Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar: A History of Economics Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Jennifer, François, and Çınla are joined by Laetitia Lenel, Professor of Cultural History of the Economic in the Institute of History at the University of Duisburg-Essen, to discuss some of her recent work on the role of narratives in economics.

In this month's episode, Çınla, Jennifer, and François speak with Professor Cheryl Misak, University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Fellow of the Canadian Royal Society, and Guggenheim Fellow, about Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers, her highly regarded biography of the influential mathematician, philosopher, and economist. Other topics include Professor Misak's work on Charles Sanders Peirce and the pragmatist tradition at the University of Cambridge. 

Jennifer and François are joined by Julien Gradoz for one of our occasional episodes focused on the work and lives of early-career scholars in the history of economic thought and economic methodology. Julien is a recently minted PhD from the University of Lille. Topics include his experiences in graduate school, writing his dissertation, career prospects in the field, and Julien's research on the economics of product quality. 

Here is a link to some of Julien's recent work (may be paywalled):

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/abs/managing-repugnance-how-corestigma-shapes-firm-behavior/D6DD4071A3C3A4DCCFCD6D239D34324D

Çınla, François, and Jennifer chat with Danielle Guizzo, Associate Professor in Economics Education at the University of Bristol. Topics include Professor Guizzo's work deconstructing economic expertise and her recent papers on the economics of Barbara Wootton, best known as a sociologist and criminologist, and on the relationship between public economics and John Rawls, the famous political philosopher. 

Jennifer, Çınla, and François interview Carl Wennerlind, Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University. Topics include Professor Wennerlind's newly-published book, Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis, co-authored with Fredrik Jonsson, the history of political economy in early modern Sweden, and A Philosopher's Economist: [David] Hume and the Rise of Capitalism, written with Margaret Schabas, and published in 2021. [NOTE: Professor Schabas appeared on the show to discuss the book in May 2022, Episode 56.]

François, Jennifer, and Çınla chat with Roni Hirsch, Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and Political Theory at the University of Haifa, about her research on profit, uncertainty, risk, Frank Knight, John Hicks, and other related subjects. 

Çınla, François, and Jennifer interview Professor Edmund Phelps, Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics, about his new memoir, My Journeys in Economic Theory (May 2023, Columbia University Press).

Jennifer, Çınla, and François chat with Alex Thomas, Assistant Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University in Bangalore, Karnataka, India about his research and teaching. 

Çınla, François, and Jennifer discuss a number of recent additions to the literature.

If you are interested in reading the papers discussed in this episode, here they are (unfortunately, some may be behind paywalls):

Hobbes and the political economy of population – Brian Smith

Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics – Daniel Williams

Beyond the Sonderweg: defining political economy in 19th-century Germany – Luiz Felipe Bruzzi Curi and Ian Coelho de Souza Almeida

Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar is supported by a grant from the History of Economics Society: http://historyofeconomics.org

Çınla, François, and Jennifer interview Pedro Garcia Duarte, Senior Research Fellow with the Insper Institute of Education and Research in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and co-editor of Journal of the History of Economic Thought, about his work on the history of macroeconomics. 

Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar is supported by a grant from the History of Economics Society: http://historyofeconomics.org