Capitalisn't

Raghuram Rajan: Why The Banking Crisis Isn’t Over

Several questions continue to swirl around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its larger implications. In this special episode, Chicago Booth’s Raghuram Rajan – former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and IMF Chief Economist – joins Bethany and Luigi to explore the risks in the financial system and possible solutions. Rajan discusses a paper he presented (with NYU Professor Viral Acharya) at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole conference in 2022, arguing that the Fed’s liquidity provisi...

Are The Twitter Files A Scandal?

Read ProMarket's ongoing coverage of the Twitter Files, including the research summary of the Twitter Files prepared by Stigler Center Research Professional Utsav Gandhi in preparation for this episode Read the Stigler Center's 2019 Report on Digital Platforms , addressing many of the underlying issues discussed in this episode: trust and transparency in social media, business models of journalism, platform regulation when it comes to content moderation, and more....

SVB: The End of Banking as We Know It?

We had initially prepared an entirely different episode for today, but last week's Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the largest in U.S. history since 2008, meant a quick change of plans. What happened? What is unique about this bank run, and what isn't? How much should regulators be blamed, and how much should bank management be? Do social media and today's frantic digital environment mean this is the end of banking as we know it? Luigi and Bethany talk to two experts with unique insights into the ...

The Capitalisn't Of Consulting: McKinsey And Beyond

Revisit: When the Profit Motive Kills , with Anand Giridharadas, on Capitalisn't Why the US Government Buys Overpriced Services From McKinsey , by Matt Stoller in ProMarket

ProMarket: Why Martin Wolf Changed His Mind on Milton Friedman

Read the following articles in ProMarket : There Is a Direct Line from Milton Friedman to Donald Trump's Assault on Democracy , by Martin Wolf George Stigler and the Challenge of Democracy , by Anat Admati Corporations Are Not “We the People, ” by Geoffrey Stone eBook: Milton Friedman 50 Years Later, a Reevaluation Also, check out relevant past Capitalisn't episodes: Martin Wolf: Is Capitalism Killing Democracy ? Why Capitalism Needs Democracy The Breaking Point Of Democracy With Morton Schapiro...

Martin Wolf: Is Capitalism Killing Democracy?

Read the following articles in ProMarket : There Is a Direct Line from Milton Friedman to Donald Trump's Assault on Democracy , by Martin Wolf George Stigler and the Challenge of Democracy , by Anat Admati Corporations Are Not “We the People, ” by Geoffrey Stone eBook: Milton Friedman 50 Years Later, a Reevaluation Also, check out relevant past Capitalisn't episodes: Why Capitalism Needs Democracy The Breaking Point Of Democracy With Morton Schapiro and Gary Morson...

Google: The New Vampire Squid? With Dina Srinivasan

In a Wall Street Journal article about Google’s Secret ‘Project Bernanke,’ Jeff Horwitz and Keach Hagey quoted Google Chief Economist Hal Varian's answer to a question he was asked during the Stigler Center's 2019 Antitrust and Competition Conference . Watch the video excerpt here. " Why Google Dominates Advertising Markets ," by Dina Srinivasan, Stanford Technology Law Review, December 2019 Read ProMarket's ongoing coverage of Google here ....

The End Of China’s Miracle?

Show notes: On February 9th, 2023, " China’s New Covid Strategy ," the next webinar in the Stigler Center's series on China's political economy, will feature Chang-Tai Hsieh, along with Schwarzman Scholars/Harvard Medical School's Joan Kaufman and the Financial Times ' Nian Liu (Stigler Center Journalist in Residence, 2021). Register here . Revisit previous webinars hosted by the Stigler Center on China’s political economy and read a summary: https://www.promarket.org/2023/02/02/event-notes-chin...

Shattering Immigration Myths: Data Beyond Borders

Revisiting The Meritocracy Debate With Adrian Wooldridge And Michael Sandel

Capitalisn't will be back in your feeds with a brand new episode on January 19. Don't forget to rate and review our podcast if you haven't already, and leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/Capitalisnt .

He Foresaw Inflation. Here’s What He Expects Next. Feat. Lord Mervyn King

Taylor Swift, Ticketmaster, and Chokepoint Capitalism with Cory Doctorow

Read an excerpt from the book here: https://www.promarket.org/2022/10/03/why-streaming-doesnt-pay/

The "Woke" Capitalism Game With Vivek Ramaswamy

We're taking the holiday off to be with our families, but that doesn't stop the economic news. And there is no story bigger than the collapse of the crypto exchange, FTX. One aspect that attracted our attention was Sam Bankman-Fried, the young CEO of FTX, officially bought into a philosophy called Effective Altruism, where you make the most money to give it to the poor. However, in a text exchange with a Vox reporter SBF said "this dumb game we woke westerns play where we say all the right thing...

The Capitalisn't of Elon Musk's Twitter

[Show Notes: During the episode, Luigi mentions the paper of a Stigler Center Fellow. Here is a ProMarket piece describing this research in further detail: https://www.promarket.org/2022/11/10/the-economics-of-content-moderation-on-social-media/ ]

A Different Story Of Inflation With John Cochrane

In June 2022, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said, "we [now] understand better how little we understand about inflation." So what do we actually know about inflation? In this episode, Luigi and Bethany explore the origins of inflation with John Cochrane, Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and author of the popular "Grumpy Economist" blog. They discuss Cochrane's new book, "The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level", where he offers a novel understanding of monetary policy by merging ...

[Unedited]: Thomas Piketty On Creating A More Equal Society

French economist Thomas Piketty is one of the leading intellectuals documenting inequality, with his 2013 book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” becoming widely read and cited. His new book, "A Brief History of Equality," is more optimistic: In it, Piketty documents how our world has become relatively more equal since the end of the 18th century. In this unedited conversation, Piketty talks to Bethany and Luigi about the lessons from this movement toward equality and where it could go next –...

Antitrust-Isn't: The Story Of Declining Enforcement In America

Academics and policymakers alike draw a significant correlation between some of today's biggest problems - such as economic inequality - with rising corporate concentration and the ever-decreasing lack of antitrust enforcement. How did this narrative come to be? Is it necessarily correct, and how has it persisted over time? A new paper provides just this data, and it's co-authored by our very own co-host Luigi Zingales, along with Filippo Lancieri, JSD alum, and Eric Posner, Professor, both from...

Capitalism In Our Attention Economy With Albert Wenger

Albert Wenger is Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, which has invested in some of today's most exciting technology companies. In his new book, “The World After Capital", he argues that capitalism cannot allocate all resources efficiently in the digital age – where the new shortage isn't capital, but rather, human attention. While economically incentivized activities will not go away, he says, we must make room for the things we cannot put a price on. He proposes increasing three freedoms...

The Student Debt Dilemma With Constantine Yannelis

We’re taking a week off here at the end of the summer, but with Biden’s recent student loan announcement we couldn’t help but think back to our episode about student debt with Constatine Yannelis. Before he was elected, Biden had promised to remove 50K in debt from borrowers. His recent announcement doesn’t quite match that promise, but this episode still contains an incredible amount of vital information about our student debt problem, who really benefits from forgiveness, and what are real sol...

Does Software Actually Slow Innovation?

Why have labor and productivity growth slowed? Software entrepreneur-turned-academic researcher, James Bessen, argues the problem isn't fewer productive startups, or M&A activity (which has actually slowed), but big corporations dominating by mastering "proprietary" software — the intersection of technology and data — which has had major negative societal consequences. He walks Luigi and Bethany through examples such as IBM, Amazon Web Services, Volkswagen, and more to discuss what's wrong w...

Is Labor Benefiting From The Union Boom?

Richard B. Freeman is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University and has been studying the role of labor unions in our economy for over forty years. His seminal publication, "What Do Unions Do?" (1984), concluded that unions are on balance beneficial for the economy and society, and remains one of the most widely cited books in this area of research. Luigi and Bethany sit down with Freeman to ask: What do unions do today? How have technology, global competition, and the open economy led to t...

Is Inflation The Fed’s Fault? + Uber Leaks

With inflation unfettered, Luigi and Bethany sit down with economist Ricardo Reis to discuss the Federal Reserve’s role. Contrary to our hosts’ views, Reis argues that while the Fed has made mistakes, they are largely understandable. Together, they chart why it took so long to pivot policies, how central banks responded to supply and energy shocks, how much the Fed – or Chair Jay Powell – is to blame, and what they should be doing to control inflation. Plus, Bethany and Luigi discuss The Guardia...

How Corporations Get Away With Crime + SCOTUS EPA Ruling

When it comes to corporate rulebreaking, data from 2002 to 2016 reveals that the US government arranged more than 400 "deferred protection agreements" as a means of deterrence. Under these, a company acknowledges what it did was wrong, pays a fine, promises not to misbehave for a period of time -- and thus is largely let off the hook. Columbia Law School Professor and author of "Corporate Crime and Punishment: The Crisis of Underenforcement", John C. Coffee, says these have done little to deter ...

Rethinking (Neo)liberalism?

Our last three guests on the show, Oren Cass, Francis Fukuyama, and Glenn Hubbard, have each brought forth their critiques and suggestions for how liberalism and neoliberalism work (or ought to work) in our society. In this episode, Bethany and Luigi reflect and take stock of how the political and economic components of these ideas might differ, where their promises have failed, and who has benefited from their messy implementation. In the process, they try answering: What would a new version of...

A Defense of the Neoliberal Order with Glenn Hubbard + Big Tech Antitrust Bills

Glenn Hubbard is Professor and Dean Emeritus at Columbia Business School, and also served as Chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, among others. In his new book, "The Wall and the Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption's Wake", he addresses the underlying forces behind the global populist anxiety by reimagining the process of "building bridges, not walls". He talks with Bethany and Luigi about trade, reforming social insurance, preparing the labor force for technological change, an...

Liberalism And Its Discontents With Francis Fukuyama + The Baby Formula Shortage

Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist and author, notably of The End of History (1992) and Trust: Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity (1995). Now, in his new book, he offers liberalism as a solution to our current problems of social bifurcation, if paired with other functional institutions of a democracy. Bethany and Luigi sit down with Fukuyama to understand: What does liberalism even mean? What are its excesses and its critiques from the progressive left? How dependent is i...

The Intangible Economy with Jonathan Haskel + Roe v Wade & Corporate America

What do lighthouses, the wheelie suitcase, Harry Potter, and Wikipedia have in common? They showcase the progressive evolution towards investment in the "intangible economy": one prioritizing knowledge, relationships, design, reputation, and other internal organization over physical assets. Jonathan Haskel is Professor of Economics at Imperial College (London) and the co-author of a new book "Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy". Bethany and Luigi sit down with Haskel to dis...

Is Common Good Capitalism The Answer? With Oren Cass + Elon Musk Buys Twitter

The basic premise of capitalism has always been that more people generating more profits will be better for everybody. Oren Cass wants to challenge that premise by prioritizing values over value and over market power. Oren was formerly an Economic Advisor to the Mitt Romney Presidential Campaign, now executive director of the nonprofit American Compass and author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (2018). A successful economy, according to him, should not ...

Ukraine: The Price of Democracy with Tymofiy Mylovanov

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, we've discussed its many aspects but we haven't talked to anyone actually in or from the country. On this episode, we do both. Ukrainian economist Tymofiy Mylovanov is the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, advisor to the Zelensky administration, and former Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture. Mylovanov shares what has and hasn't surprised him about the war, reveals Russia’s other strategic advantages beyond energy reso...

Ukraine: Sanctioning the Oligarchs' Enablers With Bill Browder

As the devastation in Ukraine increases, so do the calls to end the war. Among those championing tougher actions is Bill Browder—one of Putin’s most vocal critics—and the man behind the Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the U.S. government to sanction human rights offenders. Browder has been advocating for expanding the list of sanctioned pro-Kremlin Russian oligarchs. He prescribes that Western lawyers, bankers, and other enablers of these oligarchs should also be held responsible. Browder's new ...