The link below takes you to Econ Talk which is a weekly blog involving one to one interviews with an eclectic mix of economists. The website and blogs are published by the Library of Economics and Liberty which is supported by Liberty Fund Incorporated. So many uses of the word “liberty” might raise suspicions about the political outlook of the site and when you listen to the host of the weekly blog, Russ Roberts, your suspicions may be reinforced. He clearly comes from a libertarian perspective which places a great deal of faith in the market and thinks that education would be much more effective if wholly privatised. However, he is consistent in his views on the importance of effective competition and has excoriated the bail out of the banks after the 2008 credit crunch.
Whatever the ideological preferences of the site and the host of Econ Talk they get some great interviewees and one of the latest ones was Mariana Mazzucato. Ms Mazzucatto wrote a very timely and important book on the role of the State in innovation entitled “The Entrepreneurial State”. In the blog connected to this link she talks about her latest book “The Value of Everything”. This looks at how the concept of value in economic theory has evolved over time and how it has been stripped of any social and moral context, effectively reduced to being market price. In a remarkable reversal, instead of value underpinning price it has become the case that value is determined by price.
It is a great conversation. Whatever his personal prejudices, Russ Roberts is an effective inquisitor and unfailingly courteous. Mariana is robustly compelling and gives a great summary of the main arguments of the book. If you are interested in current debates in economics I recommend the Econ Talk site generally but the Mariana conversation is a gem worth listening to if you never visit the site again.
northerncomment 