In this episode, Dane Stangler, a research manager at the Kauffman Foundation, talks with Dan Ariely, author and professor. They discussed Ariely's perspective on behavior economics, which quantifies how people actually act in the marketplace, often very different than what conventional wisdom dictates. Ariely tells how irrational behavior can be both positive and negative. For example, when calorie counts are posted in fast food restaurants, consumers put all logic aside and ignore the numbers. On the plus side, Ariely says, our society benefits from entrepreneurship, even though the risks of starting a business would make it seem an irrational idea.

Ariely is the author of the New York Times Bestseller "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions" and of "The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Ways We Defy Logic at Work and at Home."

He is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University, where he holds appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the School of Medicine, and the department of Economics.

He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Tel Aviv University, his master's and doctorate degrees in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina, and a doctorate in Business Administration from Duke University.

Listen now:	Save to your computer:
Flash Player upgrade required 29:32	27.05 MB

In this episode, Paul talks with Richard Florida, delving into themes Florida discusses in his new book, The Great Reset. They talked about the cultural, economic and geographic factors influencing innovative time periods and places. They also wrestled with topics like: "Should cities be allowed to fail?" and "Why are college towns such hotbeds of innovation?"

Florida is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He also heads private consulting firm the Creative Class Group. Florida's research provides unique, data-driven insight into the social, economic and demographic factors that drive the 21st-century world economy. is author of the international bestsellers The Rise of the Creative Class and Who's Your City?  Florida is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and a regular columnist for The Globe and Mail. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Economist, and The Harvard Business Review. He has been featured as an expert on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR, and CBS.

He is a sought-after speaker on global trends, economics, prosperity, competitiveness and growth. 

Previously, Florida has held professorships at George Mason University and Carnegie Mellon University and taught as a visiting professor at Harvard and MIT. Florida earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. 

Listen now:	Save to your computer:
Flash Player upgrade required 36:50	33.74 MB

In this episode, Paul talks with journalist and author Kathryn Schulz. They discussed Shulz's recently released book, "Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error." They talked about Schulz's premise that we're all wrong, all the time, and how the inability of politicians and business leaders to admit to mistakes can be devastating. On the other hand, the ability to learn from our mistakes can have personal benefits.

Schulz's freelance writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and the Huffington Post, among other publications. She writes “The Wrong Stuff,” a blog on Slate (magazine), and contributes to the Freakonomics blog at The New York Times. Schulz began her career in journalism writing for the now-defunct Feed Magazine, one of the earliest online magazines. She is the former editor of the online environmental magazine Grist, and a former reporter and editor for The Santiago Times, of Santiago, Chile, where she covered environmental, labor, and human rights issues. She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism (now the International Reporting Project), and has reported from throughout Central and South America, Japan, and, most recently, the Middle East. A graduate of Brown University and a former Ohioan, Oregonian, and Brooklynite, she currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley.

Listen now:	Save to your computer:
Flash Player upgrade required 28:38	26.22 MB

In this episode, Paul talks with Paul Romer, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Center for International Development and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. They discussed Romer's path as an academic turned entrepreneur, who returned to Stanford to explore how the startup dynamic could potentially be applied at the level of developing countries.

Romer's contributions to the field of economics include being the primary developer of New Growth Theory, which reduces the traditional emphasis on the scarcity of objects and directs attention to the power of new ideas. His theory has brought renewed optimism about the potential for growth in both advanced and developing economies.

For his work on the economics of ideas, Romer was named one of America’s 25 most influential people by TIME magazine (1997), elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2000) and awarded the Horst Claus Recktenwald Prize in Economics (2002). He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Prior to his current Stanford University position, he taught in the university’s Graduate School of Business as the STANCO 25 Professor of Economics and was honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award (1999). Before moving to Stanford, Romer taught economics at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.

In addition to his career in teaching and research, Romer founded Aplia, Inc., which is now part of Cengage Learning. Aplia, which develops and applies technologies to improve student learning, grew out of his conviction that it is possible to use information technology to raise productivity in education. This lesson has important implications for how societies keep up with the growing demand for highly educated workers—a demand that is driven by the use of new technology in all other sectors of the economy.

Listen now:	Save to your computer:
Flash Player upgrade required 32:37	29.86 MB

Kling is an independent scholar who writes about a wide variety of economic issues. He was an economist on the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1980-1986, and served as a senior economist at Freddie Mac from 1986-1994. In 1994, he founded Homefair.com, one of the first commercial sites on the World Wide Web. Kling is the author of several books, most recently From Poverty to Prosperity: Intangible Assets, Hidden Liabilities and The Lasting Triumph over Scarcity and Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care, published by the Cato Institute.  Kling received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980.

Listen now:	Save to your computer:
Flash Player upgrade required 32:00	29.3 MB