Episodes

  • AI and Early Childhood Development: The Importance of Human Interaction

    AI and Early Childhood Development: The Importance of Human Interaction
    Jul 7 2026
    At a time when forty percent of American two-year-olds have their own tablet, a new generation of AI toys and chatbots is being marketed as a better alternative to screens. On this episode, Dana Suskind, pediatric cochlear implant surgeon, co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning and Public Health, and author of the new book Human Raised, explains the importance of human interaction for children's brain development.
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    42 mins
  • Signal and Noise: Why Politics Is About Culture When Voters Want Economics

    Signal and Noise: Why Politics Is About Culture When Voters Want Economics
    Jun 23 2026
    Voters consistently say they care most about the economy — jobs, wages, inflation, the price of gas. So why are campaigns so often fought over culture? In this episode, Konstantin Sonin, the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and co-director of BFI's Political Economics Initiative, walks host Tess Vigeland through his theory of "multi-dimensional signaling." Because economic policy is too complex for voters to fully decode, they read a candidate's cultural stances as a proxy for what that candidate will do economically, and politicians exploit it.
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    30 mins
  • How Should Parents Respond When Grades are Good, But Test Scores are Bad?

    How Should Parents Respond When Grades are Good, But Test Scores are Bad?
    Jun 9 2026
    When a child brings home good grades but low standardized test scores, which signal should parents pay attention to? In this episode, Ariel Kalil of the UChicago Harris School of Public Policy discusses new research showing that parents lean heavily on grades, and high grades often crowd out the extra help low test scores would otherwise prompt. With pandemic learning losses disguised by inflated grades, Kalil discusses how this dynamic may mean that struggling kids aren't getting the support they need.
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    47 mins
  • Tied to the Job: The Gains from Permanent Residency

    Tied to the Job: The Gains from Permanent Residency
    May 26 2026
    When immigrant workers come to a country on a visa tied to a single employer, what is it worth to be free to switch jobs? In this episode, Chicago Booth economist Matt Notowidigdo discusses new research using Canadian administrative data to track temporary foreign workers when they gain permanent residency. Job-switching rates jump 21.7 percentage points and earnings rise 5.7 percent within three years, driven largely by workers sorting into higher-paying firms across industries.
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    25 mins
  • Life as a Lab: John List on the Art and Ethics of Field Experiments

    Life as a Lab: John List on the Art and Ethics of Field Experiments
    May 5 2026
    Have you taken a Lyft, shopped at Walmart, or used Facebook in the last decade? If so, you've likely been a participant in one of John List's experiments. In this episode of The Pie, List, Professor of Economics and Director of the Becker Friedman Institute, returns to discuss his new 900-page textbook, Experimental Economics: Theory in Practice — the field guide he wishes he'd had as he pioneered the use of real-world experiments to figure out what moves human behavior across policy and business. From a Wisconsin baseball-card table in 1985 to the White House, Lyft, and Walmart, List shares the lessons, mistakes, and ethical questions that have shaped three decades of discovery.
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    59 mins
  • Wealth of Institutions: Randall Kroszner on Why Markets Stayed Calm While the Fed Came Under Fire

    Wealth of Institutions: Randall Kroszner on Why Markets Stayed Calm While the Fed Came Under Fire
    Apr 28 2026
    Earlier this year, former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that political pressure on the Federal Reserve could turn the U.S. into "a banana republic." And yet long-term interest rates, inflation expectations, and the dollar have shown a remarkably muted reaction to President Trump's public pressure on Chair Jerome Powell. Why? In this episode of The Pie, Randall Kroszner, Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics at Chicago Booth and a former Federal Reserve Governor during the 2008 financial crisis, argues that markets are staying calm because they trust the institutional guardrails around the Fed, which include the courts, the Senate, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Recorded live at UChicago as part of BFI's Wealth 250 campaign marking the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Kroszner walks through the market data and draws on his time inside the Fed during the global financial crisis to explain the difference between independence and accountability.
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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • A Conversation with Raghuram Rajan: Corporate Governance, Community, and Political Economy

    A Conversation with Raghuram Rajan: Corporate Governance, Community, and Political Economy
    Apr 21 2026
    In this Extra Slice of The Pie, guest host Ben Krause sits down with Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, for a wide-ranging conversation on everything from what 25,000 CEO letters reveal about corporate America's shift from maximizing shareholder value to prioritizing customers and employees, to why communities matter as much as markets and the state, the political equilibrium that determines whether societies thrive or collapse, how inequality drove the 2008 financial crisis, and why AI could create catastrophic outcomes without better support for workers. Rajan reflects on his path from observing development gaps as a child to prescient warnings about financial crises, explains why modern firms are fundamentally about managing power struggles between stakeholders, and makes the case for "inclusive localism," or, empowering communities while keeping borders open to competition.
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    59 mins
  • The Uneven Promise of School Choice: Who Applies vs. Who Benefits

    The Uneven Promise of School Choice: Who Applies vs. Who Benefits
    Apr 14 2026
    When public school districts offer options like magnet schools and dual-language programs, families who are richer, whiter, and higher-achieving are more likely to opt in. Meanwhile, students who would benefit most are least likely to apply. In this episode, Chicago Booth economist Chris Campos explains why the participation architecture of school choice matters as much as the quality of the schools themselves, and why information campaigns alone aren't enough to close the gap.
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    24 mins