The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Michael Munger
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About This Podcast
"The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." -Adam Smith (WoN, Bk I, Chapter 5)
In which the Knower of Important Things shows how transaction costs explain literally everything. Plus TWEJ, and answers to letters.
If YOU have questions, submit them to our email at [email protected]
There are two kinds of episodes here:
1. For the most part, episodes June-August are weekly, short (<20 mins), and address a few topics.
2. Episodes September-May are longer (1 hour), and monthly, with an interview with a guest.
Finally, a quick note: This podcast is NOT for Stacy Hockett. He wanted you to know that.....
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Recent Episodes
Hereditary Monarchy: At Least You Know Which Idiot Is Next
Send us Fan MailHereditary monarchy seems like a ridiculous way to pick a leader, yet it dominates most of human political history. We argue the reason is transaction costs: succession systems…
Swollen Permits? Call Chile!
Send us Fan MailPermits feel like “just paperwork”, until they quietly become the biggest barrier to building, investing, and even basic economic growth. We use Chile’s fight with “permisologia” to…
Honor Among Thieves: Anja Shortland and Ransomware
Send us Fan MailA talk with Dr Anya Shortland about the economics of ransomware and the gray-zone institutions that let extortion markets function when nobody can truly enforce trust. We dig into how…
S3E21 Are Transaction Costs Really Just Human Distance
Send us Fan MailWe connect Adam Smith’s moral psychology to the modern idea of transaction costs and argue that the biggest frictions in markets start with the cost of understanding other people. We…
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 10: Always Contemporary
Send us Fan MailWe assess Adam Smith’s enduring ideas—moral authorization of commerce, division of labor, emergent order—and confront where his optimism breaks: how democratic politics and business…
S3E24 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 9: Spending, Taxing, and Debt
Send us Fan MailWe walk through Book Five of The Wealth of Nations to map a state that defends, adjudicates, and builds wisely, then pays for it without killing growth. From militias to standing…
S3E19 Adam Smith Episode 8: A Nation of Shopkeepers
Send us Fan MailSmith closes Book IV by dismantling mercantilism through the lens of colonial policy, monopoly, and rent seeking, then weighs physiocracy against the system of natural liberty. We…
Parts is (Not) Parts: The Life Cycle Problem for Heavy Equipment
Send us Fan MailWe trace how Alex Schuessler, the once and once-again President of SmartEquip--also a scholar of expressive choice!--built a platform that makes machines more profitable by erasing…
Money Killed Barter; Can a Platform Bring It Back?
Send us Fan MailWe explore why money became the default middleman and how a modern platform can make barter practical by slashing the costs of search, matching, and trust. Founder Jassim Baqer shares…
Adam Smith Episode 7: The Errors of Mercantilism--Bullion, Balances, and Bounties
Send us Fan MailTracing out Adam Smith’s Book IV, chapters 1–6, to show how mercantilism mistakes money for wealth, how protection creates monopolies at home, and why free exchange raises real…
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations Episode 6--Division of Land
Send us Fan MailWe trace how Adam Smith solves a historical puzzle: why Europe’s path to prosperity inverted the “natural order,” and how commerce quietly dissolved feudal power to make room for…
Little's Law: The Transaction Costs of (Re)Drawing Lines
Send us Fan MailA conversation with Andrew Wagner, production and manufacturing engineer, now in aerospace, but with experience also in the auto industry.We trace how transaction costs shape…
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: Episode 5--The Text of Book II
Send us Fan MailThis episode explores Book 2 of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, focusing on his revolutionary concept of the "division of stock" and how capital accumulation drives economic growth.•…
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: Episode 4--Capital and Book II: Introduction
Send us Fan MailBook Two of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" provides the conceptual foundation for understanding how commercial society sustains growth through capital accumulation and the…
S3E24 The Innovation is the Exchange Itself!
Send us Fan MailChris Cornette, a longtime securities trader who grew up in the business, reveals how the most important innovation that made US capital markets preeminent in the world was the…
S3E22 When Bribes Become the System: Understanding Lock-In
Send us Fan MailCorruption persists not because people like it, but because it becomes embedded in the incentive structure of the state, creating feedback loops that reinforce themselves and resist…
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: Episode #3--Introduction and Book I
Send us Fan MailAdam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" developed from decades of lectures on jurisprudence, examining how market exchange creates prosperity through division of labor and specialized…
Second Place Is The First Loser: Strategy Over Speed
Send us Fan MailThe ancient tradition of Il Palio in Siena showcases a complex system of strategic corruption, neighborhood rivalries, and high-stakes horse racing that has endured for centuries.…
S3E10 When Bats Attack: Understanding Insurance
Send us Fan MailMike Munger explores insurance economics through the lens of transaction costs and risk management, culminating in an amusing case study about "bat-in-mouth disease."Insurance…
S3E9 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: Episode #2--The "Model"
Send us Fan MailTransaction costs provide the key to understanding Adam Smith's complete philosophical system and how his two great works form an integrated whole. • Smith's two essential claims:…
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The Answer Is Transaction Costs has published 76 episodes since May 2023, covering topics in Comedy, News.
The Answer Is Transaction Costs is currently highly active with new episodes monthly. Average episode length is 40m.
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