We Didn’t Start the Flame War

This week’s episode is a little different. There’s an ongoing controversy related to a twotime guest of this show, Robin Hanson. I talk through the scandal, giving a whole decade of background so you can understand where this scandal comes from.


There are many links for this episode. Here they are in the order they are discussed:

Robin Hanson’s books, The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain.

Unequal Beauty Silence” October 19, 2009

Pretty Smart Healthy Privilege” September 26, 2014

Inequality Talk Is About Grabbing” August 7, 2013

Two Types of Envy” April 26, 2018

Why Economics Is, And Should Be, Creepy” May 2, 2018

Download this episode.

Subscribe to Economics Detective Radio on iTunes, Android, or Stitcher.

The post We Didn’t Start the Flame War appeared first on The Economics Detective.

We Didn’t Start the Flame War

This week’s episode is a little different. There’s an ongoing controversy related to a twotime guest of this show, Robin Hanson. I talk through the scandal, giving a whole decade of background so you can understand where this scandal comes from.


There are many links for this episode. Here they are in the order they are discussed:

Robin Hanson’s books, The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain.

Unequal Beauty Silence” October 19, 2009

Pretty Smart Healthy Privilege” September 26, 2014

Inequality Talk Is About Grabbing” August 7, 2013

Two Types of Envy” April 26, 2018

Why Economics Is, And Should Be, Creepy” May 2, 2018

Download this episode.

Subscribe to Economics Detective Radio on iTunes, Android, or Stitcher.

The post We Didn’t Start the Flame War appeared first on The Economics Detective.

The Neolithic Revolution with Andrea Matranga

Andrea Matranga of the New Economics School in Moscow joins the podcast with a fascinating question: Why did humans adopt agriculture in the times and places they did? His research paper, The Ant and the Grasshopper: Seasonality and the Invention of Agriculture, offers a potential solution. Here’s the abstract:

During the Neolithic Revolution, seven populations independently invented agriculture. In this paper, I argue that this innovation was a response to a large increase in climatic seasonality. Hunter-gatherers in the most affected regions became sedentary in order to store food and smooth their consumption. I present a model capturing the key incentives for adopting agriculture, and I test the resulting predictions against a global panel dataset of climate conditions and Neolithic adoption dates. I find that invention and adoption were both systematically more likely in places with higher seasonality. The findings of this paper imply that seasonality patterns 10,000 years ago were amongst the major determinants of the present day global distribution of crop productivities, ethnic groups, cultural traditions, and political institutions.

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Subscribe to Economics Detective Radio on iTunes, Android, or Stitcher.

The post The Neolithic Revolution with Andrea Matranga appeared first on The Economics Detective.