The Pie: An Economics Podcast
Episodes
The Geography of Human Capital: Why Rich Regions Stay Rich
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
People in the Netherlands average nearly 11 years of schooling, compared to about 2.5 for those in the Central African Republic. Why don't these gaps ...
Eugene Fama on 60 Years of Finance Research
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you have money in an index fund, you are benefiting from Eugene Fama's work. In this Extra Slice of The Pie, the Nobel laureate and "father of mode...
The Transformation of Capitalism: 250 Years After Adam Smith
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Two hundred fifty years after The Wealth of Nations, capitalism looks nothing like Adam Smith imagined (and nothing like Karl Marx predicted, either)...
Laboratories of Autocracy: What Happens When China Shuts Down Its Policy Experiments
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The common perception of Chinese governance is a strong, centralized state. For decades, however, the vast majority of the country's policies origin...
Who Really Paid for the Tariffs? Brent Neiman on Liberation Day's Economic Aftermath
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Who bore the cost of 2025's sweeping tariffs? UChicago economist Brent Neiman returns to The Pie to discuss his new research with co-author Gita Gopin...
Venezuela After Maduro: What Comes Next?
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Days after the Trump administration's surprise military operation captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a panel of UChicago scholars gathered to...
Why Banks Exist and Why They Fail: Douglas Diamond on Runs, Regulation, and the Risks of Short-Term Debt
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Financial crises are "everywhere and always" a problem of short-term debt. In this Extra Slice of The Pie, Nobel laureate Douglas Diamond explains his...
At What Age Does Family Income Most Shape Your Future? Timing and Intergenerational Mobility
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Standard measures of intergenerational mobility treat parental income as a single average across childhood. In this episode, Steven Durlauf, Frank P. ...
The Pie, Wrapped: Innovation, Faith, Purpose, and Market Power
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As we close out 2025, host Tess Vigeland highlights research from UChicago scholars. Hyuk Su Kwon, Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public ...
A Conversation with Roger Myerson: Harmonicas, Xenophon, and Why Your Mayor Matters More Than You Think
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this wide-ranging conversation, Nobel Prize–winning economist Roger Myerson reflects on a career studying how rules shape human behavior, from op...
Chat2Learn: Using Simple Conversation Prompts to Boost Early Childhood Development
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Large gaps in language skills between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds emerge early and persist throughout schooling. In this episode...
Human Capital for Humans: An Accessible Introduction to the Economic Science of People
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What's the greatest driver of economic growth? Love. In this episode, UChicago economist Pablo Peña presents his new book Human Capital for Humans, i...
Liberalism and the Great Enrichment: Why Ideas, Not Capital, Made the Modern World
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Deirdre McCloskey argues the world's jump from $2 to $50 per day in average income came from a radical 18th-century shift: equality of permission, or ...
Economics for Everyone: Teaching the World to Think Like an Economist
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
According to the TIAA Institute, American adults correctly answered just 49% of basic financial questions in 2024, suggesting a fundamental gap in eco...
You Might Also Like: Farmer’s A.I. Manac, from Shocked
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A warmer world is here. Now what? Listen to Shocked, from the University of Chicago’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, and hear journal...
Economic Cheat Codes: How Game Theory Can Help You Win at Work, Love, and Life
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The secret to winning in a rigged economy isn't changing the rules, argues Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather, but mastering the game. In this e...
Moving to Opportunity: Together?
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When couples move for work, whose career takes the hit? UChicago economist Matt Notowidigdo discusses research showing that when heterosexual couples ...
The Economics of Early Childhood: Why the First Five Years Matter Most
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nobel laureate James Heckman explains why ages zero to five are critical for brain development and lifelong outcomes. He discusses the Perry Preschool...
The Law of Unintended Consequences: How Dobbs Changed Contraceptive Choices
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happened to contraceptive choices when the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022? UChicago's Yana Gallen uses health insura...
Finding Your Why at Work: The Economics of Purpose
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can a day of self-reflection improve workplace performance? UChicago economist Virginia Minni reveals findings from a randomized trial involving nearl...
Stuck: How Housing Regulation Ended America's Mobility Revolution
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
America was once a nation in constant motion: One in three Americans moved every year in the 19th century, chasing opportunity from one town to the ne...
Building Costs vs. Housing Prices: Why Construction Isn't Driving the Crisis
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historically, one major reason has consistently been cited for the growth in housing costs in this country: the rising cost of building homes. But tha...
Pay Isn’t Everything: How Economists Put a Price on Job Perks
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Economists often focus on wages when studying the labor market, but paychecks tell only part of the story. University of Chicago economist Evan Rose a...
Decoding Educational Content: A Computational Comparison Between Public and Religious School Textbooks
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Textbooks don't just teach facts, they shape how children understand the world and their place in it. In this episode, UChicago economist Anjali Aduki...
When Religion Meets the Marketplace: Faith, Farming, and Trade-Offs
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when your religion forbids the production of crops that dominate your local economy? In this episode, UChicago economist Eduardo Montero ...
Green Bubble Stigma: Texting, Status, and Market Power
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A text bubble might seem trivial, until it shapes market dynamics, personal identity, and federal lawsuits. In this episode, UChicago economist Leo Bu...
AI, the Economy, and Public Policy
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How is AI impacting the economy today? What might this mean for tomorrow? This episode brings you inside a discussion hosted at BFI in April. Moderate...
Tariffs, Trade, and a Misused Model
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Economist Brent Neiman recently returned to UChicago from his position as Deputy Undersecretary for International Finance at The US Treasury, only to ...
Between a Chip and a Hard Place: The Economics of Security and Sovereignty in Taiwan
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does Taiwan’s precarious position reveal about global power, economic leverage, and the unraveling of diplomatic norms? In this episode, econom...
An Extra Slice of the Pie: Choosing with Uncertainty
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How can policymakers make choices when confronted with uncertainty? What happens when the public loses confidence in scientific authority? Are scienti...
Tariffs, Trust, and the Twilight of Norms: U.S.–China Relations in the Trump Era
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when trust in longstanding economic norms starts to break down? In this episode, economist Chang-Tai Hsieh explores the geopolitical an...
War Economies: How Ukraine and Russia Are Adapting in Year Three
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More than three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war continues to reshape not only geopolitical alliances but also the econo...
Crypto’s Fatal Flaw: Trust, Scale, and the Economics of Blockchain
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Crypto’s most groundbreaking innovation, permissionless consensus, may also be its greatest vulnerability. In this episode, Chicago Booth economist ...
Will They or Won't They? A Former Fed Official on This Week’s Interest Rate Decision
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee meets to decide whether to adjust interest rates or keep them steady. What should we expect am...
Should Performance Reviews Be Scrapped?
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us react to the term “performance review” with a shudder. It’s that awkward periodic conversation in which we have to hear feedback, sha...
The Future of U.S. Energy Policy Under Trump
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump has declared a “national energy emergency,” expanding executive powers to shape U.S. energy policy in his second term. What...
The Economics of Health Insurance: Denials, Pre-Authorizations, and Cost Control
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The debate over health insurance denials intensified last year after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO. In this episode of The Pie, host T...
Powering Innovation: How Government Subsidies Accelerate Electric Vehicle Breakthroughs
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The automotive industry is at the forefront of a global shift toward sustainability, with nations setting ambitious electric vehicle (EV) adoption tar...
Five Years Later: How COVID-19 Reshaped Our Economy and Lives
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the world. In this episode of The Pie, Matt Notowidigdo, Professor at the Chicago Booth...
Unlocking Higher Education: Undergraduate Re-Enrollment and Graduate Student Lending
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why do so many students leave college before completing their degree, and how can we help them return? Lesley Turner, Associate Professor at the Unive...
What Economics Taught Us in 2024
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Americans attend church less often than they claim. Recessions can improve our health. Pesticides pose hidden dangers. And perceptions of monetary pol...
Balancing Purse and Peace: Tax Collection, Public Goods, and Protests
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many low-income countries face a dilemma: keep taxes low and remain unable to build state capacity, or raise taxes and risk political unrest. In this ...
Pricing Pollution: Measuring Carbon Externalities for US Corporations
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A company’s value includes not just the goods and services it provides but also the societal costs it imposes. In this episode of The Pie, Lubos Pas...
Deadly Prescriptions: What Happens When Doctors Compete for Patients
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When some US states allowed nurse practitioners to prescribe controlled substances without physician oversight, a serious unintended consequence took ...
An Extra Slice of the Pie, with James Robinson: History, Politics, and the Road to an Economics Nobel
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
James Robinson, a University Professor with appointments in both UChicago’s Harris School of Public Policy as well as the Political Science Departme...
Economics Meets Ecology: The Huge Costs of Ecosystem Declines
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bats are considered a natural pesticide. When they began to die out due to an invasive fungus, farmers turned to chemicals to control pests. The resul...
How Do Buyouts Impact Hospital Performance? Evaluating the Role of Private Equity in Healthcare
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Private equity investors made some $200 billion worth of healthcare acquisitions in 2021, and $1 trillion worth in the 10 years leading up to 2023. In...
What Can the North Dakota Railroad War of 1905 Tell Us About Regulating Modern Monopolies?
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When the Soo Line threatened to expand into the Great Northern Railway’s territory in 1905, the two companies entered a fierce competition for marke...
Understanding the Fed: How Perception Drives Market Reactions
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve responded to COVID-era inflation with the fastest increase in the federal funds rate in 40 years. Importantly, the effectiveness o...
Promises Delivered? The Economic Effects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a landmark piece of tax legislation from the first year of the Trump administration, overhauled the tax code for bo...
Creative Destruction: Why Innovation is Crucial for Growth
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The primary contributor to long-run growth is productivity: A country’s ability to raise residents’ standards of living depends on its ability to ...
Using Machine Learning to Predict—and Prevent—Police Misconduct
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of numerous high-profile incidents of police use of force, particularly against Black Americans, law enforcement agencies across the Unite...
What Went Wrong With Federal Student Loans?
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is in the midst of a student loan crisis, with over 45 million borrowers owing more than $1.6 trillion in federal dollars. On this e...
The Uncertainties of Climate Change
15 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How can we incentivize the private and public sectors to develop and deploy solutions to climate change, while accounting for uncertainties? This epis...
Using Cellphone Data to Observe Religious Worship in the United States
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do location data from roughly 2.1 million cellphones say about religiosity in the United States? In this episode of The Pie, Devin Pope, Professo...
India’s Economic Future
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
India’s government has big goals for economic growth. The former Governor of the country’s Reserve Bank, Raghuram Rajan, argues that India won't b...
ChatGPT: Who’s Adopting, Who’s Abstaining, and Why?
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A year-and-a-half after its launch, half of workers report having used ChatGPT on the job. On this episode of The Pie, Anders Humlum, Assistant Profes...
Is College Worth It? Measuring the Returns to Higher Education
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
College graduates earn more than those who didn’t attend college. Does this mean higher education boosts your income? Or, does college simply attrac...
Fighting Traffic in Chicago: Lower Fares, More Trains, Fewer Buses
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
American cities are overreliant on cars. Policies for reducing this gridlock and pollution range from changing public transit fares or frequencies to ...
Which Companies Discriminate Most? Experimental Evidence on Callback Rates by Applicant Race and Gender
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A small number of companies are responsible for a substantial amount of the discrimination in today’s labor market. Who are they? In this episode of...
Recessions: What Are They Good For? Possibly Your Health
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When the Great Recession hit in 2007, it produced the largest decline in US employment since the Great Depression. It also substantially reduced morta...
Knowing When to Stop: The Unintended Consequences of Monetary Policy
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of The Pie features a panel discussion following a talk from Raghuram Rajan, the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor o...
From Authoritarianism to Democracy: The Political Economy of Latin America
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Anti-democratic sentiment is on the rise across Latin America. This episode of The Pie explores the evolving political and economic landscape of Latin...
Closing the Achievement Gap: Is There an App for That?
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Children whose parents have college degrees are often more skilled readers than children whose parents didn't attend college. In this episode of The P...
Two Economies, Two Years of War: An Update on Economic Conditions in Russia and Ukraine
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Russian-born economist Konstantin Sonin, Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, joins The Pie to provide an update on ...
Conflict-Free or Conflict Displaced? Mine Certifications and Conflict in the Congo
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many mines in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are controlled by armed groups that frequently engage in conflict with nearby civilians. In...
Tearing Down Healthcare to Rebuild it for Everyone: A Panel on the Economics of Insurance Reform
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most observers are convinced that America’s healthcare system needs reform. This episode of The Pie features a discussion among MIT health economist...
12 Months of Economics: Vultures, ChatGPT, Student Loans, and the Social Safety Net
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What happens to humans when vultures go extinct? Why did the student loan pause increase debt? Plus, do government benefits change how parents inves...
The Economics of Reproductive Choice
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Women who have unplanned births experience earnings losses of up to 25%, while planned births reduce earnings by roughly 15%. Yana Gallen, Assistant P...
Are you Trapped on Social Media?
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Would you rather keep things as is, or, remove yourself and all your friends from social media? You aren’t alone if you chose the latter. Recent res...
The New Normal: Working from Home in 2023
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Roughly a quarter of all paid workdays are now done from home, up from 7% in 2019. How did this shift unfold across different areas, industries, and w...
The Price of Crime: What Time Behind Bars Does to Earning Potential on Release
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The United States imprisons its population at a rate that is on par with North Korea. In this episode, Evan Rose of the Kenneth C. Griffin Department ...
Restorative Justice: What Happened When Chicago Public Schools Replaced Suspensions with Restitution?
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The rate of school suspensions has more than doubled for Black and Latino children since 1974, inspiring a small but growing movement aimed at finding...
A New Tactic for Police Reform: Using Behavioral Economics to Curb Unnecessary Arrests
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Police use of force has prompted a national debate around misconduct and how to solve what many believe to be a systemic issue. Harris Policy’s Oein...
How Much Would it Cost to Save the Rainforest?
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a massive carbon sink, the Brazilian Amazon plays a crucial role in stabilizing the global climate. It’s also valuable farmland. How do economist...
Lessons from Pandemic Unemployment Benefits: When Government Generosity Becomes Necessity
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. government swung into action when the ranks of the pandemic unemployed swelled almost beyond recognition. Three years on, economists are cont...
The Hidden Economic Forces That Determine How Much You Earn
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How much effect do government policies have on doctors’ wages? And when those wages are high, does it drive inequality in other jobs? And how does T...
A Case for Public School Choice? Lessons from Los Angeles
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the Los Angeles Unified School District combined some neighborhood high schools into Zones of Choice, schools had to compete for students. The re...
Do You Even Crypto, Bro?
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The use of cryptocurrency is on the rise, but who exactly is on the bandwagon? Chicago Booth’s Michael Weber has examined the crypto market – who’...
Social Distancing in 2023: The Economic Costs of Lingering COVID Fears
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many, if not most, citizens of working age have gone back to their jobs in the three-plus years since the start of the pandemic – but not everybody ...
Harvesting Green Investments: The Promise and Perils of ESG
27 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the stock market, we all want to do well, but for some investors it’s also important to do good. In this episode, Chicago Booth’s Lubos Pastor ...
How Debt Relief Raised Debts: The Untold Story of the Student Loan Moratorium
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Did borrowers and the American economy benefit from the federal government’s 2020 student debt moratorium? The picture is complicated according to n...
Quid Pro Vote: The Politics and Economics of Vote-Buying
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vote-buying, or influencing voters’ decisions through favors or gifts, is pervasive in areas such as Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. UC B...
Misperceived Truths: Global Support for Women in the Workplace is More Than You Might Think
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, people underestimate support for basic women's rights. In new research, UChicago Economics' Leonardo Bursztyn documents these misper...
Inflation: The Good, The Bad, and the Baffling
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nobody ever wants to pay more for anything, especially when prices rise drastically – but can inflationary episodes be good for the economy? Harris ...
Sometimes Bigger IS Better: The Case for Bringing Rural Healthcare to Urban Hospitals
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When rural patients need care that local medical facilities can’t provide, what’s the best way to ensure they get the care they need? Chicago Boot...
Social Media Algorithms: How You’re Curating a Biased News Feed
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Social media behaviors, moving at an ever faster pace, may not reflect what users really want, according to new research from economists Sendhil Mulla...
Evaluating US Healthcare 3 Years after Lockdown
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the third anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns, this episode takes a look at ongoing healthcare market failures and the pandemic’s role in making th...
Scavenging for Answers: The Human Toll of Vulture Population Collapse
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What can vultures and economics tell us about the cost of losing a keystone species? New research from environmental economist Eyal Frank of the Harri...
Law of Unintended Consequences: Welfare Reform and Crime
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When policymakers passed a historic welfare reform law in 1996, they likely did not anticipate what would happen when youth with disabilities turned 1...
Economics of Discrimination: How to Measure Systemic Injustices
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can discrimination by race, gender, or other factors be measured – especially when its causes may be systemic in nature? Chicago Booth’s Alex ...
What Drives Racial Differences in Speeding Tickets and Fines?
10 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New research finds minorities are 24-33% more likely to be stopped for speeding and will pay 23-34% more in fines, relative to a white driver travelin...
2023: An Economic Nudge for the New Year
27 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can ‘nudges’ improve your New Year’s resolutions? Today we’re looking back at one of our most popular episodes. Host Tess Vigeland sat down wi...
China Faltering? Why COVID Is Not Its Biggest Economic Problem
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How will China’s economy respond after the lifting of ‘Zero Covid’ policy? UChicago economist Chang-Tai Hsieh joins The Pie to discuss the surpr...
Economic Warfare: Are Russian Sanctions Working?
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ten months into a devastating war, the Russian and Ukrainian economies are struggling yet resilient. Russian-born economist Konstantin Sonin joins The...
Fighting Inflation: Is the Fed’s Work Just Beginning?
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve’s latest 75 basis point rate hike brought interest rates up again on everything from mortgages to car loans and credit cards. Wi...
Tax vs Ban: The Unexpected Results on Gun Sales
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we’re talking about guns. Chicago Booth economist Brad Shapiro has quantified—for the first time—American consumer demand for g...
COVID and Schools: Elementary Lessons
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Did closing schools during the COVID-19 pandemic serve students and society at-large? As part of a World Bank Advisory Panel, University of Chicago ec...
WFH… Gone Global
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The remote work revolution is now more than two years old, and it’s a worldwide phenomenon, at least in wealthier countries. Economist Steve Davis h...
We're Back with More of The Pie
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Last season, we were at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, effecting every aspect of our lives and the economy. So this season, we're back looking at ...