Radio Economics PodCast

I've been listening to PodCasts recently. There seem to be three categories that most of the ones I listen to fall into: Real Estate, Economics, and Science Fiction. I've listened to a few different podcasts in the Real Estate and Science Fiction categories, but I only found one Economics PodCast that caught my eye.

RadioEconomics has host Dr. James Reese, an economist at the University of South Carolina, Upstate interviewing various economists. My favorite so far was Don Boudreaux, the chair of the George Mason Econ Department. (broadcast 8/11/05) I've been working on Prediction Markets with some economists at George Mason, and I've been a fan of their style of economics for a while, so I was interested in finding out what the department chair had to say. Boudreaux talked about his own interests as well as those of the department in general. He was quite frank in claiming that every one of the Economists at GMU is a vocal fan of the free markets. At the end of the PodCast, Dr. Reese asked what other departments around the world were most like and most unlike the GMU department, and Boudreaux didn't shy away from naming other departments that are probably doing good work, but which Boudreaux doesn't have any personal interest in.

I also enjoyed the interview (7/26/05) with Gary Becker and Richard Posner, authors of the Becker/Posner Blog, one of the blogs I read regularly. There are some older podcasts I intend to go back and listen to, including (7/15/05) with Skip Sauer of TheSportsEconommist.com. I listened to most of the interview with Michael Perelmanof CSU Chico last night while walking the dog. He's an unrepentant socialist. He didn't do a good job of defending his viewpoint. He presented several factors that have led to the bad name that central planning has gotten among economists, and several apparent ineficiencies produced by market economies, but no specific proposals to improve any situation, and nothing to show why his proposals would work better than the failed experiments of the past.

Filed in: PodCasts