Anja Shortland on Kidnap

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 78 minutes

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Summary

Anja Shortland of King's College London talks about her book Kidnap with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Kidnapping is relatively common in parts of the world where government authority is weak. Shortland explores this strange, frightening, but surprisingly orderly world. She shows how the interaction between kidnappers, victims, and insurance companies creates a somewhat predictable set of prices for ransom and creates a relatively high chance of the safe return of those who are kidnapped.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:12.6	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:17.6	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.5	We'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.8	back to 2006.
0:27.0	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.5	We'd love to hear from you.
0:33.6	Today is May 2, 2019, and my guest is Anya Shortland, reader in political economy at Kings
0:40.2	College, London.
0:42.0	She is the author of Kidnap inside the ransom business from Oxford University Press,
0:47.8	and her book is our topic for today.
0:50.6	And you're welcome to e-contalk.
0:52.6	Thank you very much for inviting me.
0:54.6	The very first sentence of this book really got my attention.
0:58.2	Here it is, every year, thousands of people are kidnapped to be ransomed back to their
1:03.6	family's employers or governments.
1:07.0	End of quote.
1:09.3	That's a stunning sentence for someone who's not an expert in this area, and to be honest,
1:15.7	my first thought was that's a little hard to believe.
1:18.9	Thousands every year.
1:21.1	Is this true?
	...

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