Episodes 1,053
Avg. Duration 1h 8m
Activity Highly Active
Apple Rating 4.7 (4,232)
Since Mar 2006
Latest Episode Jun 2026

Outreach Signals

Features Guests

Publishing Details

Schedule
Weekly
Format
Episodic
Consistency
100%
Hosting
feeds.simplecast.com

Contact & Outreach

About This Podcast

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.

Explore Statistics

Recent Episodes

The Self, the Crowd, and Social Contagion (with Luke Burgis)

Jun 08, 2026 1h 11m

Finding community can be difficult. But author Luke Burgis thinks the real challenge begins once we've found it and we're subject to social pressures to conform. Listen as Burgis and EconTalk's Russ…

Making Your 80,000 Hours Count (with Benjamin Todd)

Jun 01, 2026 1h 7m

If you want to change the world, how you spend your 80,000 working hours may be the most important decision you can make. Benjamin Todd, founder of 80,000 Hours, joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to…

Facing Death (with Sebastian Junger)

May 25, 2026 1h 6m

What does a lifelong atheist do when his dead father appears above him in the emergency room? Author and war reporter Sebastian Junger nearly bled to death in 2020 from a ruptured aneurysm, and what…

Tom Cruise's Body of Work (with Aled Maclean-Jones)

May 18, 2026 1h 8m

What can Tom Cruise's last impossible mission teach us about usefulness in the digital age? Aled Maclean-Jones argues that dangling from cargo planes, soldering hard drives, and skydiving nineteen…

Thinking Inside the Box (with David Epstein)

May 11, 2026 1h 10m

What do the inventor of the periodic table, the novelist Isabel Allende, and the almost-creators of the iPhone have in common? Join author David Epstein and EconTalk's Russ Roberts to explore a…

Golfing Alone (with Gary Belsky)

May 04, 2026 59m

No rush, no noise, no one else on the golf course: solo golf is an entirely different game, offering physical, mental, and spiritual benefits that playing with others can't. Listen as author and…

Claude, War, and the State of the Republic (with Dean Ball)

Apr 27, 2026 1h 17m

The Department of War wanted to deploy Anthropic's Claude for "all lawful use." What begins as a policy dispute between a tech company and the Department of War quietly unfolds into something far…

Adam Smith's Warning About Wealth, Fame, and Status (with Ross Levine)

Apr 20, 2026 1h 3m

What can Adam Smith teach us today? In this conversation between Ross Levine of Stanford's Hoover Institution and EconTalk's Russ Roberts, Smith emerges as a penetrating psychologist who understood…

The Man Who Built NVIDIA (with Stephen Witt)

Apr 13, 2026 1h 4m

He arrived in America as a child with no English. He was mistakenly sent to a school for juvenile delinquents. He faced rampant prejudice--yet Jensen Huang, the under-the-radar CEO of NVIDIA, became…

The Unseen Work: Stewart Brand on Maintenance and Civilization

Apr 06, 2026 1h 27m

What does a lone sailor circling the globe have to do with the fall of empires, the Model T, and the rise of AI? Everything--because maintenance, the quiet act of keeping things going, turns out to…

AI, Employment, and Education (with Tyler Cowen)

Mar 30, 2026 1h 2m

Tyler Cowen is bullish on the integration of AI into higher education. He's also not worried about its effects on the future workplace. Listen as Cowen speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the…

The Match That Lit the Flame: Hannah Senesh and the Creation of Modern Israel (with Matti Friedman)

Mar 23, 2026 1h 10m

Why would a group of young Jews who escaped the Holocaust choose to parachute back into Nazi-occupied Europe? How did they become heroes despite the failure of that mission? Author Matti Friedman…

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

Mar 16, 2026 1h 6m

Duke University leaves millions of dollars on the table every year by giving away free tickets to the most sought-after game in college basketball. The bizarre ticket allocation system includes weeks…

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

Mar 09, 2026 1h 14m

What if humanity's capacity for cruelty was actually one of our greatest moral achievements? That's just one of the provocative ideas philosopher Hanno Sauer explores in this conversation about his…

The Power of Introverts (with Susan Cain)

Mar 02, 2026 1h 8m

Introverts are underrated. So says Susan Cain in her conversation with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about her book, Quiet. She explains why introversion isn't the same thing as shyness and she speaks of…

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

Feb 23, 2026 1h 16m

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been dragging Saudi Arabia into the modern world over the last decade. Journalist and author Karen Elliott House lays out the Saudi leader's motivations, hopes,…

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

Feb 16, 2026 1h 1m

How did an industry survive a technology that should have made it obsolete? Aled Maclean-Jones explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts how Japanese quartz watches nearly wiped out Swiss watchmaking with…

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

Feb 09, 2026 1h 8m

What does war look like when fought under the harshest scrutiny? Veteran soldier and military researcher Andrew Fox talks about his first-hand experience in Gaza with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. He and…

How to Flourish (with Daniel Coyle)

Feb 02, 2026 1h 15m

Author Daniel Coyle talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts on the art of flourishing: why it's a natural phenomenon rather than mechanical; how taking life's "yellow doors"--or detours from a straight,…

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

Jan 26, 2026 1h 6m

What happens when a writer discovers her "boring" great-grandfather was actually a household name across the Russian Empire who helped 10,000 Jews escape to Texas? Rachel Cockerell's The Melting…

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does EconTalk have?

EconTalk has published 1053 episodes since March 2006, covering topics in Courses, Education.

Is EconTalk still active?

EconTalk is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 1h 8m.

How do I contact EconTalk for sponsorship or guest appearances?

Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for EconTalk, including email and social media links.

Similar Podcasts