11/2/2017 Episode was about the origin of behavioral economics. Summed up succinctly by the creator of the field (Richard Thaler), who won a Nobel Prize: traditional economics can be boiled down to two words “people optimize.” Thaler’s response that summarizes behavioral economics: “no they don’t” The idea is that people do not act rationally inContinue reading “Planet Money Podcast – “Nudge, Nudge, Nobel””
Category Archives: Podcasts
Podcast: Planet Money – The Chicken Tax
Podcast introduces an interesting question: when you think of mid-size sedans in the US, you can name a bunch of models made by both foreign and domestic car companies. But when you think of pickup trucks, you only really think about US companies. Why do US automotive companies dominate the US pickup truck marketContinue reading “Podcast: Planet Money – The Chicken Tax”
Freakanomics – Shadow Economy
From 8-30-12: -Shadow economy = unreported income -in 2010, world bank estimated that 17% of world GDP in shadow economy -in us, less than 9% of GDP, but 20% of purchases on shadow economy
Vedanta Yoga – Buddha
From July 2012: -Two types of suffering: (1) Temporal sufferings and (2) Existential suffering. Spiritual life intends to overcome existential suffering -Four noble truths: (1) Life is fully of existential suffering; (2) Suffering is inescapable; (3) Suffering is caused by unfulfillment; (4) Fulfilment is achieved using the Eight fold path
Stuff You Should Know – Earth 50k years from now
From July 2012: -One-billionth of sun’s power reaches the earth, and currently we harvest one-millionth of that one-billionth portion -”Types” of civilization: Type 0 (what we are now); Type 1 (ability to harvest all energy of a planet–humans could get there in 100 years); Type 2 (harvest all energy of a solar system); TypeContinue reading “Stuff You Should Know – Earth 50k years from now”
Planet Money – Currency
From 5-16-12: -Only 30% of transactions (consumer to business transactions) are conducted using paper currency
Planet Money – Cost of College
From 5-15-12: -high sticker price of colleges is not the same as what people actually pay. -high sticker price connotes “better” education and allows schools to offer higher scholarships -some people will pay the higher price enabling schools to offer high scholarships and aid to those who went/can’t -actually cost of private college thatContinue reading “Planet Money – Cost of College”
Freakanomics – Patents
From 5-10-12: -women account for only 7 percent of filed patents
Planet Money – Fiscal Cliff
-financial cliff coming up Jan 1 2013- deficit reduction and bush era tax cuts ending
Planet Money – Dollar Coins
From 4-24-12: -unemployment claims on the rise -legislation pending to replace dollar Bill with dollar coins -arguments for: coins last longer, save money, vending machine, costs .15 lasts 30 years. Arguments against: cheaper to make, does not last as long, coin jar effect(people don’t like to use coins as much as bills)
Book Summaries. Less than 272 words. 