Economic Rockstar

Latest Episodes:

045: Jon Manning on the Art of Pricing and How Economic Theory Has Got Pricing All Wrong Aug 13, 2015

Show notes

Jon Manning is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Sans Prix and has over two decades of Pricing experience in a wide variety of industries.

Since establishing Sans Prix, Jon (and his associates) have generated millions of dollars in incremental revenue for clients in places such as the UK, USA, India, and Australia.

Increasingly in demand as both a speaker and educator, Jon has spoken at many conferences, workshops, webinars and educational institutions across the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the United Kingdom.

In 2011, Jon and Greg Eyres established Pricing Prophets, the world’s first and only online pricing advisory service where clients can ask a panel of global pricing experts and thought-leaders what price to charge for a product or service and why.

Jon holds a Bachelor of Business (Applied Economics) from Deakin University (Australia), a Graduate Diploma of Business (Management) from Monash University (Australia) and a Master of Arts (European Studies), from The University of West London. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Management and the Professional Pricing Society.

In this episode, you will learn:

why Jon believes pricing is more of an a art than a science.

why pricing is based on human behavior that no scientific model can predict.

why there’s no such thing as Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

that 70% to 80% of companies use cost-based methods to set prices and few use a value-based method.

why customers don’t care about companies who use cost-based pricing and prefer companies that use value-based pricing methods.

why the best pricing strategy for a company is a value-based method.

the trials and tribulations of the pricing strategy adopted by Netflix and how it affected its share price.

how a $40 fine for returning a DVD late led to the founding of Netflix.

if the best strategy for companies to announce price increases to its customers is to do so a few years in advance.

how behavioral economics is opening up a minefield of exploration in pricing.

how Apple used anchoring techniques to sell their iWatch by offering a $10,000 iWatch. It makes the mainstream iWatch appear to be value for money.

how a $100 omelette was used by a restaurant to act as a decoy so it can influence your decision to pay for high-end or expensive goods.

and much more.

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044: Nancy Folbre on Feminist Economics and the Care Economy Aug 06, 2015

Show notes

Nancy Folbre is a recently retired Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst andcurrently directs a research program of gender and care work at the Political Economy Research Institute.

Professor Folbre's research focuses on the interface between feminist theory and political economy, with a particular focus on the work of caring for others.

Nancy was elected president of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) in 2002, has been an associate editor of the Journal Feminist Economics since 1995, and is also an editorial assistant of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.

Nancy is recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and she has consulted for the United Nations Human Development Office, the World Bank and other organizations.

Professor Folbre has also written extensively on the social organization of time, namely the time allotted to care for children and the elderly and how family policies and social institutions limit the choices people can make between paid and unpaid work.

She is a contributor to the New York Times Economix blog.

Nancy's book 'Saving State U' (New Press, 2010) makes a case for strengthening public support for higher education in the United States.

Other recent books include 'Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas' (Oxford University Press, 2009) and 'Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family' (Harvard University Press, 2008).

Nancy received a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971, an M.A. in Latin American studies from UT Austin in 1973, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1979.

In this episode, you will learn:

why Nancy Folbre decided to study economics.

how the household is very much like the market economy.

about feminist household economics.

what the underlying principles and foundation to feminist economics.

why we should see unpaid work as part of the economy.

how the state and the market has reinforced the patriarchal system.

why the capitalist system, ironically, has downside effects on women today despite the benefits it provides.

why we should adopt the Scandinavian model of paternal responsibility.

about the unmeasured ‘Care Economy’ where people perform unpaid work.

about the opportunity cost to care work.

why Replacement Cost is a better proxy from a National Accounting perspective for measuring the size of the Care Economy.

why people are intrinsically motivated to care and that money is not an issue.

why Nancy Folbre strongly believes that we should think carefully about how we reward care work.

about the ‘Care Penalty’ and why we shouldn’t take advantage of the care workers motivation to work in the care industry.

and much more.

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Check out the show notes to episode 044 at economicrockstar.com/nancyfolbre

043: Herbert Gintis on Game Theory and the Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding Human Behavior Jul 30, 2015

Show notes

Herbert Gintis is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts and visiting Professor at Central European University.

He is known for his theoretical contributions to sociobiology, especially altruism, cooperation, epistemic game theory and gene-culture co-evolution.

Herbert has a B.A and M.A in Mathematics but switched his PhD program at Harvard from mathematics to economics.

Professor Gintis was part of a group of economists who developed their ideas on a new economics which encompassed issues of alienation of labor, racism, sexism, and imperialism.

Herbert has worked extensively with economist Samuel Bowles, writing their landmark book, Schooling in Capitalist America.

One of Herbert’s latest books The Bounds of Reason emphasises the unification of economic theory with sociobiology and other behavioral sciences which, in the words of Nobel Prize-winning economist, Vernon L. Smith, “is firmly in the revolutionary tradition of David Hume (Convention) and Adam Smith (Sympathy)”.

In the episode you will learn:

about the importance of trans-disciplinary research and collaboration.

why economics is not the only social science that explains human behavior.

how biology, economics and sociology explain the behaviour of humans in different ways and which discipline is correct?

about the Ultimatum Game and how it shows the cooperative and non-cooperative behaviour of humans.

about the morality of humans and how we reciprocate kindness with kindness and unkindness with unkindness.

why reciprocity makes humans so successful as a species.

why some species have a symbiotic relationship with other species, which is not the same as reciprocity.

how we can fit all the human feelings together to form a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding human behavior.

why we always need a system to punish free-riders and non-cooperators.

how the future structure of the University can be seen at Arizona State University today.

why we need a new generation of thinkers and research centres who are trans-disciplinary.

what projects Professor Herbert Gintis is working on right now.

why morality controls politics and your vote will not make a difference.

how Herbert gets things done in terms of writing books and journal articles.

about Herbert’s disagreement with Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

why Herbert believes that macroeconomics is wrong and is in agreement with Taleb on that issue.

and much much more.

Links mentioned in this episode:

economicrockstar.com/herbertgintis
economicrockstar.com/bluehost
audiobooks.com/rockstar Subscribe now on iTunes and get access to the complete list of Economic Rockstar episodes.

042: Parviz Parvizi on Clammr, Coffee, Coase and the Economy of Iran Jul 23, 2015

Show notes

Parviz Parvizi is co-founder of Clammr, a mobile app and platform making audio more social and viral. Users are calling Clammr, which features snack-sized audio clips of 18 seconds or less, the “Instagram of Audio” and “Audio Twitter”.

Previously, Parviz worked at McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Communications Commission, and O’Melveny & Myers.

He has advised top 5 global media companies and mobile carriers on strategy and growth. He was a founder of McKinsey’s iConsumer research initiative on digital consumer behavior, authoring 3 of the Firm’s 10 most-downloaded media sector knowledge documents.

Parviz was a Olin Law & Economics Fellow at Yale Law School. At Cornell he majored in economics and served as President of the Cornell Economics Society while an undergraduate.

Parviz holds a JD from Yale Law School and AB from Cornell.

Find Out:

about Clammr, the amazingly new app that shares an18-secondaudio clip just like an audio tweet.

about Parviz Parvizi’s journey from Iran to the US.

how Parviz Parvizi got his name.

about the motivation behind the creation of Clammr and how Parviz and his co-founder solved a problem.

how Clammr was built up from the beginning at zero cost.

what Clammr found out about podcasting.

the difficulties of growing and monetising a podcast and how Clammr is helping podcasters to solve these challenges.

about the social aspect of Clammr and how you can share audio snippets to your friends, colleagues and audience.

if Clammr will adopt a monetization model similar to YouTube.

how Clammr’s ‘Hear More’ button can potentially lead to a paid transaction for users.

about the opportunities that exist for users of Clammr in the education sector.

how teachers can use Clammr in assessments and how students can collaborate to give their audio response in a mashup-like answer.

how Clammr could be the new route for a musician to become known, just like the way Justin Bieber made it using YouTube.

and much more. Subscribe on iTunes and get access to all episodes of Economic Rockstar.

To find all the links mentioned in this episode with Parviz, visit www.economicrockstar.com/parvizparvizi

041: Dermot Hayes on Comparative Advantage, Feeding the Chinese and the Malthusian Catastrophe Jul 16, 2015

Show notes

Dermot Hayes is the Pioneer Chair of Agribusiness, professor of economics, and professor of finance at Iowa State University. He heads the Trade and Agricultural Policy Division at CARD, a position he also held from 1990 through 1998.

He is co-director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, a research center dually administered through the Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development or CARD at Iowa State and at the University of Missouri at Columbia. He is also a leader of the Policy Task Force of the Plant Science Institute at Iowa State.

A native of the Republic of Ireland, Dermot obtained his degree in agriculture science from the University College in Dublin and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in international trade.

Dermot has distinguished himself with many awards at the college and university levels for his work as a teacher and researcher.

In 2006 he received a "Publication of Enduring Quality" award from the American Agricultural Economics Association, who subsequently named him a Fellow in 2007.

Besides his analysis of U.S. farm policy and international agricultural trade, Dermot’s other research interests include food safety, livestock modeling, demand analysis, and commodity markets.

Find out:

how China is finding ways to feed its people and how self-sufficiency no longer works.

about China’s ever-increasing demands for soybeans, sugar, wine, etc and how this is putting demands on the global agricultural industry.

how Ireland lost its comparative advantage in milk production by joining the EU.

about Kerrygold Irish grass-fed butter and Bullet-proof coffee.
why Kerry Group are only ‘scratching the surface’ in the US market.

what high-value, labor-intensive products China should concentrate on producing in order to feed their population and trade with other countries.

about if the Chinese government owns much of the land and property rights in China.

‘terminator seeds’ and how private companies could be incentivised to manufacture them.

about the use of beta agonists, such as ractopomine, in the use of animal food production.

and much, much more.

Subscribe on iTunes and never miss an episode. Check out the shownotes page at www.economicrockstar.com/dermothayes

040: Rebecca Harding on Trade Finance and How Delta Economics Can Help Identify Growth Opportunities World-wide Jul 09, 2015

Show notes

Dr Rebecca Harding, CEO of Delta Economics, is an independent economist with an extensive background in modelling economic growth, trade, productivity, innovation and enterprise.

Rebecca is the author of nine books and has written over 250 articles on economic issues. She has held senior positions in leading academic, think-tank and corporate organisations, including roles at the London Business School, Deloitte and the Work Foundation.

Rebecca has advised the European Union and regional governments and agencies in the UK and Germany on innovation and enterprise policy.

Rebecca is a Board Member of the Society of Business Economists and a Board Member and Trustee of the German British Forum. In 2013, she was elected as a national representative of the European Movement UK.

Rebecca holds a BA in Economics and German and an MSc and PhD in the economics of Science and Innovation from the University of Sussex and writes on her blog rebeccanomics.com.

Find Out:

about Dr Harding’s company DeltaEconomics.

about the data used by DeltaEconomics and why it has developed its database of statistics.

what is Trade Finance and how it has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years.

how companies bridge the finance gap between the time they export goods to the time they receive payment.

what the challenges are with long-term growth in trade.

if there are inherent risks associated with the trade finance market as more sophisticated derivative and credit markets emerge.

about the inherent risks that may appear in the derivatives markets for trade finance.

if a market collapse could be the outcome of a non-compliant and unregulated trade finance securities market.

if could an implosion in trade finance is possible with large defaults in payments due mainly to the development of a derivatives and securities market.

if sovereign risk will become prominent if trade finance risk increases.

if enough data exists for trade finance to allow it to mature into a fully functioning wholesale and derivatives market.

and much, much more.

Visit the shownotes page for all the links mentioned in this episode:
www.economicrockstar.com/rebeccaharding

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Thanks for listening!

039: David Zetland on Aguanomics, Water Scarcity, Water Wars and ‘Toilet-to-Tap’ Jul 02, 2015

Show notes

David Zetland is an assistant professor at Leiden University College, where he teaches various classes on economics.

David was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Natural Resource Economics and Political Economy at UC Berkeley (2008-2010) and a Senior Water Economist at Wageningen University (2011-2013).

David blogs on water, economics and politics at aguanomics.com and gives many talks to public, professional and academic audiences.

David has two books The End of Abundance: economic solutions to water scarcity (2011) and Living with Water Scarcity (2014).

He received his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Davis in 2008.

Find out:

if we should be worried more about a shortage of water or a scarcity of water.

if we should learn from the oil industry and develop the technology-equivalent of extracting oil from oil sands and desalinate the ocean water?

if we can tell whether we know the water footprint of a cow and if it’s different in California than Ireland.

why water is actually free and what you pay is for the delivery.

if there is an opportunity costs to acquiring water?

why people living in the slums of India pay up to 50 times the price for water than those who have cheaper piped water.

if a water monopoly is an effective market structure.

if price competition in the market for water would result in the over-use of water consumption.

about the water-diamond paradox.

why David decided to do a PhD in economics after failing to get rich in the dotcom era.

how David came to get his family name ‘Zetland’.

about the coming ‘Water Wars’ and how it has already started.

about Sao Paulo’s troubled water situation and how it’s creating water gang warfare on the streets.

who we should assign the property rights to water.

what David proposes to be the most effective way of managing water.

how Singapore are becoming independent in creating their supply of water and are no longer depending on imports fro Malaysia.

how Singapore are building technologies to recycle water from waste.

why the ‘toilet-to-tap’ water recycling initiative has failed in the US but is working in Singapore.

and much much more.

Check out the shownotes page at www.economicrockstar.com/davidzetland

Subscribe on iTunes and never miss an episode.

038: Leah Bell on Being an Angry Grad and Setting Yourself Up for a Life of Success Jun 25, 2015

Show notes

Leah Bell spent tens of thousands of dollars on a college education for a degree in Education with the same hope of getting a job one day. After struggling to find a teaching job as an Elementary school teacher, Leah had to work at a minimum part-time job to supplement her teaching salary. However, the school closed and she lost her job. Leah took on a job related to sales. But after a few years she realized that she wanted nothing more than to stay at home with her son. But with student debt and rising prices, it was extremely difficult on one income.

Leah Bell learned the most about life, not in the classrooms of the colleges she attended, but in the years following. After realizing the struggle in the job market, the difficulty of paying off student loans, and the heartbreak of sacrificing priceless time with family to meet financial needs, she and her husband have devoted their lives to sparing people of this depressing fate through their company Neotrep™, providing entrepreneurs with affordable education and tools to succeed. She recently wrote the book The Angry Grad to help prospective students and recent graduates choose the route of entrepreneurship instead of the unstable job world.

Find Out:

what is the average student debt?

how a college degree is different today than it was just two or three decades ago.

why it’s so difficult for college graduates to find jobs and pay back their student loans.

how the future will look if we continue teaching young people that debt is the only way to afford a house, a car and an education.

what other options are there for people who are considering an education.

how debt is not the only way to get through college.

if we are paying more for college than we can hope to get back.

if it’s still worth taking on so much debt to get a degree.

if we’re living in a school loan debt bubble.

what we can do about all this?

and much, much more.

Never miss an episode and subscribe on iTunes or check out the shownotes to this episode at www.economicrockstar.com/leahbell

037: Noah Smith on Austrian Theory Being a 'Bad Joke', Heterodox Models and Efficient Markets Jun 18, 2015

Show notes

Noah Smith is Assistant Professor of Finance at Stony Brook University, New York where he is also a member of the Center for Behavioral Finance research team.

Noah’s research Interests include Experimental Finance, Behavioral Finance and Macroeconomics.

Noah was panel discussant for the Institute for New Economic Thinking Task Force and has received numerous research awards and fellowships.

Noah is a regular contributor to Bloomberg View where he writes extensively on economics and finance related topics.

He also writes at his fantastic economics blog Noahpinion.

Noah received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan, graduating in 2012. His dissertation examined expectation formation in financial markets.

Noah majored in physics as an undergraduate at Stanford University, and spent three years working in Japan, where he still returns from time to time to do research.

Find out:

whether economists suffer from ‘Physics Envy’.

if we should remove mathematics from economics.

how math took over economics.

if there is a connection between economics and physics.

how economics is becoming a more data-driven field.

about the micro foundations to macro theory and why these models don’t work.

why theory and math-focused economics papers are waning in the academic publishing field.

how to approach teaching micro and macro when the theoretical models may not explain much.

about whether Economics is moving away from the orthodox method of teaching toward a heterodox method.

about the difference between Heterodox and Orthodox Teaching in Economics.

why Noah considers Austrian Economics to be a bad joke.

where Noah falls within the economic spectrum.

why Noah believes that heterodox economics is not the future.

Noah’s recommended economics blogs to follow.

why the Efficient Market Hypothesis is a good starting model for finance students to understand.

and much, much more.

Check out the shownotes page and all the links, books and blogs mentioned in this episode at www.economicrockstar.com/noahsmith

036: Jason Shogren on Music and Endogenous Risk and Rationality in the Environmental Goods Market Jun 11, 2015

Show notes

Jason Shogren is the Stroock Professor of Natural Resource Conservation and Management and Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Wyoming.

Professor Shogren’s background and research interests include the economics of environmental and natural resource policy, experimental methods; endangered species; invasive species; climate change; agricultural and forest management; energy; health; regulation; and paleoeconomics.

Jason served as professor to Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf XVI in 2012 and is a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner (shared with Al Gore) as a member of the United Nations team working on climate change.

He has also served as a senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers in the White House under the Clinton Administration.

Jason loves fishing and music. He spends his time composing acoustic roots songs that he describes as catawampus American music, has five albums and will be touring this summer.

Find Out:

about the Cap and Trade Market for carbon emissions is a failure and would only work in a micro-management setting.

why its best to implement a carbon tax.

the difference between luxury emissions and survival emissions and why it maybe difficult for China and India to reduce their carbon.

how Jason’s depiction of a low probability-high severity event influenced Janet Yellen to take action on climate change.

if we are acting rationally or irrationally toward the environment.

how we can exploit rationality ‘for the good’.

how, over the last 30 years, we have become averse to just about everything.

how we can take advantage of peoples’ status quo to increase their contribution of paying a carbon tax.

how designing the right system can nudge people to do the right thing - just like soft paternalism.

how Jason sought inspiration about rationality from other disciplines, such as English literature and music composition, rather than from economics.

how Jason uses music as a form of escapism.

about the concerts that Jason Shogren will be playing at each year.

about Jason’s hitch-hiking experience in Ireland in 1985 from the Giants Causeway and down along the West Coast (now known as the Wild Atlantic Way).

about Jason theoretical thought process regarding endogenous risk and how he applies it to different environmental risks.

and much, much more. To access the shownotes to this episode visit: www.economicrockstar.com/jasonshogren

Subscribe to the Economic Rockstar podcast on iTunes and never miss an episode.

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