Science

EconTalk

by Russ Roberts

EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious is an award-winning weekly podcast hosted by Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford's Hoover Institution. The eclectic guest list includes authors, doctors, psychologists, historians, philosophers, economists, and more. Learn how the health care system really works, the serenity that comes from humility, the challenge of interpreting data, how potato chips are made, what it's like to run an upscale Manhattan restaurant, what caused the 2008 financial crisis, the nature of consciousness, the conflicts and history of the Middle East, and more. EconTalk has been taking the Monday out of Mondays since 2006. All 1000+ episodes are available in the archive. Go to EconTalk.org for transcripts, related resources, and comments.

100 episodes

EN-US language

All Episodes

1

The Economics of Scarcity and the UNC-Duke Basketball Game (with Michael Munger)

1:06:08 Mar 16, 2026

2

How We Tamed Ourselves and Invented Good and Evil (with Hanno Sauer)

1:14:10 Mar 9, 2026

3

The Power of Introverts (with Susan Cain)

1:08:03 Mar 2, 2026

4

The Man Who Would Be King of Saudi Arabia (with Karen Elliott House)

1:16:58 Feb 23, 2026

5

Seiko, Swatch, and the Swiss Watch Industry (with Aled Maclean-Jones)

1:01:29 Feb 16, 2026

6

A Military Analysis of Israel's War in Gaza (with Andrew Fox)

1:08:15 Feb 9, 2026

7

How to Flourish (with Daniel Coyle)

1:15:21 Feb 2, 2026

8

Zionism, the Melting Pot, and the Galveston Project (with Rachel Cockerell)

1:06:42 Jan 26, 2026

9

Nature, Nurture, and Identical Twins (with David Bessis)

1:04:58 Jan 19, 2026

10

The Mattering Instinct (with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein)

1:05:26 Jan 12, 2026

11

Conversation, Interintellect, and Arcadia (with Anna Gat)

1:22:15 Jan 5, 2026

12

In Defense of Intuition (with Gerd Gigerenzer)

58:16 Dec 29, 2025

13

David Deutsch on the Pattern

1:26:16 Dec 22, 2025

14

Free Will Is Real (with Kevin Mitchell)

1:32:27 Dec 15, 2025

15

Colonialism, Slavery, and Foreign Aid (with William Easterly)

1:04:02 Dec 8, 2025

16

The Perfect Tuba: How Band, Grit, and Community Build a Better Life (with Sam Quinones)

1:00:43 Dec 1, 2025

17

The Status Game (with Will Storr)

1:01:11 Nov 24, 2025

18

The Wonder of the Emergent Mind (with Gaurav Suri)

1:39:40 Nov 17, 2025

19

Shampoo, Property Rights, and Civilization (with Anthony Gill)

1:08:19 Nov 10, 2025

20

Primal Intelligence (with Angus Fletcher)

1:20:41 Nov 3, 2025

21

A Mind-Blowing Way of Looking at Math (with David Bessis)

1:21:53 Oct 27, 2025

22

Twenty Years of Freakonomics (with Stephen Dubner)

1:42:44 Oct 20, 2025

23

The Magic of Tokyo (with Joe McReynolds)

1:09:23 Oct 13, 2025

24

The Invisible Hierarchies that Rule Our World (with Toby Stuart)

1:13:15 Oct 6, 2025

25

Eating with Intelligence (with Julia Belluz)

1:05:49 Sep 29, 2025

26

Steven Pinker on Common Knowledge

1:23:20 Sep 22, 2025

27

How Did America Build the Arsenal of Democracy? (with Brian Potter)

1:05:05 Sep 15, 2025

28

How Teams Succeed (with Colin Fisher)

1:03:22 Sep 8, 2025

29

Humans Are Overrated (with Christine Webb)

1:10:53 Sep 1, 2025

30

Hemingway, Love, and War (with David Wyatt)

1:06:28 Aug 25, 2025

31

Tim Ferriss on Tim Ferriss (and much much more)

2:06:49 Aug 18, 2025

32

Learning to Think Like Someone Else (with David Marquet)

1:03:46 Aug 11, 2025

33

Let Me Be Forgotten (with Lowry Pressly)

1:21:00 Aug 4, 2025

34

Read Like a Champion (with Doug Lemov)

1:03:56 Jul 28, 2025

35

James Marriott on Reading

1:25:22 Jul 21, 2025

36

How to Walk the World (with Chris Arnade)

1:14:38 Jul 14, 2025

37

What Is Capitalism? (with Mike Munger)

1:19:48 Jul 7, 2025

38

The Deceptive Power of Maps (with Paulina Rowinska)

1:09:16 Jun 30, 2025

39

How to Be a Super Ager (with Eric Topol)

1:01:24 Jun 23, 2025

40

Leon Kass on the Wisdom of Rousseau

1:17:07 Jun 16, 2025

41

Two Cheers for Libertarianism and Econ 101 (with Noah Smith)

1:22:06 Jun 9, 2025

42

EconTalk #1000 (with Russ Roberts)

1:08:49 Jun 2, 2025

43

Nature vs. Nurture (with Paul Bloom)

1:07:44 May 26, 2025

44

Inside the Mysterious World of Credit Cards (with Patrick McKenzie)

1:15:14 May 19, 2025

45

The Past and Present of Privacy and Public Life (with Tiffany Jenkins)

1:22:59 May 12, 2025

46

The Economics of Tariffs and Trade (with Doug Irwin)

1:32:53 May 5, 2025

47

The Past and Future of AI (with Dwarkesh Patel)

1:36:44 Apr 28, 2025

48

Why Christianity Needs to Help Save Democracy (with Jonathan Rauch)

1:20:08 Apr 21, 2025

49

Rational and Religious (with Ross Douthat)

1:17:31 Apr 14, 2025

50

The Music and Magic of John and Paul (with Ian Leslie)

1:17:48 Apr 7, 2025

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