Saturday, June 6, 2026

Two audio podcasts about Moral Economics, interviews by a Texan, and by a libertarian

 First, from NPR radio station KERA for North Texas, the Think talk show podcast (interview by Krys Boyd):

What black markets can teach us about the economy
June 3, 2026 

  "To really understand the nuts and bolts of economics, look to the black market. Alvin E. Roth is Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss his work on organ donation which led him to study what he called “repugnant transactions” like sex and drugs and why he feels banning them completely doesn’t always have the effect we think it does. His book is “Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work.”


    Transcript (also at the above link)

Here's a very contemporary Texas question: 

"Krys Boyd [00:25:48] I’m really curious, Alvin, about whether making things illegal has much of an effect on things. I live in Texas, where recreational marijuana is against the law. I can tell you just anecdotally that it appears to not stop very many people. You pose this interesting question about why the laws work pretty well to keep people from committing murder for hire, but not so well at all from buying and selling illegal drugs. "

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And here, from the libertarian think tank Cato is the  Cato Podcast • June 4, 2026   The Markets We Love to Ban (audio only, interview by Ryan Bourne)

"Kidneys, surrogacy, prostitution, gambling, price gouging, assisted dying: some transactions make people recoil, even when all parties consent. Cato’s Ryan Bourne talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth about his new book, Moral Economics, what makes markets “repugnant,” what economists can add to moral debates, and why banning exchange rarely makes scarcity, exploitation, or hard trade-offs disappear." 


 

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