The Answer Is Transaction Costs

God Speaks Hebrew But Understands Yiddish

Send us Fan Mail We trace how Hebrew goes from a “museum language” to a living vernacular by treating language as a coordination good with huge network effects and real

The Main Course was Transaction Costs: Milton's Dinner with Ronald

Send us Fan Mail We tell the story of the Chicago dinner where Ronald Coase walks into a hostile room, and by the end everyone votes with him, led by Milton Friedman cha

Regime Uncertainty: Political Risk is Transaction Cost!

Send us Fan Mail We walk through the weirdly powerful math that makes a stable $10,000 profit stream worth $50,000 in one world and $1,000,000 in another. Then we apply

The Senate Is The Enemy And Other Friction Stories

Send us Fan Mail We argue that “friction” is not always a flaw and can be a deliberate shield against bad collective decisions. We use Buchanan and Tullock’s public choi

Two Bakers Walk Into A Cartel

Send us Fan Mail We test a simple bakery price-fixing pact and watch it unravel, then use that failure to explain how transaction costs shape institutions, from unenforc

Contracting with Yourself: Akrasia and Transaction Costs

Send us Fan Mail We start with a simple mystery: how the same person can make a proud plan at night and break it in the morning, even while still believing the plan is g

When Mass Outrage is Cheap: TC Origins of Cancel Culture

Send us Fan Mail We trace a straight line from a 1697 blasphemy execution to modern cancel culture by focusing on one variable: the cost of turning speech into coordinat

You are NOT "Sorry I'm Late"!!

Send us Fan Mail We tell a story about German academic quarter hours-- akademische Viertel--  and use it to argue that lateness is an economics problem of coordination,

Transaction Costs Killed the Medical Stars

Send us Fan Mail We try to make sense of a real problem many of us feel: paying a lot for U.S. healthcare while still waiting months to see a doctor. We trace how engine

Parasites And Property Rights

Send us Fan Mail BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:  The information in this episode comes from Red Flags Press.  Their main web site is very useful for research purposes, and I reco

Books Don't Bet, They Match

Send us Fan Mail We break down how sportsbooks function as brokers that match contracts, set prices through the point spread, and earn their living through the vig. Kevi

Hereditary Monarchy: At Least You Know Which Idiot Is Next

Send us Fan Mail Hereditary monarchy seems like a ridiculous way to pick a leader, yet it dominates most of human political history. We argue the reason is transaction c

Swollen Permits? Call Chile!

Send us Fan Mail Permits feel like “just paperwork”, until they quietly become the biggest barrier to building, investing, and even basic economic growth. We use Chile’s

Honor Among Thieves: Anja Shortland and Ransomware

Send us Fan Mail A talk with Dr Anya Shortland about the economics of ransomware and the gray-zone institutions that let extortion markets function when nobody can truly

Are Transaction Costs Really Just Human Distance

Send us Fan Mail We connect Adam Smith’s moral psychology to the modern idea of transaction costs and argue that the biggest frictions in markets start with the cost of

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 10: Always Contemporary

Send us Fan Mail We assess Adam Smith’s enduring ideas—moral authorization of commerce, division of labor, emergent order—and confront where his optimism breaks: how dem

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 9: Spending, Taxing, and Debt

Send us Fan Mail We walk through Book Five of The Wealth of Nations to map a state that defends, adjudicates, and builds wisely, then pays for it without killing growth.

Adam Smith Episode 8: A Nation of Shopkeepers

Send us Fan Mail Smith closes Book IV by dismantling mercantilism through the lens of colonial policy, monopoly, and rent seeking, then weighs physiocracy against the sy

Parts is (Not) Parts: The Life Cycle Problem for Heavy Equipment

Send us Fan Mail We trace how Alex Schuessler, the once and once-again President of SmartEquip--also a scholar of expressive choice!--built a platform that makes machine

Money Killed Barter; Can a Platform Bring It Back?

Send us Fan Mail We explore why money became the default middleman and how a modern platform can make barter practical by slashing the costs of search, matching, and tru