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The Answer Is Transaction Costs: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Michael Munger
"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. 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.....
Latest Episodes
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- Yesterday32 min
Two Bakers Walk Into A Cartel
Send us Fan Mail We test a simple bakery price-fixing pact and watch it unravel, then use that failure to explain how transaction costs shape institutions, from unenforceable contracts to the rise of the corporate trust. We connect the common law doctrine of restraint of trade to the Sherman Act, modern merger fights, and a real-world egg pricing controversy where evidence is hard to untangle from supply shocks. • a two-baker cartel that collapses as soon as cheating pays • why courts histori...
- 1 weeks ago36 min
Contracting with Yourself: Akrasia and Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail 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 self-control as a contracting problem between competing versions of ourselves. • Jordan I and Jordan II as a model of divided preferences over time • Hard determinism, libertarian free will, and compatibilism as the main phi...
- 2 weeks ago26 min
When Mass Outrage is Cheap: TC Origins of Cancel Culture
Send us Fan Mail 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, making outrage faster, bigger, and harder to control. • Thomas Aikenhead’s case as a story about information and enforcement costs • Transaction costs as the hidden limiter on persecution and social punishment • The Firs...
- 3 weeks ago27 min
You are NOT "Sorry I'm Late"!!
Send us Fan Mail We tell a story about German “academic quarter hours” 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 that predict who shows up late, why the pattern spreads, and how to spot it before you commit to a recurring meeting. • the “academic quarter hour” as a rule that makes lateness predictable • lateness as a transaction cost that blocks group goals • platonic travelers and the ...
- 4 weeks ago48 min
Transaction Costs Killed the Medical Stars
Send us Fan Mail We try to make sense of a real problem many of us feel: paying a lot for U.S. healthcare while still waiting months to see a doctor. We trace how engineered transaction costs, from the Flexner Report to modern residency caps, restrict physician supply and protect price power while leaving clinicians overworked and patients stuck. • getting “fired” by a health system and what it reveals about access • why shortages don’t clear when prices rise, and how transaction ...
- Jun 23, 202650 min
Parasites And Property Rights
Send us Fan Mail We follow the idea of the “social parasite” through socialist writing and show how it shifts from moral accusation to an enforceable legal category once society claims ownership over individual labor. We argue that the transaction costs of monitoring effort and assigning “socially useful” work push real-world socialism toward surveillance, coercion, and punishment. • socialist critique of wage labor as work or starve • transaction costs as defining, monitoring, and enforcing ...
- Jun 16, 20261h 4m
Books Don't Bet, They Match
Send us Fan Mail We break down how sportsbooks function as brokers that match contracts, set prices through the point spread, and earn their living through the vig. Kevin Braig joins us to explain how law, technology, and property rights shape whether sports betting markets stay clean or slide toward corruption and bad incentives. • five reasons people gamble, from dopamine to positive skewness • what a sports bet is as a contract and why a book exists as a broker • how the 11-to-10 price ...
- Jun 9, 202631 min
Hereditary Monarchy: At Least You Know Which Idiot Is Next
Send us Fan Mail Hereditary monarchy seems like a ridiculous way to pick a leader, yet it dominates most of human political history. We argue the reason is transaction costs: succession systems survive when they settle “who rules next” cheaply enough to prevent recurring civil war. • Why hereditary monarchy is historically prevalent compared with democracy and universal suffrage • Why “divine right” stories often rationalize a choice people already find tolerable • Thomas Pa...
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About 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. 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.....
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