Mixtape Podcast mini-series
I’ll keep it brief. I started a podcast because I thought it would be fun. Covid had an unusual effect which is that through social distancing, it caused an increase in person-to-person communications through Zoom and the like. I noticed it because I switched from doing in-person workshops to online workshops. Demand grew, and cost structure of producing workshop education shifted from large fixed costs to small fixed costs and the ability to scale.
But the main thing I noticed was that it made talking to people through Zoom normal. Everyone was doing it. It just was a part of life. And that meant no one had to be coached on things like installing software to do a podcast series. I could just assume they already had Zoom installed, already used to having Zoom invites showing up in their calendars, and just trust that our mics, while not perfect, would have to work. And so far it’s worked. It’s been a lot of fun.
But what exactly is the theme of the podcast? Well it’s called a “Mixtape podcast” because growing up mixtapes were basically curated feature length albums you gave to your friends. These mixtapes would follow a theme that made sense to you, blending lots of different songs from different artists and genres. “Best Makeout Mixtape Vol. 34” for instance could cover Arethra Franklin as well as Guns and Roses if that’s what you felt was in fact the best music to make out to.
So, that’s kind of my approach to this podcast. It’s called Mixtape Podcast, because it’s a collection of interviews around themes that I like to think about. Or not themes exactly — more like mini-series. Too short to be an actual series, but too long to be a movie. My favorite mini-series for instance was Lonesome Dove. It was long, it ended and that was it. And that’s what my podcast is about.
So I have a few mini-series and I’m just adding to them as I go. The ones I have planned are as follows:
Causal inference and Princeton Industrial Relations Section. I grouped them because in my mind, Princeton was ground zero to the work that would in time transform empirical microeconomics into what it is now. The people I’ve interviewed connect either to causal inference or Princeton IRS. They include Orley Ashenfelter, Guido Imbens, Josh Angrist, Alberto Abadie, Petra Todd, Peter Hull, Sophie Sun and Katy Graddy. Sometimes it’s more causal inference than Princeton, sometimes it’s more Princeton IRS than causal inference. I have more planned though who I’m going to slide into this category: Leah Boustan, for instance. Rajeev Dehejia for that seminal work applying the propensity score to Bob LaLonde’s old job market paper, the NSW job trainings program. And the hope is I can interview Don Rubin too.
Economists in tech. One of the more interesting things that I’ve learned about in recent years is that the demand for PhD economists in tech has been so substantial that it has had a historically large disruptive effect on the predominantly research-oriented traditional academic market, both at the junior and senior level. Part of this has been that the tech industry’s business models were built on top of auctions designed by pioneers like Hal Varian and Susan Athey. But part of it is also that economists like Pat Bajari at Amazon have created a giant economics department of hundreds of economists with central roles within the firm. Economists are all over tech now, often employed in the data science title, but sometimes as chief economists too. And so this mini-series has been about that. It’s included interviews with Susan Athey, Michael Schwarz, John List, Ronnie Kohavi, Steve Tadelis and more planned. While Al Roth is not in tech, his work has been profoundly influential as market design, particularly the two sided markets like Airbnb and Uber, owe a lot to his work.
Becker’s students. One of my biggest intellectual influences was Gary Becker. It was his Nobel Prize speech that seemed to be the log that broke the camel’s back convincing me that I wanted a PhD myself. It was reading his student David Mustard’s work on crime that made me apply to the University of Georgia where I ultimately went and graduated. It was Becker’s work on marriage and the family that led me to a dissertation on marriage markets, which introduced me to Nash bargaining models of the family and ultimately Alvin Roth. I have always been interested in the history of Chicago, too, as that department cast a large shadow over the 20th century in really all major fields — macro, micro, game theory and econometrics. So for these and other reasons, I have planned a mini series on “Becker’s students” starting with Michael Grossman. I have another interview lined up with Robert Michael, the father of the NLSY and NHSLS and who I have a profound connection to since I wrote my dissertation on the NLSY, and studied the NHSLS with a fine tooth comb because of my own self identity as Becker’s lost student interested in sex. I have other interviewees I’m waiting to talk to in the Becker’s students category too.
Oral History of Psychedelic Science and Reform After Controlled Substance Act. Not many economists may know this, but psychedelics were once aggressively studied by scientists from the 1940s to late 1960s. But when LSD and other drugs “left the lab” causing a nontrivial public health crisis, Nixon passed the Controlled Substance Act, a federal register with hefty prison sentences for possession and distribution. When this happened, the research funded by the federal government largely stopped and researchers still interested in the ideas either shifted towards non-drug forms of consciousness expanding activities (like Stanley Grof’s work on hyperventilation), or just simply went underground. A group of “psychonaut” scientists and spiritualists began meeting in the 1980s with an ambitious plan: they would do above ground research, with federal approval, of psychedelics on humans again. They would focus on the mental health impacts, which had for decades been documented prior to the ban, and they would plot out a plan for reform. The first person to conduct psychedelic research on humans in the US after the Controlled Substance Act was a psychiatrist named Rick Strassman around 1990. This research was done at the University of New Mexico medical school and involved a somewhat obscure classic psychedelic called DMT. Findings were published in 1995 in the top psychiatry journal, and the success at getting the work done informed Rick Doblin’s dissertation at Harvard Kennedy School at the turn of the 21st century in which he plotted a plan for medical and legal reform. Thirty years after Rick’s experiments at New Mexico and we are on the cusp of legal reform. MDMA trials for treating PTSD have gone through 3 FDA trials, granted breakthrough status and are likely to be re-scheduled in 2023. Just like we have ketamine infusion clinics across the country for treating depression, we will likely in the next two years see them also offering MDMA for PTSD. Psilocybin trials have found consistent and robust evidence that with the aid of a therapist, “magic mushrooms” can be effective for treating depression and they too are in Phase 3 with FDA and given breakthrough status. So the “rescheduling” model is underway. But the non-medical use model is also underway. With the help of a nonprofit group called Decriminalize Nature, approximately two dozen cities have decriminalized “sacred plants” like fungi (psilocybin), cacti (mescaline) and vines (DMT), as well as the state of Oregon itself. As Aldous Huxley wrote, that brave new world may be closer than we thought. Economists have little to nothing to offer this conversation up until now as the science has largely focused on medical trials, but going forward, I suspect that we will be more important. Which is why I have begun this mini-series. So far I have 3 interviews with Rick Strassman, and 2 interviews with Larry Norris, a transpersonal scientist who helped found Decriminalize Nature. My hope is that economists and others will learn more about this, not through the dry facts of cause and effect, but through the relayed personal and lived stories of scientists and reformers.
Economics and Public Policy. A fifth series that I am interested in is the work of economists who focus around topics about how neoclassical economics as a paradigm can and does influence the way in which we design our social policies. This has been critics and practitioners. It includes an interview with sociology Elizabeth Popp Berman, Sandy Darity, Alan Manning, Jonathan Meer, Jeremy West, as well as Peter Ardicicano. Some have posted, some haven’t. I am interested in economics as a discipline and so talking to people who can describe their own lives while sometimes talking about these topics is, I hope, helpful.
Solos. Finally there are my solos. These are simply interviews with people who don’t fit the above mini-series — not yet anyway — but who I find absolutely interesting. That’s people like Gary King, Mark Anderson, and Larry Katz.
So, stay tuned. I’m going to see if it’s possible assign all these old interviews to these mini-series as “seasons” which may make searching a little easier for those interested. Not sure how easy it is to retcon like that, but I’m going to try!
Thank you for all the work 🙏