The Marginal Revolution Podcast

America's Debt: Crisis or Calm?

Can America afford $30 trillion in debt—or is the real question whether it wants to? In the final episode of Season 2, Alex and Tyler take on the growing mountain of fe

The Return of Tariffs - Unpacking incidence, retaliation, and the return of protectionism

In this episode, Alex and Tyler tackle the resurgence of tariffs in American policy, a development neither saw coming after decades of trade liberalization. They unpack t

Compensating Differentials and Selective Incentives

Why do butchers earn more than bakers even though they're typically less educated? What does Uber driver data reveal about wage gaps? In part three of their series on fav

The Baumol Effect

Why are college tuition, healthcare, and car repairs eating up bigger shares of our budgets? Alex says it's all about the Baumol effect, a deep economic insight about rel

Favorite Models: Spence on Monopolies, Harberger on Incidence, Solow on Growth

Alex and Tyler put three classic models through their paces. Alex starts with Spence on how a monopolist chooses quality and applies it to how the New York Times' paywall

In Praise of Commercial Culture

Tyler and Alex revisit Tyler's 1998 book and trace how commerce disciplines and amplifies creativity. Great artists bargained hard because money buys orchestras and time.

The Quest to Price Options

In the final episode of Season 1, Alex and Tyler explore one of the most consequential quests in the history of economics and finance: the decades-long search for a formu

The New Monetary Economics

In this exploration of the "new monetary economics," Alex and Tyler revisit the ideas of thinkers like Fischer Black, Eugene Fama, and Robert Hall, whose bold views about

The Economics of Insurance

In this episode, Alex and Tyler dive deep into the fascinating and often misunderstood world of insurance, exploring how this trillion-dollar industry underpins modern ec

The 1970s Crime Wave

In this final installment of their series on the 1970s, Alex and Tyler turn to the social upheaval and crime wave that marked the decade as one of America's most turbulen

Oil Shocks, Price Controls, and War

In this second installment of their three-part series on the 1970s, Alex and Tyler unravel the economic and geopolitical forces behind the oil shocks that upended global

The Economics Nobel: Predictions, Missed Opportunities, and Questionable Winners

Alex and Tyler share their predictions for the upcoming Nobel Prize in economics, considering potential winners like Michael Woodford for monetary theory, Susan Athey for

1970s Inflation: The Economic Fever That Changed America

Welcome The Marginal Revolution Podcast! In the Season 1 premiere, Alex and Tyler kick off a 3-part series on the 1970s by exploring the decade's defining economic challe