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.
Listen to episodes
60 recent
August 18, 202630 min
Scoop and Run: How Should Gunshot Victims Get to the Hospital?
When a police officer is shot, is it safer to wait for an ambulance or to be driven straight to the hospital in a squad car? In this episode of The Pie, Prachi Sanghavi, an associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago and co-director of the Health Policy Data Lab, discusses new research tracing how shooting victims across 18 U.S. cities reach the hospital, and what it reveals about a decades-old debate over pre-hospital care.
August 4, 202652 min
Talking to Strangers: The Economics of Social Connection
New research shows that people are strikingly bad at predicting how good it feels to connect with a stranger. In this episode of The Pie, Nick Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and author of A Little More Social, discusses what more than 120 experiments reveal about why we avoid reaching out to others, and what that avoidance may be costing us.
July 21, 202627 min
Passing the Pop Quiz: How Nursing Homes Predict Inspections, and What It Costs Patients
In the United States, regulators inspect nursing homes to ensure compliance with quality, safety, and other standards. While these inspections are not technically announced, they are easy for nursing home staff to predict because they usually occur annually. In this episode of The Pie, Maggie Shi, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, discusses how this predictability affects nursing homes' effort levels, and, in turn, resident health.
July 7, 202642 min
AI and Early Childhood Development: The Importance of Human Interaction
At a time when forty percent of American two-year-olds have their own tablet, a new generation of AI toys and chatbots is being marketed as a better alternative to screens. On this episode, Dana Suskind, pediatric cochlear implant surgeon, co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning and Public Health, and author of the new book Human Raised, explains the importance of human interaction for children's brain development.
June 23, 202629 min
Signal and Noise: Why Politics Is About Culture When Voters Want Economics
Voters consistently say they care most about the economy — jobs, wages, inflation, the price of gas. So why are campaigns so often fought over culture? In this episode, Konstantin Sonin, the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and co-director of BFI's Political Economics Initiative, walks host Tess Vigeland through his theory of "multi-dimensional signaling." Because economic policy is too complex for voters to fully decode, they read a candidate's cultural stances as a proxy for what that candidate will do economically, and politicians exploit it.
June 9, 202647 min
How Should Parents Respond When Grades are Good, But Test Scores are Bad?
When a child brings home good grades but low standardized test scores, which signal should parents pay attention to? In this episode, Ariel Kalil of the UChicago Harris School of Public Policy discusses new research showing that parents lean heavily on grades, and high grades often crowd out the extra help low test scores would otherwise prompt. With pandemic learning losses disguised by inflated grades, Kalil discusses how this dynamic may mean that struggling kids aren't getting the support they need.
May 26, 202625 min
Tied to the Job: The Gains from Permanent Residency
When immigrant workers come to a country on a visa tied to a single employer, what is it worth to be free to switch jobs? In this episode, Chicago Booth economist Matt Notowidigdo discusses new research using Canadian administrative data to track temporary foreign workers when they gain permanent residency. Job-switching rates jump 21.7 percentage points and earnings rise 5.7 percent within three years, driven largely by workers sorting into higher-paying firms across industries.
May 5, 202658 min
Life as a Lab: John List on the Art and Ethics of Field Experiments
Have you taken a Lyft, shopped at Walmart, or used Facebook in the last decade? If so, you've likely been a participant in one of John List's experiments. In this episode of The Pie, List, Professor of Economics and Director of the Becker Friedman Institute, returns to discuss his new 900-page textbook, Experimental Economics: Theory in Practice — the field guide he wishes he'd had as he pioneered the use of real-world experiments to figure out what moves human behavior across policy and business. From a Wisconsin baseball-card table in 1985 to the White House, Lyft, and Walmart, List shares the lessons, mistakes, and ethical questions that have shaped three decades of discovery.
April 28, 20261 hr 17 min
Wealth of Institutions: Randall Kroszner on Why Markets Stayed Calm While the Fed Came Under Fire
Earlier this year, former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that political pressure on the Federal Reserve could turn the U.S. into "a banana republic." And yet long-term interest rates, inflation expectations, and the dollar have shown a remarkably muted reaction to President Trump's public pressure on Chair Jerome Powell. Why? In this episode of The Pie, Randall Kroszner, Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics at Chicago Booth and a former Federal Reserve Governor during the 2008 financial crisis, argues that markets are staying calm because they trust the institutional guardrails around the Fed, which include the courts, the Senate, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Recorded live at UChicago as part of BFI's Wealth 250 campaign marking the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Kroszner walks through the market data and draws on his time inside the Fed during the global financial crisis to explain the difference between independence and accountability.
April 21, 202658 min
A Conversation with Raghuram Rajan: Corporate Governance, Community, and Political Economy
In this Extra Slice of The Pie, guest host Ben Krause sits down with Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, for a wide-ranging conversation on everything from what 25,000 CEO letters reveal about corporate America's shift from maximizing shareholder value to prioritizing customers and employees, to why communities matter as much as markets and the state, the political equilibrium that determines whether societies thrive or collapse, how inequality drove the 2008 financial crisis, and why AI could create catastrophic outcomes without better support for workers. Rajan reflects on his path from observing development gaps as a child to prescient warnings about financial crises, explains why modern firms are fundamentally about managing power struggles between stakeholders, and makes the case for "inclusive localism," or, empowering communities while keeping borders open to competition.
Is this your show?
Claim this listing to keep it up to date, reach guests who want to pitch you, and manage bookings with Guestify.
