The Answer Is Transaction Costs
"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 taitc.email@gmail.com
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.....
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Latest Episodes
Contracting with Yourself: Akrasia and Transaction Costs
We start with a simple mystery: how the same person can make a proud plan at night and break it in the morning, even while still believing the plan is good. We connect akrasia, free will, and moral responsibility to transaction costs, treating ...
When Mass Outrage is Cheap: TC Origins of Cancel Culture
We trace a straight line from a 1697 blasphemy execution to modern cancel culture by focusing on one variable: the cost of turning speech into coordinated punishment. We break down how social media creates common knowledge at near-zero cost, ma...
You are NOT "Sorry I'm Late"!!
We tell a story about German academic quarter hours-- akademische Viertel-- and use it to argue that lateness is an economics problem of coordination, incentives, and transaction costs, not just manners. We lay out five rules tha...
Fan Mail
Hi Mike, I'm listening to your episode on pins and division of labour and it makes me think about how "specialization of labour" can be misleading, at least in today's economy. It may be that specialization in a particular factory job involves being particularly capable at a particular rote task, e.g. laying a brass wire flat, but equally a person who has particular knowledge of law, biology and programming may be in a sense exceptionally specialized in the task of "using large language models to aggregate medical patents". Multidisciplinary and specialized sound like they should opposites, but they're really not!
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