. This pride is strange, given the character of Ely’s thought...
Henry E. Smith on Property
09 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Henry E. Smith is one of the premier critics of the bundle-of-rights view of property. In this podcast he discusses the nature of property, highlight...
Phil Coelho and Jim McClure on the Market for Lemmas
04 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Phil Coelho and Jim McClure discuss their research published in EJW and elsewhere showing that top journal papers containing lemmas—intermedia...
Christopher Martin on Adam Smith and Liberal Economics
12 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on his EJW article, Christopher Martin discusses Emma Rothschild’s influential article “Adam Smith and Conservative Economics,” whi...
Shirley Svorny on Medical Licensing
09 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Shirley Svorny explains how regulations on the practice of medicine raise costs and restrict access to care. The podcast starts with a discussion of ...
Tawni Ferrarini on Advanced Placement Economics
23 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Tawni Ferrarini discusses her paper with James Gwartney and John Morton studying the content of AP® Economics: “Advanced Placement Economics: The ...
David Henderson on Economists and the Draft
22 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
David Henderson tells the story of how economists had a significant voice in ending conscription in the United States. The podcast summarizes the pap...
W. R. Allen on UCLA Economics
06 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
W. R. Allen tells the story of the UCLA economics department and the distinctive community of scholarship that developed there. The podcast summari...
Wreck the Currency or Default on the Debt? Jeffrey Rogers Hummel Anticipates U.S. Sovereign Default
06 Jul 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel begins with his EJW article, “Death and Taxes, Including Inflation: The Public versus Economists” (link). He and Lawrence ...
Michael Marlow on Bans on Smoking and Politically Incorrect Research
04 May 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Michael L. Marlow discusses his EJW article “Honestly, Who Else Would Fund Such Research? Reflections of a Non-Smoking Scholar”. Marlow also has ...
Richard Timberlake on the Gold Standard
17 Mar 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Timberlake discusses his August 2005 article in EJW, “Gold Standards and the Real Bills Doctrine in U.S. Monetary Policy.”
Bruce Benson’s Overcoming of False Identity
29 Jan 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Benson discusses his article in the September 2009 issue of EJW, titled “Economic Dissociative Identity Disorder: The Math Gamer, the Ant...
Steven Horwitz on the 1930s and Beyond
08 Sep 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Horwitz discusses his article in the September 2009 issue of EJW, titled: “Great Apprehensions, Prolonged Depression: Gauti Eggertsson o...