Bretton Goods
59 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingI talk to the most interesting people about economic growth
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Episodes
Ep 57: India's Statistical Story
January 10, 2024 13:15 - 56 minutes - 28.5 MBI spoke to Pramit Bhattacharya an independent data journalist about India's statistical system. We talked about How did Indian statisticians adapt their statistical methods to account for India's informal sector? How are India's GDP numbers constructed? Why it's so hard to outright manipulate GDP numbers The case for optimism --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 56: Talking AI Regulation with Harry Law
January 03, 2024 18:55 - 45 minutes - 25.7 MBI talked with Harry Law of the University of Cambridge and Google DeepMind about AI regulation We talked about Me vs Harry on open source AI regulation Being humble when regulating AI Why a "Manhattan Project for X" is overrated --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 55: Adaptive markets and crypto with Derek Wong
December 18, 2023 14:39 - 48 minutes - 26.6 MBI spoke with Derek Wong about the adaptive markets hypothesis, macro investing and investing in cryptocurrency markets We talk about Why investors should consider the financial markets as a complex adaptive system How investing in China is very different from investing in the West How he invests in crypto without fundamental anchors --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 54: High Skilled Immigration in America
December 14, 2023 14:57 - 44 minutes - 24.9 MBI spoke to Adam Ozimek and Connor O'Brien from the Economic Innovation Group about the policy and politics of high skilled immigration in America. We talked about Why reforming high skilled immigration in the US is so difficult The lump of labour fallacy in immigration Reforming immigration through place-based visas --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 53: The State of Indian Cities ft. Devashish Dhar
September 11, 2023 15:34 - 56 minutes - 28.3 MBI spoke with Devashish Dhar, the author of the excellent book India's Blind Spot which talks about India's urbanisation crisis and solutions to it. We talk about Why does India have a much lower reported rate of urbanisation than the rest of the world? Explaining the global bias against cities “Extremely high levels of traffic is caused by poor land policy” Why are there so many floods in Indian cities? How to climate-proof Indian cities “India’s biggest unfulfilled promise is local go...
Ep 52: Tyler Cowen on Singapore, AI and Economic Growth
September 04, 2023 16:45 - 1 hour - 32.7 MBI interviewed one of the most interesting thinkers today, Tyler Cowen. We talked about Why there are such few Singaporean famous people What Singapore can do to get more weird Why he's sceptical of an AI-driven singularity What happens to kids in a post-GPT world What happens to public intellectuals in a post-GPT world Why he's optimistic on Kenyan economic growth And so much more! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 51: Why AI won't kill us all ft. Rohit Krishnan
August 25, 2023 17:33 - 1 hour - 32.8 MBI spoke to Rohit Krishnan the author of the blog Strange Loop Canon about why he is sceptical about the idea that AI will kill us all We talked about Why he’s sceptical of AI regulation proposals Why AI “timelines” are not as meaningful as you think AI deployment is harder than you think! The value of incrementalism in AI policy Why he thinks instrumental convergence is unlikely to happen --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep. 50: mRNA vaccines in India ft. Soham Sankaran
August 21, 2023 07:35 - 1 hour - 32 MBI spoke to Soham Sankaran who runs PopVax, an Indian mRNA vaccine company. Their goal is to build low-cost broadly-protective vaccines to protect against the entire sarbecovirus species. Read Soham's experience here (https://chronicles.popvax.com/p/three-meetings-and-six-million-funerals) as a complement to this episode. Also check out their jobs page (https://jobs.popvax.com/) for opportunities. This episode includes How he started PopVax and (went bankrupt in the process) Why there has...
Ep 49: Dwarkesh Patel - podcasting, Robert Moses, Effective Altruism and AI xrisk
June 22, 2023 15:03 - 51 minutes - 70.8 MBI talked to Dwarkesh Patel of the Lunar Society Podcast about many topics. We talked about: Why do AI researchers and rationalists disagree about existential risk? What would happen if Robert Moses ran San Francisco? Is localism overrated? What does Effective Altruism get right and wrong? Which politicians would he like to interview --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 48: An Introduction to AI Alignment with Trevor Chow
May 28, 2023 08:25 - 57 minutes - 30.2 MBI spoke to Trevor Chow about existential risks from AI and techniques to align artificial intelligence with human goals. Specifically we talked about An introduction to existential risk from Artificial Intelligence Existing methods for alignment of AI models Why RLHF might fail in large language models Whether interpretability research might scale? New methods being developed to make larger models safer Regulatory frameworks for the future of AI --- Send in a voice message: https://...
Ep. 47: The World's Biggest Invisible Country: Indonesia
May 20, 2023 05:07 - 43 minutes - 26 MBI talked to Faris Abdurrachman about Indonesia and it's nickel boom. We talked specifically about Why Indonesia banned exports of raw nickel Who gets the value from nickel exports Indonesia's new sovereign wealth fund --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 46: Growth teams with Kartik Akileswaran
May 13, 2023 12:18 - 1 hour - 44.8 MBI spoke to Kartik Akileswaran who runs Growth Teams - an initiative which helps build state capacity for economic growth in developing countries. We talked about - Why implementation is a binding constraint for economic policy - How industrial policy helps reduce information constraints for investors - Underrated growth reforms --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 45: What's going on with nuclear weapons?
November 20, 2022 11:27 - 37 minutes - 20.7 MBI spoke to Matt Korda who works at the Federation of American Scientists on nuclear weapon policy. We have an exciting discussion about the role of nuclear weapons, their growth and the dangerous arms races that are starting Some highlights of the show: The advent of “exotic” nuclear weapon systems China’s nuclear strategy has changed dramatically! Why nuclear experts are most worried about South Asia The new game theory of a multipolar nuclear world --- Send in a voice message: htt...
Ep 44: Trade Policy Tragedy in India
July 31, 2022 13:19 - 50 minutes - 27.6 MBI talked to Anupam Manur, a professor of economics about India's trade policy before 1991. We talked about: The scarcity mindset about foreign exchange reserves The controversial 1966 devaluation How did the pre-1991 import licensing system work? “The financial account was almost non existent” “Hindustan Motors and Toyota were set up at the same time but in 15 years Toyota sold 280 times the cars” “Productivity growth was almost absent before 1991” --- Send in a voice message: https...
Ep 43: Funding Science and Innovation in the UK
July 17, 2022 13:16 - 54 minutes - 31.4 MBI spoke to Professor Richard Jones, about how science funding in the UK could improve. Some interesting questions we talked about are “Penny wise, pound foolish” in science funding Creating markets for technological advances How he’d invest a billion £ to accelerate scientific innovation? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 42: Parliamentarism
July 10, 2022 13:07 - 50 minutes - 28.2 MBI talked to Tiago Santos, a diplomat, about his book Why Not Parliamentarism. Tiago and I explore some questions here What makes parliamentary democracies superior to presidential ones? The creeping presidentialisation of parliamentary democracies The optimal rate of constitutional amendments --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 41: Libertarianism and podcasting with Amit Varma
June 27, 2022 13:43 - 1 hour - 60.8 MBI talked to Amit Varma who runs one of my favourite podcasts - The Seen and the Unseen about politics, economics and public policy. We talked about Libertarianism within the Indian canon Cultivating your audience Being a public intellectual The differences between generations --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 40: Progress Studies
June 19, 2022 14:25 - 48 minutes - 28.8 MBI spoke to Jason Crawford of The Roots of Progress about the new movement of Progress Studies. We talked about Building a culture of economic progress Why are developed countries more averse to progress? Is there a tradeoff between economic progress and existential risk? What is the main constraint for the movement today? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 39: Macro Investing
June 05, 2022 14:29 - 53 minutes - 27.8 MBI talked with Mayank Seksaria of Liberty Mutual Investments about investing on macroeconomic views. We talked about Translating macro views into investing allocations A bottom up view of the macroeconomy Evaluating macro talent Why does institutional research cost so much? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 38: The Bond King
May 22, 2022 14:51 - 42 minutes - 25.1 MBI spoke to Mary Childs who is the author of the exceptional book The Bond King. We talked about How finance became an interesting profession How do you build institutions that succeed at investing? Can we automate the Fed? Financial history being undervalued --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 37: Australia: A Mine with a Parliament?
May 15, 2022 06:57 - 57 minutes - 33.4 MBI spoke to Steven Hamilton professor of Economics at George Washington University about Australian economic policy, and their upcoming elections. We talk about Why was Australian COVID policy so strict? Australia as a nation of prison guards Economic issues of the Australian election “Australia is a mine with a parliament” Dutch disease in Australia Swimming, intermittent fasting and other personal habits --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna...
Ep 36: Labour Economics Versus the World
May 08, 2022 13:28 - 1 hour - 42.9 MBWhat is the labour market like? What are the largest barriers in the labour market? Nathan Young and I spoke to economist Bryan Caplan about his new book Labor Econ Versus The World. We also talk about Censorship and dictatorships Bets he is willing to take Malengo and international migration DALLE-2 and writing graphic novels The literature on education Why he is not an experimental economist The effect of AI on jobs Bets Bryan is willing to take No important disruption to the poli...
Working on Existential Risks with David Manheim
May 02, 2022 13:53 - 39 minutes - 20.8 MBI spoke to David Manehim who works on reducing existential threats to humanity at the Technion. We talked about The biggest threats to humanity Preventing all future pandemics Is working on X-risk even tractable? How you can work on reducing existential risk Very fun on an underrated topic! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 34: Long Run Growth with Trevor Chow
April 17, 2022 13:45 - 1 hour - 39.4 MBI spoke to the very very talented Trevor Chow about the history of long run growth. Topics include Wishlist of economic history topics Getting over vetocracy Qualities of the best economic blogs Why more economics graduates should join a VC firm! Meme theory of money Highly highly recommended --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 33: Jumping Through Financial History with Jamie Cathereood
March 06, 2022 14:02 - 45 minutes - 28.7 MBI spoke with Jamie Catherwood who writes and teaches financial history at Investor Amnesia. We had a lot of fun talking about The relevance of financial history Formation of bubbles Investing during a war Surprising stories behind the 1907 financial panic The influence of Twitter --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 33: Jumping Through Financial History with Jamie Catherwood
March 06, 2022 14:02 - 45 minutes - 28.7 MBI spoke with Jamie Catherwood who writes and teaches financial history at Investor Amnesia. We had a lot of fun talking about The relevance of financial history Formation of bubbles Investing during a war Surprising stories behind the 1907 financial panic The influence of Twitter --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
The Indian Economy
February 20, 2022 15:15 - 46 minutes - 25.1 MBI talked to Puja Mehra, a journalist and author of the book The Lost Decade about India's economic history of the years 2008-2018. We talked about The reasons for India's jobs crisis Should the Finance Ministry be split into two? The farming crisis Has India's Big Government really receded? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Chinese Tech Antitrust
February 20, 2022 11:57 - 59 minutes - 34.1 MBI spoke to Michael Norris, a commentator on Chinese technology industries and research manager at AgencyChina. We talked about Understanding the motivations of Chinese antitrust enforcement The 'low hanging fruit' of antitrust The false dilemma of hard tech and software Chinese tech companies he is bullish on English language news sources for China tech --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 31: Chinese Tech Antitrust
February 13, 2022 08:28 - 59 minutes - 34.1 MBI spoke to Michael Norris, a commentator on Chinese technology industries and research manager at AgencyChina. We talked about Understanding the motivations of Chinese antitrust enforcement The 'low hanging fruit' of antitrust The false dilemma of hard tech and software Chinese tech companies he is bullish on English language news sources for China tech --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 30: Finance and scams with Jamie Powell
February 06, 2022 14:39 - 50 minutes - 29.8 MBI talked to Jamie Powell who is a financial journalist at the Financial Times. We had lots of fun talking about: The economics of short selling Can bubbles be good for the economy? Issues with Web3 The story around tesla Highly recommended! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 29: Financing Science and Innovation
January 30, 2022 14:05 - 1 hour - 54 MBI talked to Ben Reinhardt about new models for funding science and innovation. Ben's pieces on DARPA and his proposal for a private DARPA-like research funding organization are foundational pieces in the field and should be read by anyone who wants to understand them. We talked about: The Big Man Theory of History What makes good DARPA program managers? Why you need to be less responsible to innovate Does science have an introspection problem? Will the US maintain its leading position i...
Ep 28: Finding and Funding Entrepreneurs with Matt Clifford
January 23, 2022 11:01 - 50 minutes - 30.2 MBI spoke with Matt Clifford, the co-founder and CEO of Entrepreneur First a pre-idea investing firm. We talked about some very exciting topics! They are: Personality types of successful founders Founders with high agency The race between politics and technology The most underrated impactful historical event --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 27: A Tour through British Economic History
January 16, 2022 12:58 - 53 minutes - 31.9 MBI talked to Duncan Weldon a former Britain economics correspondent for The Economist and the writer of the substack Value Added. We talked about his book Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through. Topics include How did the road to riches change through centuries? Why does Britain have no tech giants? How did Britain survive with high levels of debt in the past? Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in Britain and not elsewhere? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.co...
Ep 26: Housing policy with Sam Bowman
December 26, 2021 13:30 - 56 minutes - 51.7 MBI talked to Sam Bowman, the Director of competition policy at the Law and Econ Center. He was previously Executive Director of the Adam Smith Institute and has been a constant advocate for saner housing policy. I talked to him about housing policy and adjacent topics: How housing affects everything! How do we incentivize NIMBYs into allowing more building? The most underrated economist Lessons from writing Works in Progress --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.co...
Ep 25: Market Mechanics with Mike Green
December 19, 2021 14:05 - 54 minutes - 49.4 MBI talked to Michael Green who is Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager at Simplify ETFs. He previously was Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager at Logica and even before that he was portfolio manager at Thiel Capital. Mike is extremely smart and very fun to talk to. We had an interesting conversation about How do passive flows change the stock market? How can you trade these with options? Explaining the Gamestop rally in Jan 2021 How do you price crypto? Why is his twitter handle pro...
Ep 24: COVID and the FDA with Alex Tabarrok
December 12, 2021 10:04 - 59 minutes - 33.1 MBI talked to Alex Tabarrok, Professor of Economics at George Mason University about the FDA's response on COVID along with a variety of other topics. We talked about What happens if the public wants an inefficient COVID response? What mistakes did zero-COVID countries make? What are bottlenecks to Indian growth? Why he thinks investing in life extension research gives a very high return? Who is the most underrated economist of the 20th century? --- Send in a voice message: https://pod...
Ep 23: Monetary policy with Joey Politano
December 05, 2021 13:44 - 54 minutes - 30.3 MBI spoke to Joey Politano, who writes the popular newsletter Apricitas . We did a deep dive into monetary policy where Joey talked about Quantitative Easing, Yield Curve Control and stablecoins. Other topics include Measuring the stance of monetary policy Which country would benefit from using dogecoin as currency? What can economists learn from political science --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 22: Tom Spencer on the housing crisis, the monarchy, and Brexit
November 29, 2021 12:01 - 53 minutes - 27.2 MBI talked to Tom Spencer a law student at City Law School and Chief Organizer of London New Liberals. Tom's interests lie on the edge of law and economics where he does work on housing policy and anti trust. We had a lively conversation on Solving the UK's housing crisis What lawyers and economists can learn from each other Brexit and its consequences The unwritten British constitution Abolishing the monarchy --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyum...
Ep 21: Michael Bishop on replication markets
November 22, 2021 14:05 - 46 minutes - 28.1 MBI talked to Michael Bishop, who worked at DARPA's Replication Markets project. We talked about Why was there a replication crisis in science? How do you design a market for predicting replication attempts? Is there alpha in replication market trading? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 20: Kevin Erdmann on the myths about the Great Recession
November 14, 2021 00:31 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBI talked to Kevin Erdmann, a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center about his upcoming book Building From the Ground Up which is about myths surrounding the housing bubble and the Great Recession. We talked about The myth of a 'housing bubble' How American policymakers self induced a recession His research process Preorder Keivn's new book here! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 19: Matt Darling on behavioural science
November 02, 2021 13:18 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBI talked to Matt Darling, an Employment Policy Fellow at the Niskanen Institute We talked about Cognitive tax of poverty Behavioural economics and the replication crisis What question does he wish people asked him? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 18: Rohit Krishnan on ambition, optionality and venture capital
September 27, 2021 13:51 - 1 hour - 40 MBI talked to Rohit Krishnan, a venture capitalist and writer of the newsletter Strange Loop Canon. In my view he is among the most underrated writers in the public sphere today. I talked to him about a variety of topics. They are: The real meaning of ambition Why people misunderstand optionality Rohit’s favourite Indian cuisine Why you can’t replicate college with internet subcultures “VC’s biggest competition is hedge funds”. Biggest career mistakes people make Do consultants make go...
Ep 17: Maia on populism and Argentina
September 26, 2021 13:46 - 47 minutes - 54.4 MBI talked to the very popular @EGirlMonetarism about the political economy of Argentinian populism. It was a very informative conversation. We talked about: The political economy of Latin American populism The most underrated economic concept How to fix the Argentine economy --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Samuel Hammond on passing policies and nonprofits
September 25, 2021 13:24 - 48 minutes - 43.9 MBSamuel Hammond is the Director of Poverty and Welfare Policy at the Niskanen Center. We had an excellent conversation on How policies actually get passed “libertarian think tanks exist for rich people to feel like they're smart and smart people to feel like they’re rich” Nonprofits and the lack of market incentives His most controversial opinion on economics --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 15: Joshua Miller on Market Monetarism, NGDP Targeting and Milton Friedman
September 21, 2021 12:38 - 58 minutes - 53 MBI talk to Joshua Miller, an extremely smart 16 year old on Nominal GDP Targeting What he disagrees with Milton Friedman the most on The theory behind market monetarism --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 14: Noah Smith on American growth, partisanship and veganism
September 14, 2021 01:46 - 55 minutes - 30.2 MBI talked to the very popular Noah Smith on a variety of topics. We talked about Is America too insular? Indian cultural exports to the US Is economic growth zero-sum at the country level? Where does he disagree with @jdcmedlock the most? What are the deep causes of partisanship in America? The moral coordination problem of going vegan The political economy of solving NIMBYism “America's national pastime is avoiding other Americans” Do give a listen to this! --- Send in a voice me...
Ep 13: Michael Fritzell on investing in Asia
September 06, 2021 09:30 - 51 minutes - 46.7 MBI spoke to Michael Fritzell who writes the substack Asian Century Stocks about high-quality stock ideas around Asia. Michael is a CFA charterholder and has worked as an equity analyst in Asia for over a decade. We talk about Common characteristics of successful CEOs Why Chinese real estate prices are due for a fall How do you read an annual report in Asia? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 12: Pranay Kothasthane on Indian foreign policy and growth
August 29, 2021 13:41 - 52 minutes - 47.6 MBI spoke to Pranay Kothasthane who is the Deputy Director of Takshashila Institution, a think tank based in Bengaluru. We talk about India’s vaccine diplomacy Why Pranay’s an optimist on Indian growth What he learnt running a Hindi podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 11: Mark Lutter on Charter Cities
August 23, 2021 14:07 - 45 minutes - 28.4 MBMark Lutter is the Founder and Executive Director of the Charter Cities Institute. CCI's aim is to build an ecosystem for charter cities We talk about - The basic concepts of charter cities - What is the biggest misconception about charter cities? - What personality type does it take to run a non profit? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message
Ep 10: Shruti Rajagopalan on Indian economic reforms
August 15, 2021 04:54 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MBFor this Indian Independence day I talked to Shruti Rajagopalan about the Indian economic reforms. How was Nehruvian socialism different from socialism under Indira Gandhi? Why didn't land reform work in India? Does Shruti believe in the Great Man theory of history? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message