Economist Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute talks about apprenticeships with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Lerman argues that apprenticeships--a combination of work experience and classroom learning--have the potential to expand opportunities for young people who don't want to attend college.

By Michael L. Davis

Russ Roberts claims that if someone asks whether he's a doctor, he tells them "yes, but not the kind that helps people." That's not true; Russ has helped me a lot. I've been a regular listener of Econtalk for many years. I can't tell you how many books I've read after listening to one of his author interviews, but it ...

By Pierre Lemieux

In any liberal-libertarian conception of justice, there is no doubt that a liberated slave had a moral right to compensation from his master. From an economic viewpoint (what is possible and at what cost), the problem is more complex, especially across generations. In response to an article in The Economist, I would pr...

By John Taylor

Most political writers have concluded, that a republican government, over a very large territory, cannot exist; and as this opinion is sustained by alarming proofs, and weighty authorities, it is entitled to much respect, and serious consideration. All extensive territories in past times, and all in the present age, ex...

By Claudia Goldin

When economists speak of the “gender gap” these days, they usually are referring to systematic differences in the outcomes that men and women achieve in the labor market. These differences are seen in the percentages of men and women in the labor force, the types of occupations they choose, and their relative incom...

By Sarah Skwire

I suppose there are people who might be surprised to find themselves getting solid economic analysis from a food blogger. I am not one of them. I’ve actually been waiting for this moment since March.   Deb Perelman is one of my favorite food bloggers. Her blog, Smitten Kitchen, details her adventures cooki...

By Alice Temnick

Are you a reader who can socialize with dead people? One who engages in the form of reading that enables interaction with people who have been dead a long time? In this episode, EconTalk host Russ Roberts and philosopher Agnes Callard consider the state of humanities education, the lifelong benefits of the study of phi...

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  In 2008, U.S. economist Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Krugman, one of the best-known economists in the world, is familiar to the public mainly through his regular column in the New York Times and for his New York Times blog titled “The Conscience of a Liberal.” Besides being...

By Scott Sumner

Tyler Cowen linked to a tweet that mentioned the fact that: On a per-capita basis, of the European majors only Germany has done better than the US in death rate The "European majors" include Spain with 46.8 million people but not Poland with 37.8 million.  So the cutoff seems to be a rather arbitrary 40 million peop...

By Arnold Kling

When 66 million Democrats and 69 million Republicans lost their empathy toward each other, lack of civility, loathing and anger erupted, resulting in a partisan power struggle with no brakes or constraint that has been eroding the guardrails of our democracy. —René H. Levy, Mending America's Political Divide:...

Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was recorded in 2001 in an extended video now available to the public. Universally respected as one of the founders of the economics of public choice, he is the author of numerous books and hundreds of articles in the areas of public finance, public choice, constitutional ec...

By Amy Willis

This week's PG-13 episode has scandal, celebrities, and sex tapes. But according to EconTalk host Russ Roberts, Ryan Holiday's newest book, Conspiracy, is "an extended meditation on power, strategy, patience, [and] revenge..." Holiday tells the story of the demise of the celebrity expose website Gawker after a trial br...