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Economists are always talking about The Pie – how it grows and shrinks, how it’s sliced, and who gets the biggest shares. Join host Tess Vigeland as she talks with leading economists from the University of Chicago about their cutting-edge research and key events of the day. Hear how the economic pie is at the heart of issues like the aftermath of a global pandemic, jobs, energy policy, and more.
The podcast The Pie: An Economics Podcast is created by Becker Friedman Institute at UChicago. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
The debate over health insurance denials intensified last year after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO. In this episode of The Pie, host Tess Vigeland unpacks the economic forces shaping the US healthcare system with economists from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Josh Gottlieb examines the financial burden of insurance denials, Zarek Brot-Goldberg explores how pre-authorizations influence prescription drug choices, and Maggie Shi reveals how hospitals adjust to oversight by reducing wasteful care.
The automotive industry is at the forefront of a global shift toward sustainability, with nations setting ambitious electric vehicle (EV) adoption targets. But how do government subsidies and industrial policies shape the pace of EV innovation? Hyuk-soo Kwon, Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, explores the impact of these policies on EV patenting, revealing how firms with established EV expertise drive rapid advancements through path-dependent innovation.
It’s been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the world. In this episode of The Pie, Matt Notowidigdo, Professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business, explores the pandemic’s lasting effects on education, work, and daily life. Join us as we dive into the key economic shifts brought on by COVID-19 and discuss how society can better prepare for future pandemics.
Why do so many students leave college before completing their degree, and how can we help them return? Lesley Turner, Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, discusses results from a mentoring experiment aimed at boosting undergraduate re-enrollment. Then, she examines the ripple effects of federal policies on graduate student lending, exploring their impact on access, degree attainment, and tuition prices.
Americans attend church less often than they claim. Recessions can improve our health. Pesticides pose hidden dangers. And perceptions of monetary policy shape our reality. In this special year-end episode of The Pie, we dive into some of the most compelling insights and conversations from the past 12 months.
How can policymakers make choices when confronted with uncertainty? What happens when the public loses confidence in scientific authority? Are scientists, including economists, overconfident? Nobel Laureate and UChicago economist Lars Hansen, a leading authority on uncertainty in economic decision-making, tackles these and related questions in this Extra Slice of The Pie, hosted by BFI Executive Director, Ben Krause. The answers will surprise you.
Many low-income countries face a dilemma: keep taxes low and remain unable to build state capacity, or raise taxes and risk political unrest. In this episode of The Pie, Ben Krause, Executive Director of the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, shares insights from an experiment in Haiti demonstrating how the provision of public goods can boost tax compliance.
A company’s value includes not just the goods and services it provides but also the societal costs it imposes. In this episode of The Pie, Lubos Pastor, Charles P. McQuaid Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, explores how to integrate the costs of corporate greenhouse gas emissions into traditional measures of corporate performance.
When some US states allowed nurse practitioners to prescribe controlled substances without physician oversight, a serious unintended consequence took hold: Doctors found themselves competing with those nurses for patients. Molly Schnell, BFI Saieh Family Fellow and assistant professor at Northwestern University, along with her colleagues—Janet Currie of Princeton and Anran Li of Cornell—examine the resultant uptick in prescriptions in controlled substances, and the impact on patients.
James Robinson, a University Professor with appointments in both UChicago’s Harris School of Public Policy as well as the Political Science Department in the Division of Social Sciences, is the university’s latest faculty member to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. On this episode of “An Extra Slice of The Pie,” Robinson joins Ben Krause, BFI Executive Director and new, semi-regular guest host, to discuss his research and the path to a Nobel. Tune in to learn more about Robinson’s early challenges as a young researcher, his major breakthroughs, and his ideas for future work.
Bats are considered a natural pesticide. When they began to die out due to an invasive fungus, farmers turned to chemicals to control pests. The result, as Eyal Frank of the Harris school of Public Policy describes on this episode of The Pie, was skyrocketing infant deaths. Tune in to learn more about the vast ramifications of ecosystem disruptions.
Private equity investors made some $200 billion worth of healthcare acquisitions in 2021, and $1 trillion worth in the 10 years leading up to 2023. In this episode of The Pie, Maggie Shi, professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, discusses how private equity impacts hospitals along multiple dimensions, including patient volumes, revenues, employment, and technology adoption.
When the Soo Line threatened to expand into the Great Northern Railway’s territory in 1905, the two companies entered a fierce competition for marketshare in which the they rapidly constructed nearly 500 miles of rail tracks and over 50 new towns. In this episode of The Pie, Chad Syverson, the George C. Tiao Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the Booth School of Business, explores this unique historical episode, shedding light on how acts of strategic competition, past and present, can affect our social welfare.
The Federal Reserve responded to COVID-era inflation with the fastest increase in the federal funds rate in 40 years. Importantly, the effectiveness of their response depends on how the public perceived it. In this episode of The Pie, Carolin Pflueger, Associate Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, covers her recent talk to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in which she discussed her research on changing public perceptions and the effectiveness of monetary policy.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a landmark piece of tax legislation from the first year of the Trump administration, overhauled the tax code for both individuals and businesses. In this episode of The Pie, Eric Zwick, Professor of Economics and Finance at the UChicago's Booth School of Business, discusses how the overhaul affected the economy, including investment, tax revenue, and wages.
The primary contributor to long-run growth is productivity: A country’s ability to raise residents’ standards of living depends on its ability to boost workers’ output. In this episode of The Pie, Ufuk Akcigit, The Arnold C. Harberger Professor in Economics and the College, describes his research on growth through technological progress.
In the wake of numerous high-profile incidents of police use of force, particularly against Black Americans, law enforcement agencies across the United States are confronting issues of officer misconduct. Whether such misconduct is preventable depends in part on whether it is predictable. In this episode of The Pie, Greg Stoddard, Senior Research Director for the Crime Lab and Education Lab, discusses recent research using administrative data from the Chicago Police Department to predict officers misconduct, before it happens.
The United States is in the midst of a student loan crisis, with over 45 million borrowers owing more than $1.6 trillion in federal dollars. On this episode of The Pie, Constantine Yannelis, Associate Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business, argues that federal policy is to blame: Decades of regulation and de-regulation have given way to skyrocketing rates of risky borrowing.
How can we incentivize the private and public sectors to develop and deploy solutions to climate change, while accounting for uncertainties? This episode of The Pie covers a panel discussion among professors David Keith of the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at UChicago and founding faculty director of the university’s Climate Systems Engineering initiative, Franklin Allen of Imperial College in London, and José Scheinkman of Columbia. Lars Peter Hansen, The David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, Statistics in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics and the Booth School of Business and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics, moderates.
This podcast was part of a climate change conference, co-sponsored by the Macro Finance Research Program at the University of Chicago and the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis at Imperial College Business School, exploring uncertainty and tipping points. More information on the event can be found here.
What do location data from roughly 2.1 million cellphones say about religiosity in the United States? In this episode of The Pie, Devin Pope, Professor of Economics and Behavioral Science at the Booth School of Business, paints a new picture of who goes to church, how often, and the other types of activities they do (or don’t) partake in.
India’s government has big goals for economic growth. The former Governor of the country’s Reserve Bank, Raghuram Rajan, argues that India won't be able (and shouldn't try) to follow traditional methods of development. Professor Rajan, now of the the Chicago Booth School of Business, joins The Pie to discuss India’s untraveled path to prosperity.
A year-and-a-half after its launch, half of workers report having used ChatGPT on the job. On this episode of The Pie, Anders Humlum, Assistant Professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business, shares results from a recent, large-scale survey profiling the workers who are leading the generative AI curve.
College graduates earn more than those who didn’t attend college. Does this mean higher education boosts your income? Or, does college simply attract students who would’ve earned more anyway? Jack Mountjoy, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, discusses his research on the returns to higher education.
American cities are overreliant on cars. Policies for reducing this gridlock and pollution range from changing public transit fares or frequencies to introducing new tolls. In this episode of The Pie, Milena Almagro, Assistant Professor of Economics at Chicago Booth, shares her research showing the optimal mix of these policies for cities dealing with transit issues.
A small number of companies are responsible for a substantial amount of the discrimination in today’s labor market. Who are they? In this episode of The Pie, Evan Rose, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor in Economics discusses results from his recent experiment to measure discrimination among the largest employers in the United States.
When the Great Recession hit in 2007, it produced the largest decline in US employment since the Great Depression. It also substantially reduced mortality. In this episode of The Pie, Matt Notowidigdo discusses how economic downturns can lead to valuable health gains that may even offset some of the negative consequences of recessions.
This episode of The Pie features a panel discussion following a talk from Raghuram Rajan, the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, about his book "Monetary Policy and Its Unintended Consequences." The panel included Charles Evans, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and was moderated by Randall Kroszner, the Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics at Chicago Booth and former Governor of the Federal Reserve System.
Anti-democratic sentiment is on the rise across Latin America. This episode of The Pie explores the evolving political and economic landscape of Latin America, highlighting the region's experimentation with democratization and the growing threats of authoritarianism. Luis Martinez, Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, discusses how economic reforms and pro-market transformations, despite their benefits, have left segments of the population feeling underrepresented and disillusioned.
Children whose parents have college degrees are often more skilled readers than children whose parents didn't attend college. In this episode of The Pie, Harris Policy Professor Ariel Kalil discusses how certain technologies can help improve literacy skills for disadvantaged children.
Russian-born economist Konstantin Sonin, Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, joins The Pie to provide an update on the economic impacts of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Sonin discusses how the war affects standards of living and output in both countries, and shares his predictions for what the future holds.
Many mines in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are controlled by armed groups that frequently engage in conflict with nearby civilians. In this episode of The Pie, Hans Christensen, Professor of Accounting at Chicago Booth, and Samuel Chang, PhD student in Accounting, discuss what happens when mines become certified as conflict-free. Hint: It’s not what you might expect.
Most observers are convinced that America’s healthcare system needs reform. This episode of The Pie features a discussion among MIT health economist Amy Finkelstein, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration and current Duke professor Mark McClellan, and professor at the Harris School Joshua Gottlieb on what these reforms should entail. Michael Greenstone, director of UChicago's Climate and Energy Institute, moderated the conversation.
What happens to humans when vultures go extinct? Why did the student loan pause increase debt? Plus, do government benefits change how parents invest in their kids? To wrap up 2023, Tess Vigeland reviews some of the economic research we've featured on the show throughout the year. Plus, a word from the UChicago team behind The Pie.
Women who have unplanned births experience earnings losses of up to 25%, while planned births reduce earnings by roughly 15%. Yana Gallen, Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, joins The Pie to discuss her research on how pregnancy timing impacts women's careers.
Would you rather keep things as is, or, remove yourself and all your friends from social media? You aren’t alone if you chose the latter. Recent research from UChicago economist Leo Bursztyn ushers new survey evidence to show how fear of missing out keeps some users online. Learn more on The Pie.
Roughly a quarter of all paid workdays are now done from home, up from 7% in 2019. How did this shift unfold across different areas, industries, and worker demographics? Steven Davis, Professor Emeritus at Chicago Booth and work-from-home expert, joins The Pie to share his research.
The United States imprisons its population at a rate that is on par with North Korea. In this episode, Evan Rose of the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics discusses what happens when this massive subset of individuals rejoins the labor force. Hint: It’s not what you might expect.
The rate of school suspensions has more than doubled for Black and Latino children since 1974, inspiring a small but growing movement aimed at finding new disciplinary solutions that deter undesirable behavior without imparting harm. Harris Policy's Anjali Adukia joins The Pie to discuss her partnership with Chicago Public Schools, and what happened when teachers replaced exclusionary disciplinary practices, such as suspensions, with restorative practices that emphasize community building and restitution.
Police use of force has prompted a national debate around misconduct and how to solve what many believe to be a systemic issue. Harris Policy’s Oeindrila Dube and Chicago Booth’s Anuj Shah partnered with the Chicago Police Department for an experiment that found a different kind of behavioral training could effectively reduce adverse outcomes.
As a massive carbon sink, the Brazilian Amazon plays a crucial role in stabilizing the global climate. It’s also valuable farmland. How do economists measure this tradeoff? Lars Peter Hansen, Nobel Laureate and UChicago economist, joins The Pie to discuss his recent research on how policymakers might make the most of this precious and dwindling resource.
The U.S. government swung into action when the ranks of the pandemic unemployed swelled almost beyond recognition. Three years on, economists are continuing to study the effects of the largest increase in unemployment benefits in U.S. history. The Harris School of Public Policy’s Peter Ganong and Chicago Booth’s Joseph Vavra join The Pie to discuss the impacts on spending and job-finding.
How much effect do government policies have on doctors’ wages? And when those wages are high, does it drive inequality in other jobs? And how does Taylor Swift factor in? Or Beyoncé? Joshua D. Gottlieb of the Harris School of Public Policy joins The Pie to discuss his research using detailed data to study earnings and how they’re influenced by forces like public policy and rising inequality.
When the Los Angeles Unified School District combined some neighborhood high schools into Zones of Choice, schools had to compete for students. The result? Achievement gaps narrowed, and more kids reported that they liked school. Chris Campos of Chicago Booth joins The Pie to discuss the results of a new study.
The use of cryptocurrency is on the rise, but who exactly is on the bandwagon? Chicago Booth’s Michael Weber has examined the crypto market – who’s in it, why they believe in it, and what it might mean for the future. He joins The Pie to share the surprising (and also unsurprising) findings.
Many, if not most, citizens of working age have gone back to their jobs in the three-plus years since the start of the pandemic – but not everybody has. Part of the reason is a lingering fear about workplace safety. Chicago Booth’s Steven Davis has new research showing the effect of these fears on the overall economy.
In the stock market, we all want to do well, but for some investors it’s also important to do good. In this episode, Chicago Booth’s Lubos Pastor joins to discuss his research on sustainable investing and what two recent studies tell us about the returns on “green” vs “brown” assets.
Did borrowers and the American economy benefit from the federal government’s 2020 student debt moratorium? The picture is complicated according to new research from UChicago Economics’ Michael Dinerstein and Chicago Booth’s Constantine Yannelis. They join this week to share their surprising findings.
Vote-buying, or influencing voters’ decisions through favors or gifts, is pervasive in areas such as Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. UC Berkeley’s Frederico Finan, the TC Liu Distinguished Visitor at BFI, discusses his work studying how vote-buying unfolds on the ground in Paraguay. Finan describes how norms of reciprocity drive voters to opt for politicians who have treated them favorably in the past, and offers advice for how policymakers might disrupt this process to combat election fraud.
The number of ways we can use AI is exploding, and it’s expected to change how entire industries function. Chicago Booth professor Maximilian Muhn and PhD student Alex Kim studied whether ChatGPT can simplify information and improve outcomes for investors. They share how AI summarizes inputs like annual reports and conference calls in ways that better explain stock market movements.
Around the world, people underestimate support for basic women's rights. In new research, UChicago Economics' Leonardo Bursztyn documents these misperceptions and shows how they restrict women's progress. Aligning people's perceived and actual views, he says, can help promote women's full participation in the labor force.
Nobody ever wants to pay more for anything, especially when prices rise drastically – but can inflationary episodes be good for the economy? Harris Policy’s Carolin Pflueger joins The Pie to discuss different types of inflation, how they affect the economy, and what her research tells us about monetary policy in the world of newly rising prices.
When rural patients need care that local medical facilities can’t provide, what’s the best way to ensure they get the care they need? Chicago Booth's Jonathan Dingel and Harris Policy's Joshua Gottlieb explore how larger cities and rural areas trade medical services, and challenge assumptions about the best ways to improve both access and care.
Social media behaviors, moving at an ever faster pace, may not reflect what users really want, according to new research from economists Sendhil Mullainathan (Chicago Booth) and Amanda Agan (Rutgers University). They join The Pie to discuss how algorithms feed off our lizard brains to magnify biases.
At the third anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns, this episode takes a look at ongoing healthcare market failures and the pandemic’s role in making them plain. Katherine Baicker, healthcare economist and newly appointed Provost of the University of Chicago, joins to take stock of the US healthcare system and discuss the challenges that remain.
What can vultures and economics tell us about the cost of losing a keystone species? New research from environmental economist Eyal Frank of the Harris School of Public Policy explores the social and economic cost in India, where a plummeting population of vultures may serve as a warning for the future.
When policymakers passed a historic welfare reform law in 1996, they likely did not anticipate what would happen when youth with disabilities turned 18 and lost their support. We talk with UChicago economist Manasi Deshpande about her novel research studying what portion of them ended up in the criminal justice system.
How can discrimination by race, gender, or other factors be measured – especially when its causes may be systemic in nature? Chicago Booth’s Alex Imas studies behavioral science and economics, and is conducting research that is expanding the scope and ambition of discrimination research. He joined The Pie to discuss the creative new ways economists are capturing discrimination.
New research finds minorities are 24-33% more likely to be stopped for speeding and will pay 23-34% more in fines, relative to a white driver traveling the exact same speed. UChicago economists John List and Justin Holz join The Pie to discuss how they designed research drawing on high-frequency Lyft data, and its broader implications for future research and policy.
Can ‘nudges’ improve your New Year’s resolutions? Today we’re looking back at one of our most popular episodes. Host Tess Vigeland sat down with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler in 2021 to discuss new material from his book, Nudge: The Final Edition – including home mortgages, retirement savings, credit card debt, climate change, organ donation, COVID-19, healthcare, and even “sludge.”
How will China’s economy respond after the lifting of ‘Zero Covid’ policy? UChicago economist Chang-Tai Hsieh joins The Pie to discuss the surprising party response to political protests, emerging dynamics affecting the Chinese economy today, and what the future may hold.
Ten months into a devastating war, the Russian and Ukrainian economies are struggling yet resilient. Russian-born economist Konstantin Sonin joins The Pie to provide an update on the economic impacts of the ongoing conflict, including the massive long-term toll not yet captured in available data.
The Federal Reserve’s latest 75 basis point rate hike brought interest rates up again on everything from mortgages to car loans and credit cards. Will it be enough to halt inflation? How is the Fed thinking about the US economy, unemployment, and its global impact? University of Chicago economist Anil Kashyap joins to discuss the campaign to bring inflation down and mounting pressure on the central bank.
In this episode, we’re talking about guns. Chicago Booth economist Brad Shapiro has quantified—for the first time—American consumer demand for guns, and how that demand shifts in response to different regulations, including bans and taxes. He was surprised by some of the findings, which offer new and important insights for ongoing gun policy debates.
Did closing schools during the COVID-19 pandemic serve students and society at-large? As part of a World Bank Advisory Panel, University of Chicago economist Rachel Glennerster is taking a closer look at the long-term economic cost of learning losses. Addressing these costs, estimated at greater than $10 trillion, will be crucial to future education policy and pandemic response.
The remote work revolution is now more than two years old, and it’s a worldwide phenomenon, at least in wealthier countries. Economist Steve Davis has been studying the staying power of work from home around the globe, and finds that not only is it here to stay, but it’s prompting larger societal questions about everything from worker power to the viability of urban city centers.
Last season, we were at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, effecting every aspect of our lives and the economy. So this season, we're back looking at the aftermath of the global pandemic and beyond — talking with economists from the University of Chicago about their cutting-edge research on the issues of today.
Join us every other week for season two of The Pie, beginning Tuesday, October 4.
A new meta-analysis by Michael Kremer and co-authors suggests water treatment could reduce child mortality by about 30% in low- and middle-income countries, making it a highly cost-effective treatment for saving lives. Kremer joined his co-author Stephen Luby to discuss some of their findings in an event hosted by the Development Innovation Lab and the Center for Global Development. For more information on the research, visit dil.uchicago.edu.
Which economies will suffer most from global warming, and by just how much? Will others see benefits? The differences are key to understanding how the global economy will look in the coming years. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg and co-authors are using a dynamic economic assessment model to answer these questions in detail, for the first time. He presented his research as part of the Becker Friedman Institute’s Friedman Forum Series for students.
Inflation has spiked, even while the economy still recovers. What can the Fed do? It’s one of the biggest and most rapidly evolving questions facing macroeconomists today. In this Extra Slice of The Pie, Chicago Booth’s Christina Patterson provides a crash course in how monetary policy works and what economists have learned by studying it empirically.
How can a small nudge make a big impact? Since publishing the first edition of Nudge more than 10 years ago, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler have changed the way businesses and governments design rules and regulations to influence people’s behavior and decision making. Tess Vigeland sat down with Thaler to discuss new material covered in Nudge: The Final Edition, including COVID-19, healthcare, retirement savings, credit card debt, home mortgages, organ donation, climate change, and even “sludge.”
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