Pietro Peretto (Duke) on The Economics of Prosperity on a Finite Planet
Posted by sangus in Growth, Podcast, Sustainability on 1 May, 2012
Pietro Peretto (Duke)
Pietro Peretto, Professor of Economics, Duke University, is tackling the very biggest topic in Economics — How can humanity experience increasing living standards in a world of finite resources? Or more particularly, does the stabilisation of population levels imply the cessation of economic prosperity gains? Professor Peretto is a theorist who has been developing analytical models of human output and interaction with the environment. Professor Peretto was in Melbourne recently for the 17th Australasian Macroeconomic Workshop, at Monash University.
Read the paper on which this Podcast is based: Peretto, Pietro F. and Valente, Simone, Growth on a Finite Planet: Resources, Technology and Population in the Long Run (June 29, 2011). Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Working Paper No. 103.
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Rebecca Morton (NYU) on Voting and Personal Attributes
Posted by sangus in Interview, Podcast, Political-economy on 29 August, 2011
Rebecca Morton (NYU)
What about you impacts on your voting choice?
Professor Rebecca Morton, Professor of Politics at New York University joins us today on EconomicsNow! to talk voting. Specifically, she has recently finished a study on what contributes to a person’s preferences for leftist or rightist political platforms. Interestingly, Becky considers both the direct effects of attributes such as income and educational level, but also the direct and indirect effects that personality type, and intelligence can have on a person’s voting behaviour. In this podcast, we discuss the study and its possible implications for voter behaviour, political parties, and the conduct of other studies on voting.
Read the paper on which this Podcast is based: Morton, Rebecca, Tyran, Jean-Robert and Wengström, Erik, Income and Ideology: How Personality Traits, Cognitive Abilities, and Education Shape Political Attitudes (January 27, 2011). Univ. of Copenhagen Dept. of Economics Discussion Paper No. 11-08.
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Andreas Lange (U Hamburg) on Why Fairness Principles Matter to International Climate Change Negotiations
Posted by sangus in Interview, Podcast, Sustainability on 25 August, 2011
Andreas Lange
Why does fairness matter to international climate change negotiations?
To help us answer this question, Andreas Lange, a Professor of Economics from the University of Hamburg joins us on EconomicsNow!. Andreas also holds positions at the Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, University of Maryland, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Andreas has worked on a number of issues in public and environmental economics, applying theory, lab experiments and applied econometrics to the task. Most recently, Andreas has conducted research on international climate change negotiations and the notion of fairness that each nation or region takes to the negotiations.
Read the paper on which this Podcast is based: Lange, Andreas, Andreas Löschel, Carsten Vogt and Andreas Ziegler, “On the Self-Serving Use of Equity Principles in International Climate Negotiations”, European Economic Review 54, 2010, 359-375.
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Markus Brueckner (U of Adelaide) on Economic Growth, Foreign Aid and Causality
Posted by sangus in Development, Growth, Interview, Podcast, Poverty, Uncategorized on 15 July, 2011
Markus Brueckner (University of Adelaide)
Markus Brueckner is a senior lecturer at the School of Economics, University of Adelaide, and has research interests including economic growth, political economy and applied econometrics. Along with a number of articles published in highly respected academic journals, Dr Brueckner has written for the New York Times, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal.
In his most recent work, Dr Brueckner has been looking at the link between foreign aid and growth, or more specifically growth and foreign aid. I began our discussion for EconomicsNow! by asking Markus to outline the present consensus view amongst academic economists on the relationship between foreign aid and economic growth.
Read the paper on which this Podcast is based: “On the Simultaneity Problem in the Aid and Growth Debate.” Journal of Applied Econometrics (Forthcoming).
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Craig Mawdsley (OneSeed) on Sweatshops, Textiles, and Micro-business for development
Posted by sangus in Development, Interview, Podcast, Poverty on 6 June, 2011
Craig Mawdsley is Director of OneSeed a textiles importing business bringing hand-made dresses, bags and other textiles from Cambodia to the markets of Australia. The business began around 6 years ago with Craig’s $500 tax return as seed capital and growing ever since with sales in 2011 expected to hit $100,000. In this podcast Craig explains the philosophy behind OneSeed, and what OneSeed does for the Cambodians employed by it. Along the way, we discuss international trade theory, labour laws, specialisation, micro-business and the notorious sweat-shops of Cambodia. Craig is also a graduate of Monash University and the second-year economics unit, “Prosperity, Poverty and Sustainability”.
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Glenn Harrison (Georgia State) on Experimental Economics
Posted by sangus in Experiments, Interview, Podcast on 27 May, 2011
Prof Glenn Harrison
Glenn Harrison is the C.V. Starr Chair of Risk Management & Insurance and Director of the Center for the Economic Analysis of Risk (CEAR), in the Department of Risk Management & Insurance, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. His research includes diverse topics such as law and economics, international trade policy, environmental policy and experimental economics.
Glenn’s research in experimental economics has included the study of bidding behavior in auctions, market contestability and regulation, bargaining behavior, and the elicitation of risk and time preferences. Most recently it has examined the complementarities between laboratory and field experiments.
During our discussion, the matter of one dead salmon arose. Here’s a figure from the scientific research relating to the fish:
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Is Economics a Science? Explaining the resurgence of Experimental Economics
Posted by sangus in Experiments, Podcast on 10 May, 2011
In this post, our Economist on the ground, Jeremy Kamil, brings us a background piece on Experimental Economics. Which reminds me, have you ever heard the one about the guy who asks you to push a button or pull a lever in the name of ’science’ (pic on website):
Source: http://www.economics.com.au/
Andy Seltzer (University of London) on wages, glass-ceilings and business cycles
Posted by sangus in Econ History, Experiments, Interview, Podcast on 2 May, 2011
Prof Andy Seltzer
Andy Seltzer is a Professor in the Department of Economics, Royal Holloway, University of London. Professor Seltzer is an Economic Historian first and foremost and has been working on questions in labour economics by studying, amongst other things, the payroll tabulations from large bank and railway employers during the first part of the 20th century. Professor Seltzer’s work has shed some analytical light on whether employees were rewarded for effort or just years of tenure, and whether a gender pay gap was evident in levels of pay. He’s also been starting to use laboratory experiments to tease out the motivations at play in the historical data. I began our time together by asking him about the nature of payroll data.
Or download the podcast here: download (mp3)
Keynes vs. Hayek: round 2 “Fight of the Century”
Another brilliant EconTv video from Keynes and Hayek. This time, the stage is as a Congress House Committee to analyse whether or not the US stimulus package was a good thing after all. Predictably, Keynes argues on the basis of ‘managing’ volatile markets with low information, whilst Hayek argues for more humility, saying that the economic system is complex, and so far better to let individual economic agents decide where, when and how to spend, rather than ‘the few’ in the government to do this job. Fascinating stuff:
Paul Raschky (Monash University) on where Foreign Aid Actually Ends Up
Posted by sangus in Development, Interview, Podcast, Poverty on 11 April, 2011
Dr Paul Raschky
For some, foreign aid, is the only great hope for ending poverty in the very poor nations of our world, whilst for others, foreign aid is a key part of the problem — fueling wars, corruption and inefficient allocations of capital — making bad situations even worse. Whilst many researchers have attempted to look at the connection between foreign aid and development, getting good data on economic matters in the very poor, poorly governed and sometimes secretive nations can stymy even the most diligent research efforts. If you consider that some estimates of corruption in Africa alone run close to $150 billion (1), and that some heads of African states are listed as multi-billionaires even whilst their nations remain terribly impoverished (2), it is no wonder that getting transparent access to what is really happening with the foreign aid money can be a challenge.