New York’s mayor-elect believes he can implement socialist policies through sheer rhetoric, as though mere words can make socialism work. However, economics involves real things and reality will hit New Yorkers soon enough, and they won’t like it.
Cato adjunct scholars Terence Kealey and John Early join Ryan Bourne to discuss the pair's new Cato working paper Mission Lost: How NIH Leaders Stole Its Promise to America. Kealey and Early detail how the National Institutes of Health's shift from financing mission-led research to funding basic science has reduced its effectiveness in improving Americans' health, all the while crowding out cutting-edge commercial science, and funnelling taxpayer dollars to a range of questionable projects.
Tariffs are bringing in some serious cash into the US Treasury’s pocket. The problem with that money is that it may need to be refunded. A case in front of the Supreme Court could declare several of Trump’s tariffs illegal, which would prompt a return of billions of dollars. Today on the show, we look at how that would work and why the process will likely not be easy.
Why can't the US be like Europe, Japan or India—countries that all have extensive passenger train systems? On today's show, why the US chose not to. We learn why, despite this, US railroads could still be worth bragging about.
In the later part of the 20th century, a pioneering group of economists started shaking up their academic field.
These “behavioural economists” used findings from experimental psychology and everyday life to challenge the prevailing view that human beings were rational decision makers – acting in predictable ways to maximize their wealth.
One of those pioneers was Richard Thaler, who noted down some of these “anomalies” in a column in the 1980s, which was turned into a book - The Winner’s Curse - first published in 1992. His work also won him the Nobel memorial prize in economics in 2017.
More than 30 years on, he has returned to that book, publishing a new, updated version with co-author Alex Imas, which looks at whether those anomalies in rational thinking have stood the test of time.
Tim asks him to set out two of his most famous ideas – the winner’s curse itself, and the idea of “mental accounting”.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Series producer: Tom Colls
Sound mix: Donald MacDonald
Editor: Richard Vadon