The Curious Task

Art Carden — Why Are We Rich?

Alex Aragona chats with Art Carden as he explains the kind of deal we need to make if we want to see great prosperity.

References from Episode 82 with Art Carden

• Art Carden is the co-author of the book, Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich, with Deirdre McCloskey, which is available on Amazon Canada at this link (Kindle Edition and Hardcover).
• Art references Shylock from The Merchant of Venice and Iago from Othello, whose full texts are accessible through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s website (titles hyperlinked).
• This is an interactive graphic by Our World in Data on the world literacy rate overtime.
• Here is a link to a further elaboration of Adam Smith’s quote that “people of the same trades seldom meet together … but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices” and one of “the great deal of ruin in a nation” that were mentioned by Art (Courtesy of the Adam Smith Institute).
  This is a link to William Nordhaus’ working paper on the gains from innovation. 
• You can read more about Fred Shuttlesworth on the encyclopedia website of the King Institute at Stanford University at this link. 
• You can watch the 2007 D5 Conference that hosted Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together and features a question on the “desktop paradigm” on Youtube at this link.
• You can read Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle Population on The Library of Economics and Liberty website. 
• Here is a link to the Youtube series, Free to Choose, featuring Milton Friedman. 
• You can purchase John Kenneth Galbraith’s book, The New Industrial State, on Amazon Canada at this link.
• Here is a list of the Top 10 Fortune 500 companies.
• Andrew McAfee’s book, More from Less, talks about the dematrialization of economic growth and can be purchased on Amazon Canada here. 
• Art mentions Robin Hanson’s concept of the Futures Market during the podcast. You can read more about it in this article by Robin Hanson.
• Thomas Sowell’s book, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, is available on Amazon Canada at this link.

Erik Kimbrough — What Influences Our Choices?

Alex Aragona speaks with Erik Kimbrough as he explores the role social norms, groups, and other factors play in our decision making processes.

References from Episode 81 with Erik Kimbrough

• You can find a list of Erik’s work here, or on SSRN and RePEc (Erik Kimbrough), some of which were quoted during this episode and formed the basis of discussion. These include Erik’s discussions on norm-compliance (with Mark Pickup and Eline de Rooij), corruption, social preferences (with Alexander Vostroknutov), and marriage (with Mahsa Akbari).
• This is a rundown of The Dictator Game in economics as presented by Daniel Kahneman et al.
• This is the paper written by George Stigler and Gary Becker, Accounting for Taste, that was mentioned by Erik in the podcast.
• You can read about Adam Smith’s impartial spectator and sentiments at this link (Adam Smith Institute). 
• You can read more about the economist Douglass North at this link (The Library of Economics and Liberty).
• The book, The WEIRDest People in the World by Joe Henrich, that was mentioned by Erik is available on Amazon Canada at this link. 
• Friedrich Hayek’s quote that “Man is much a rule-following animal as a purpose-seeking one” is from his book, Law, Legislation and Liberty, which can be accessed here.

Ross Emmett and Steve Slivinski — What Policies Hurt Business?

Alex Aragona chats with Ross Emmett and Steve Slivinski as they explore the policies that can hurt businesses, and their work on the Doing Business North America index.

References from Episode 80 with Ross Emmett and Steve Slivinski

• Ross Emmett and Stephen Slivinski are directors of the Doing Business North America project. Their 2020 report forms the basis of this episode and can be found at their website at this link.
• Here is a link to the Doing Business Report by the World Bank that was briefly mentioned in the podcast. 
• You can read the Philadelphia Inquirer’s article on the barriers of doing business in Philadelphia here.
• An in-depth explanation of the DBNA’s methodology and business categories is available for reading at this link.
• The DBNA Land Use index was inspired by The Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index, which can be accessed here. 
• Here are the recent rankings of the DBNA report, which includes a comparison of the performance in cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States (including the top five and five lowest-performing cities).
• You can interact with the data collected by DBNA at this link.
• Virginia Postrel’s book, The Future and its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, can be purchased on Amazon Canada at this link.
• Here is an article on the Bootleggers and Baptists problem coined by Bruce Yandle.

Peter Jaworski — What Is Libertarianism?

Alex Aragona speaks with Peter Jaworski as he explores his definition of libertarianism, and how different kinds of morality can lead to certain conclusions about libertarian institutions.

References from Episode 79 with Peter Jaworski

• Peter Jaworski is the co-author of the book, Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests, which is available for purchase on Amazon Canada at this link.
• Peter mentions B. van der Vossen’s article on self-ownership published on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which can be read here. The general article on libertarianism starts at this link.
• You can read more about Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations theory on the website, moralfoundations.org.
• Peter mentions the three-way division between people cited in Jason Brennan’s book, Against Democracy, which is also available on Amazon Canada at this link. 
• This article on libertarianism.org captures David Hume’s is-ought dichotomy that was briefly mentioned by Peter during the podcast. 
• The Acton Institute publishes many articles that demonstrate how their theological views endorse libertarian institutions on their website, acton.org.
• You can read John Stuart Mill’s libertarian conclusions in On Liberty at this link.
• Peter mentions Chris Freiman during the episode, who has published blogposts on learnliberty.org.   
• You can read more about the natural rights argument of Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in this article on libertarianism.org. 
• The Lockean-Nozick justification of property rights has also been written about in this article on libertarianism.org.
  
• Here is the link to Ayn Rand’s book, The Virtue of Selfishness, that explores the concept of ethical egoism.
• Michael L. Frazer has a book on Adam Smith’s theory of sentimentalism and how it departs from that of David Hume, which can be accessed here.
• You can purchase Michael Huemer’s book, Ethical Institutionalism, that was recommended by Peter at this link.
• Jan Narveson makes a contractarian case for libertarianism in this article on libertarianism.org.
• Here is Roderick Long’s article, Eudaimonist Libertarianism, that was published on bleedingheartlibertarians.org.
• Dan Sanchez published an article called, In Defense of Mises’s Utilitarianism, through the Mises Institute and is available for reading here.
• Here is Kevin Vallier’s article, A Rawlisan Case for Libertarianism, which also draws parallels to F. A. Hayek. 
• You can explore Milton Friedman’s natural rights-oriented political philosophy in his book, Capitalism and Freedom, which can be purchased from Amazon Canada at this link.
• Here is a joint article by John Tomasi and Matt Zwolinski called, A Bleeding Heart History of Libertarianism, which was published in Cato Unbound and can be read at this link. 
• This is a link to the Libertarian Party of the United States.
• Deirdre McCloskey elaborated on her idea of The Great Enrichment in this article published on the Foundation for Economic Education.