As the war in Ukraine continues, the world is responding not just with various government sanctions on Russia, but also with a voluntary exodus of private corporations from the Russian market. To discuss these "private sanctions" and possible motivations behind them, we invited Richard Edelman, the CEO of one of the largest public relations firms in the world. Are firms profit-maximizing in their actions? Are they responding to political or consumer pressure? Or are they simply trying to avoid a...
Mar 17, 2022•38 min•Season 2Ep. 41
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed the "end of history" and of humankind’s ideological evolution. The combination of Western liberal democracy and capitalism were seen as the final, convergent form of global human organization — surpassing geopolitical considerations. As Russia invades Ukraine, history seems to have restarted. This time the tension is not between capitalism and socialism, but between liberal capitalism and autocratic capit...
Mar 03, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 40
Is private equity a good investment? Jeffrey Hooke, Senior Lecturer at Johns Hopkins' Carey School of Business, claims that private equity has not been a lucrative investment for institutional investors such as pension funds or university endowments. Chicago Booth Professor Steven Kaplan, who has studied private equity for over 35 years, disagrees. Luigi and Bethany bring both Jeff and Steven on the show to debate this, and the evolution (or lack thereof) in reporting, transparency, and corporat...
Feb 17, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 39
The Federal Reserve is likely to hike interest rates in March due to high inflation and the strong labor market. But where did this inflation come from? Is it transitory or is it here to stay? Whom does it hurt the most and what should be done about it? To discuss this, we invited Chicago Booth professor and former IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan, who – when he served as India’s central banker – was charged with fighting inflation himself.
Feb 03, 2022•54 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Last year, Capitalisn’t featured two episodes on the pluses and minuses of meritocracy. Supporters of meritocracy, such as Adrian Wooldrige, emphasize its ethical dimension. Critics, such as Michael Sandel, emphasize the luck component. At the end of the day, it is an empirical question, albeit a difficult one: How much of “success” is driven by effort versus luck? Luigi and Bethany sit down with Kathryn Paige Harden, behavioral geneticist, professor of psychology, and author of the book "The Ge...
Jan 20, 2022•55 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Yanis Varoufakis is a vocal critic of capitalism. He is a Greek academic, writer, and politician – as former Minister of Finance, led negotiations during the government debt crisis of 2015. But even as the founder of the left-wing political party MeRA25 (European Realistic Disobedience Front) in 2018, he laments the bankruptcy of today’s left. He describes capitalism as a contradiction with immense advantages (innovation, wealth, gadgets, technologies) but also with an inherent tendency to cause...
Jan 06, 2022•51 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Increased polarization in America has meant more political homogeneity across our digital, social, and civic spaces. But what about our workplaces, where so many Americans spend a bulk of their time? Associate Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, Elisabeth Kempf, has new data and research out looking at political alignment within corporate executive teams, and whether or how much it has increased over time. We sit down with Elisabeth to understand the factors which could be influencing this tr...
Dec 16, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Vivek Ramaswamy, a scientist, lawyer, and former venture capitalist and entrepreneur, has a new book out: "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam". In this book, he argues that "wokeism" has become a way for corporations to wrap themselves in a mantle, which then furthers the idea of crony capitalism and extends their power into spaces they were never meant to be in. Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean sit down with Ramaswamy to discuss his perspectives on the role of virtue, e...
Dec 02, 2021•49 min•Season 2Ep. 34
The monopoly power of massive tech platforms has thrust antitrust law back into the spotlight in recent years. But while everyone was focused on monopoly power, a handful of academics have actually been looking into monopsony power. Specifically, how employers in highly concentrated labor markets use anticompetitive methods to suppress wages. University of Chicago Law Professor Eric Posner has a new book out that tackles this issue called “How Antitrust Failed Workers”. He makes the case for why...
Nov 18, 2021•51 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Histories are often relegated to the sidelines of economic study. But what do we lose in our theories when we only focus on the math and models? In his new book, “Ages of American Capitalism”, University of Chicago historian Jonathan Levy looks at the turning points in the history of capitalism and what those moments can teach us about today.
Nov 04, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 32
In September China's second largest real-estate developer, Evergrande, missed an $83.5 million debt payment. Skeptics and bears on China have long said that its property market, which makes up some 30 percent of GDP, is over-leveraged and overheated. The recent news has people asking...are the bears right, and could this be China's Lehman Moment. On this episode we look at two sides of that argument, first with one of the world's most renowned bears on China, Jim Chanos who is the found of Kynik...
Oct 21, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 31
If Claudia Goldin, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, wins the Nobel Prize in Economics next week, no-one will be surprised. Her work studying the intersection of gender and labor has been vital, both to the world and the field. But there's a curious argument in her newest book "Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity". Goldin says that though the gender pay gap persists, it's not clear that gender discrimination is the cause. She thinks that job design may be th...
Oct 07, 2021•52 min•Season 2Ep. 30
We’re taking a week off as school starts back up, but we wanted to reshare this episode with you this week. For a show about economics, we talk about democracy a lot. But there’s an important reason for that. Without a strong democracy to build capitalism on top of, it’ll always be an isn’t. So please enjoy our conversation about the important intersections of capitalism and democracy. We’ll be back in two weeks with an all new Capitalisn't.
Sep 23, 2021•25 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Environmental, social and governance investing, also know as ESG, has exploded in recent years. It promises to help us solve problems like climate change and inequality all while allowing investors to still turn a profit. But BlackRock’s former global chief investment office for sustainable investing, Tariq Fancy, says it isn't what's being advertised. Recently, he penned a blog post claiming that not only are ESGs not making societal problems better, they may actively be making them worse.
Sep 09, 2021•52 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Capitalism doesn't work without democracy. So, it's particularly concerning that polarization and fundamentalism are threatening the underlying principles that make our democracy possible. A new book by Northwestern President and economist Morton Schapiro and literary scholar Gary Saul Morson called "Minds Wide Shut" explores the forces that are destroying the open-mindedness democracy requires. We talk with them about their book and discuss solutions on this episode.
Aug 27, 2021•46 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Does meritocracy create a better world for everyone, or does it create massive inequality? There's been a lot of debate in the last few years about meritocracy, and it's become even more pressing in light of the pandemic. If essential workers are "essential", are they really less meritorious than a banker or accountant? So, we decided to discuss both sides of this debate in our next two episodes. On this episode, we'll be joined by Michael Sandel who teaches political philosophy at Harvard Unive...
Aug 12, 2021•54 min•Season 2Ep. 26
The University of Chicago Podcast Network is excited to announce the launch of a new show, it’s called "Entitled" and it’s about human rights. Co-hosted by lawyers and UChicago Law School Professors, Claudia Flores and Tom Ginsburg, Entitled explores the stories around why rights matter and what’s the matter with rights. We’re going to share the first episode of that show with you this week, and recommend you go subscribe! We’ll be back next week with a new the second installment of our meritocr...
Aug 05, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Does meritocracy create a better world for everyone, or does it create massive inequality? There's been a lot of debate in the last few years about meritocracy, and it's become even more pressing in light of the pandemic. If essential workers are "essential", are they really less meritorious than a banker or accountant? So, we decided to discuss both sides of this debate in our next two episodes. On this episode, we'll be joined by Adrian Wooldridge, political editor at The Economist and author ...
Jul 29, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 24
If shareholders are the owners of a company, they should be able to get that company to do what they want. But what happens when shareholders want something other than profits at any cost? In a major moment for what's come to be called "shareholder capitalism", activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 successfully claimed three seats on Exxon's board of directors this year. Their explicit mission is to force the energy goliath to turn away from carbon and toward more clean forms of energy. On this episo...
Jul 15, 2021•50 min•Season 2Ep. 23
There are plenty of lingering questions about the development of the coronavirus vaccine. How was the pricing decided? Did the public-private partnership with the government work? Who's right in the debate over patent rights and profit sharing? There's no better person to put these questions to than David Meline, the CFO of Moderna. He joins our podcast this week to talk through the political economy of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Jul 01, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Occupy Wall Street, Italy's Five Star Movement, the indignados in Spain—we've seen an increase in anti-elite protests by a disabused public over the last two decades. But what has caused this "revolt of the public"? Martin Gurri, Visiting Fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and former CIA media analyst, argues that elites have overpromised and under delivered all while losing their monopoly on information flows. But have our emperors lost their clothes recently, or did they never...
Jun 17, 2021•47 min•Season 2Ep. 21
In the last few decades, American wages have stagnated for everyone except those at the very top. Yet, during this same period, worker productivity and corporate profits have soared. Why these two trends have coincided has perplexed economists. But, in a new book, economist Jan Eeckhout proposes a simple answer: market power. We discuss his proposal and possible solutions for this problem on this episode.
Jun 03, 2021•46 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Have you ever heard the term "regulatory capture"? It's a famous economic theory that the regulation and regulators we create to keep certain industries in check can be captured and bent to the desires of those very industries. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the paper that first proposed this theory. It's called "The Theory of Economic Regulation" and it was written by none other than the namesake of the center that produces this podcast, George Stigler. We recently h...
May 20, 2021•30 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Pres. Biden is pursuing some of the largest spending proposals in U.S. history, which should be sparking concerns about inflation and interest rates. But most prominent bankers and economists have told us not to worry. Fmr Central Banker Mervyn King says they shouldn't be so confident. On this episode, we speak with Lord King about his concerns of coming inflation, how he thinks central banks didn't learn the right lessons after 2008, and why he thinks the industry has become too reliant on mode...
May 06, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 18
What is causing the widening wealth gap in America? People point fingers in many different directions, but a fairly new idea is to blame The Federal Reserve. In a new book, "Engine of Inequality: The Fed and The Future of Wealth In America", Karen Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, argues that The Fed's ultra-low interest rate policy has benefited the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
Apr 22, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 17
When it comes to probing the problems of Big Tech, either as a journalist or academic, access is key. Necessary data is highly guarded, often in a "black box", and these companies carefully select what they share and with whom. Few people understand this better than Kara Swisher who has been fearlessly covering and critiquing Big Tech since the 1990s. She's a New York Times opinion writer, host of the podcast "Sway" and co-host of the "Pivot" podcast.
Apr 08, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 16
The only thing worse than crony capitalism may be crony capitalism controlled by a centralized communist authority. This is the system that has led to massive wealth disparities in China, even as the country has seen record growth. Former New York Times correspondent, David Barboza, has gotten a first-hand look at how this system in China has led to rampant corruption and he even won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. On this episode, we talk with Barboza about how this system works, why Americ...
Mar 25, 2021•47 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Concerns about the political power of Big Tech and lack of competition are at an all-time high. The business model of Facebook, Google, Twitter, ect. seem to be creating a race to the bottom for the discourse in our social and political lives. Many have argued we should turn to anti-trust laws as a way to solve this problem, but Nobel laureate Paul Romer says they may not be enough. In this episode, Romer presents his argument for why the implementation of a digital advertising tax could address...
Mar 11, 2021•40 min•Season 2Ep. 14
The consulting firm McKinsey has agreed to pay nearly $600 million for its role in advising Purdue on how to push opioids sales, even at the cost of human lives. The details of their work are gruesome and should demand self-reflection among all those who work in big business. Has the profit motive gone out of control, and do business schools have a role to play in creating this culture? Anand Giridharadas says yes to both questions. He's the author of the renowned book "Winners Take All" and the...
Feb 25, 2021•50 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard the story of GameStop and Robinhood. Most writers and outlets have claimed this is either a positive David vs Goliath story or a dangerous new trend. On this episode, we're joined by Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project, who has an entirely different view.
Feb 11, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 12
