It’s been a while since I revisited my list of the best economics podcasts. Here are my current top five.
- NPR’s Planet Money remains the very best economics podcast out there. Great production values, very creative, serious economics topics treated with a light touch. The team also produced the superb economics documentary, The Invention of Money.
- A new entrant on my list, the FT’s Alphachat podcast is a smart, well-informed and economically literate discussion of the economics and finance news of the week. (Disclosure: I’m employed by the FT so have a clear bias. But I don’t know the Alphachat crew, who are based in New York.)
- Freakonomics Radio remains a firm favourite. Stephen Dubner’s relentless curiosity keeps us rolling along, with a variety of serious topics (how can we fix education, or close the gender pay gap?) and the lighter stuff (can economics help us understand what makes a suspenseful screenplay?).
- If you like Alphachat, you’ll love Slate Money, presented by Felix Salmon with Cathy O’Neil and Jordan Weissmann. Imagine Alphachat, but everyone’s had a glass of pinot noir before they started, and you get the idea. Feisty yet highly intelligent.
- If you’re more of a behavioural economics fan, try The Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam, featuring Daniel Pink. Recent episodes included a live show with Richard Thaler.
I’m a big podcast fan so let me give a shout out to a few others, including my own program More or Less, a weekly guide to the numbers that surround us – and the thirteen short episodes of Pop Up Economics, mostly by me but also featuring guests including Gillian Tett and Malcolm Gladwell.
Russ Roberts’s EconTalk is pure economics: Russ, a professor at George Mason University, has strong views of his own – he’s a Hayek man through and through – but brings on a wide range of guests and gives them a sympathetic hearing. Some great recent conversations with the excellent young blowhard Noah Smith and with Nobel laureate Jim Heckman.
Radio 4’s Analysis often covers economics topics, as does Peter Day’s World of Business (in depth, on location) and Evan Davis’s The Bottom Line (studio discussion with business leaders).
The London School of Economics has a stellar collection of speakers and releases many events as podcasts.
The FT produces a range of podcasts but I particularly enjoy the FT Money Show and World Weekly.
Finally, in the hidden gems category, check out No Such Thing As A Fish, and Futility Closet – both addictive podcasts that have nothing whatsoever to do with economics.