Economic Rockstar

Connecting Brilliant Minds in Economics and Finance

092: Graham Brownlow on Rent Seeking, Cliometrics and the Economics of the DeLorean

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092: Graham Brownlow on Rent Seeking, Cliometrics and the Economics of the DeLorean

Dr. Graham Brownlow (PhD, QUB) is a Lecturer in Economics at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.Graham Brownlow Economic Rockstar

Dr. Brownlow’s research focuses primarily on economic history and institutions, evolutionary economics, Irish economic and business performance and violence. He also has an interest in methodology in economic and business history.

Graham edits the journal Irish Economic and Social History.

I’m very eclectic and pragmatic – Dr. Graham Brownlow

Economics:

In this episode, Graham mentions: rent seeking, cliometrics, inefficiency, corruption, institutions, subsidies, Brexit, monopolies, sharing economy, fast money, game theory, bargaining, public choice, regional economics and economic history. 

Economists:

In this episode, Graham mentions: Peter Boettke, Peter Leeson, Gary Becker, William Baumal, Douglass North, Robert Hamilton, Eli Hecksher, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Duncan, Tim Harford, Steven Landsburg and G. L. S. Shackle.

Using Analytic Narratives in Economic Research

Looking to balance the details of fact and yet keep the rigour of an economic model – Graham Brownlow

  1. Identify the problem or puzzle.
  2. Immerse yourself in the topic or resources.
  3. Move to more formal aspects.
  4. Don’t start with the model and then use it to explain your findings.
  5. You actually first look at the historical issue under investigation and then apply it to the model.

Links:

Research by Dr. Graham Brownlow:

  • A complete list of Graham’s research can be found here.

Economics of the DeLorean Economic Rockstar

Where to Find Graham:

Books:

 

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091: The Age of Em by Robin Hanson

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091: The Age of Em by Robin Hanson

This is Robin Hanson’s second appearance on the Economic Rockstar podcast. I previously spoke to Robin about his work in episode 073. If you find this interview interesting, check out the other episode. You’ll love it.

This is the Book Review from Amazon:

“Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like?

Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or “ems.” Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human.

Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times: an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace humans in most jobs. In this new economic era, the world economy may double in size every few weeks.

Some say we can’t know the future, especially following such a disruptive new technology, but Professor Robin Hanson sets out to prove them wrong. Applying decades of expertise in physics, computer science, and economics, he uses standard theories to paint a detailed picture of a world dominated by ems.

While human lives don’t change greatly in the em era, em lives are as different from ours as our lives are from those of our farmer and forager ancestors. Ems make us question common assumptions of moral progress, because they reject many of the values we hold dear.

Read about em mind speeds, body sizes, job training and career paths, energy use and cooling infrastructure, virtual reality, aging and retirement, death and immortality, security, wealth inequality, religion, teleportation, identity, cities, politics, law, war, status, friendship and love.

This book shows you just how strange your descendants may be, though ems are no stranger than we would appear to our ancestors. To most ems, it seems good to be an em.”

Click here to win a copy of Robin Hanson’s book:

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Book:

The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth

Links:



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090: Stefan Szymanski on Soccernomics and How Sabermetrics, Inequality and Finance Rules the Sport

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090: Stefan Szymanski on Soccernomics and How Sabermetrics, Inequality and Finance Rules the Sport

Stefan Szymanski is the Stephen J. Galetti Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan. Stefan Szymanski Economic Rockstar

Between 2008-2012 he was a Professor of Economics at Cass Business School, City University, London.

Stefan began researching the economics of professional football in 1989, and has since come to spend his entire time researching the economics and business of sport.

He has published 55 scholarly articles, 14 book chapters, six books and four edited volumes on sports related subjects.

Stefan has also acted as consultant to sport governing bodies and national governments, and has appeared in court as an expert witness on the economics of sport. He has become a regular pundit in the media on business related sports issues.

Stefan’s interests include sports management and economics; sport history, culture and society; the internationalization of sport; international sports federations and the governance of sport.

Stefan is co-author of Soccernomics, author of Money and Soccer: A Soccernomics Guide and co-owner of Soccernomics Agency.

Economics:

In this episode, Stefan mentions: John Kay and Simon Kuper.

Economists:

In this episode, Stefan mentions:

competitive balance defence, collusion, game theory, wage caps, bankruptcy, finance, sabermetrics and soccernomics.

Why the Football System is Stable:

  1. There are a vast number of clubs. Whenever one club fails there are at least a dozen other clubs ready to take their place.
  2. Football is so culturally central to European life that the clubs are never allowed to go bankrupt. They are always re-born in some form or another. In other words, the business that forms the football club can go bankrupt and disappear. But the football club itself almost never does. Football isn’t just a business in Europe, it’s also a dimension of community life. A football club only really dies if the community dies and that doesn’t happen very often.

Links:

Podcasts:

Where to Find Stefan:

Books:


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089: James Brusseau on Wealth Inequality and the Accursed Share

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089: James Brusseau on Wealth Inequality and the Accursed Share

Dr. James Brusseau is a philosopher specializing in contemporary Continental philosophy, history of philosophy and james brusseau economic rockstarethics.

In 1994 James joined the faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Mexican National University in Mexico City teaching graduate courses in Philosophy and Comparative Literature.

He has also taught in Europe and the California State University.

Dr. James Brusseau currently teaches at Pace University in New York City.

James is the author of four books: Isolated Experiences, Decadence of the French (Nietzsche), Empire of Humiliation and Business Ethics Workshop, Flat World Knowledge, 2011

He is also the host for The Wealth Inequality Workshop at wealthinequalityworkshop.org

Links:

Books:

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088: Denise Cummins on Fairness in Economics, Altruism and the Prisoners Dilemma

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088: Denise Cummins on Fairness in Economics, Altruism and the Prisoners Dilemma

Dr. Denise Cummins is a research psychologist and an author. She has held faculty and research positions at Yale Denise Cummins Economic RockstarUniversity, the University of California, the University of Illinois, and the Center for Adaptive Behavior at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. 

Dr Cummins is a respected cognitive scientist who has authored numerous scientific articles, and is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. 

In her Psychology Today blog and PBS NewsHour articles, Denise writes about what she and other cognitive scientists are discovering about the way people think, solve problems, and make decisions.

Denise’s experimental investigations focus on social, moral, and causal decision-making. The aim of her social research is investigating  how perceived relative status impacts fairness in economic transactions. 

Denise is the author of four books, the most recent being Good Thinking: Seven powerful ideas that influence the way we think.

Denise received her PhD in Experimental Psychology from University of Colorado, Boulder and you can find her work at www.denisecummins.com and PsychologyToday.com.

Books:

Cummins, D.D (2012) Good Thinking: Seven powerful ideas that influence the way we think. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Cummins, R.C., & Cummins, D.D. (Eds.) (2000) Minds, brains, and computers: Foundations of Cognitive Science. London: Blackwell.

Cummins, D.D., & Allen, C. (Eds.) (1998) The Evolution of Mind. Oxford University Press.

Cummins, D.D. (1995) The other side of psychology: How experimental psychologists find out about the way we think and act. NY: St. Martin’s Press.

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087: Asgeir B. Torfason on the Economy of Iceland and Explaining Negative Cashflows in Banks

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087: Asgeir B. Torfason on the Economy of Iceland and Explaining Negative Cashflows in Banks

Asgeir B. Torfason is Assistant Professor in the School of Business at the University of Iceland where he teaches asgeir torfasonFinance, Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis. Asgeir is also Postdoc Research Fellow, as well as an Assistant Professor at Gothenburg Research Institute.

Asgeir defended his PhD at Gothenburg University in May 2014 with dissertation: Cash Flow Accounting in Banks – A study of practice.

His research combines bank management, finance theory, monetary economics and accounting studies.

Previous research has focused on asset values and long-term investment in real estate, a field where Asgeir has extensive practical experience, covering the Nordics as VP for a REIT listed on NYSE.

Prior to that he worked in university management after getting an MBA from Norwegian Business School in Oslo, and studied earlier Philosophy and Economics in Iceland.

Economics:

In this episode, Asgeir mentions: Iceland’s economy, IT bubble, Tulip Mania, banks, capital controls, devaluation, tourism, resources, trade, cashflows, assets, liabilities, revenue, equity, income statements, bankruptcy, lending, negative cashflows, money multiplier, reserve requirement, central banks, quantitative easing, swap lines and housing bubbles.

Economists:

In this episode, Asgeir mentions: Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, Hyman Minsky, Perry G Mehrling, 

Links:

Papers:

Books:

Where to Find Asgeir:

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086: Philip Pilkington on Determinism and the Reformation in Economics

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086: Philip Pilkington on Determinism and the Reformation in Economics

Phillip Pilkington works in investment and has contributed to numerous online and print media philip pilkingtonoutlets as a freelance economic journalist.

Phillip ran a popular economics blog called www.fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com and will be releasing his book The Reformation in Economics soon.

Phillip earned his B.A. in Journalism from the Independent Colleges, as well as his M.A. in Economics from Kingston University.

All views expressed by Phillip are his own and are not representative of the firm in which he works.

Economics:

In this episode, Philip mentions: utility maximizing, behavioral bias, interest rates, time preference, savings, money, comparative advantage, decision making, consumption function, marginal propensity to consume and the multiplier.

Economists:

In this episode, Philip mentions: Steve Keen, Paul Samuelson, Adam Smith, James Steuart, David Ricardo and G. L. S. Shackle.

Links:

Books:

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085: Michael Roberts on Understanding Karl Marx and His Thinking on Capitalism

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085: Michael Roberts on Understanding Karl Marx and His Thinking on Capitalism

Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts has worked as an economist for over 30 years in the City of London. He is author of The Great Recession: Profit cycles, economic crisis A Marxist View and The Long Depression: Marxism and the Global Crisis of Capitalism.

Economics:

In this episode, Michael mentions: Marxism, capitalism, Austrian economics, GDP, multinationals, inflation, printing of money, booms, busts, profitability, recession, depression, inequality, wealth, means of production, private property, competition, externalities, unintended consequences, bailout, austerity and unemployment.

Economists:

In this episode, Michael mentions: Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Brad DeLong and Paul Mattick.

Links:

Books:

 

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084: Mises v Marx: A Discussion with Peter Boettke

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084: Mises v Marx: A Discussion with Peter Boettke

Mises V Marx

In this episode, Professor Peter Boettke, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, discusses the thinking of Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx. Peter highlights the underlying theses behind both economists arguments – liberalism and socialism.

Read the first chapter to Living Economics by Peter Boettke here.

Economics:

In this episode, Peter mentions: Austrian economics, Marxism, liberalism, socialism, the Diamond-Water Paradox, instability of capitalism, private ownership, communal ownership, monopoly, financial crisis, leverage, 

Economists:

In this episode, Peter mentions: Ludwig von Mises, Karl Marx, Milton Friedman, Joan Robinson, Rosa Luxemburg, Elinor Ostrom, Adam Smith, F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, John Cochrane, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and J. K. Galbraith.

Books:

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083: Stephen Kinsella on Stock Flow Models, Rent Controls and Being the Green Lantern of Economics

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083: Stephen Kinsella on Stock Flow Models, Rent Controls and Being the Green Lantern of Economics

Stephen Kinsella is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Kemmy Business School, the University of Stephen KinsellaLimerick in Ireland and a Research Fellow at the Geary Institute at University College Dublin. He is currently visiting Professor of Economics at Université Paris.

Stephen has two PhD’s, is well published in many Economics Journals and has won several grants worth around 1.5 million Euro.

Stephen’s area of expertise is in the study of the Irish and European economies.

He has written 4 books:

Stephen is a weekly columnist for the Sunday Business Post newspaper and he also has his own website stephenkinsella.net which is amazingly rich in content, covering issues on the Irish and European economy as well as material he covers in his lectures.

Economics:

In this episode, Stephen mentions: stock flow consistent models, rent controls, GDP, wealth, consumption, government expenditure, investment, net exports, debt-to-GDP, stock of unemployed-to-flow of the labor force, taxes, austerity, QE, pro-cyclical policy, unemployment, automatic stabilizers, Brexit, foreign direct investment, hyperinflation, purchasing power of money, housing, pricing mechanism and money supply.

Economists:

In this episode, Stephen mentions: Wynne Godley, Lance Taylor, Marc Lavoie, Kevin O’Rourke, Philip Lane, Dermot McAleese, Edward Nell, Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth S. Rogoff and Joseph Stiglitz.

In this episode you will learn:

  • how and why Stephen completed two PhD’s and how he completed his first within 12 months.
  • about stock flow consistent models.
  • about the features of a stock flow model.
  • why the Irish government bailed out the banks.
  • how Ireland received ‘help’ from international economies, particularly the US and the UK, to quickly move out of a recession since the Great Financial Crisis.
  • whether Ireland will suffer if the UK left the EU in the so-called Brexit.
  • how rent controls lead to an inefficient market outcome.

Links:

Papers:

Books: 

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