The Pie: An Economics Podcast

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1. Do Age Verification Laws Work? Evidence from Adult Websites

   27 oktober 2026 · 24 min

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   Since 2023, 25 states have passed laws requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages. Meanwhile, total time spent on these sites has fallen by only about 10%. In this episode, UChicago economist Matthew Brown discusses new research that uses browsing data to trace where that traffic went, with implications for with implications for how policymakers regulate the internet more broadly. Lees meer

2. The Everywhere Millionaire: Who's Really Rich in America

   13 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 7 min

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   Roughly 3 million Americans own private businesses and have a net worth of at least $5 million. Together they hold more than $50 trillion, about 13 times the wealth of the entire Forbes 400. In this episode, Chicago Booth economist Eric Zwick discusses The Everywhere Millionaire, his new book with Owen Zidar, which draws on a decade of tax data to characterize this class of car dealers, dentists, and beer distributors in towns across the country. Lees meer

3. Why Your Raise Didn't Keep Up with Inflation

   29 september 2026 · 35 min

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   By 2024, inflation was falling and unemployment was low, yet consumer confidence had sunk to levels last seen during the Great Recession. In this episode, Erik Hurst of Chicago Booth and his co-author Christina Patterson draw on payroll records for roughly 16 million workers to show how wages fell behind prices during the recent inflationary period and haven't caught back up. Lees meer

4. But the Cool Kids are Still Online: Behind Australia's Failed Social Media Ban

   15 september 2026 · 43 min

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   Last December, Australia banned social media for anyone under 16. Four months later, only one in four 14- and 15-year-olds were complying, a share that has since fallen further. In this episode of The Pie, Leonardo Bursztyn, the Saieh Family Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and co-director of BFI's Political Economics Initiative, discusses why the ban hasn't worked, and what a successful one might entail. Lees meer

5. Cut Off: How US Sanctions are Reshaping the Global Payment System

   1 september 2026 · 49 min

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   US sanctions on Russian banks have complex spillovers for the importers and exporters who transact in dollars. On this episode of The Pie, Brent Neiman, the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, returns to discuss recent research tracing how those sanctions ripple through the global payments network, and whether they are pushing heavily sanctioned economies away from the dollar and toward China's yuan. Lees meer

6. Scoop and Run: How Should Gunshot Victims Get to the Hospital?

   18 augustus 2026 · 31 min

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   When a police officer is shot, is it safer to wait for an ambulance or to be driven straight to the hospital in a squad car? In this episode of The Pie, Prachi Sanghavi, an associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago and co-director of the Health Policy Data Lab, discusses new research tracing how shooting victims across 18 U.S. cities reach the hospital, and what it reveals about a decades-old debate over pre-hospital care. Lees meer

7. Talking to Strangers: The Economics of Social Connection

   4 augustus 2026 · 53 min

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   New research shows that people are strikingly bad at predicting how good it feels to connect with a stranger. In this episode of The Pie, Nick Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and author of A Little More Social, discusses what more than 120 experiments reveal about why we avoid reaching out to others, and what that avoidance may be costing us. Lees meer

8. Passing the Pop Quiz: How Nursing Homes Predict Inspections, and What It Costs Patients

   21 juli 2026 · 28 min

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   In the United States, regulators inspect nursing homes to ensure compliance with quality, safety, and other standards. While these inspections are not technically announced, they are easy for nursing home staff to predict because they usually occur annually. In this episode of The Pie, Maggie Shi, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, discusses how this predictability affects nursing homes' effort levels, and, in turn, resident health. Lees meer

9. AI and Early Childhood Development: The Importance of Human Interaction

   7 juli 2026 · 42 min

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   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. Lees meer

10. Signal and Noise: Why Politics Is About Culture When Voters Want Economics

    23 juni 2026 · 30 min

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    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. Lees meer

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