Arnold Kling on Specialization and Trade

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2016

⏱️ 67 minutes

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Summary

Arnold Kling, economist and author, speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his latest book, Specialization and Trade: A Reintroduction to Economics. Kling argues that macroeconomics ignores the challenges of buyers and sellers working together in the real world of specialization and trade. Instead, most macroeconomic theories struggle to incorporate the differences across workers and products. Kling points the listener toward a different perspective on macroeconomics and the business cycle that focuses on those differences. Kling also lays out related insights on political economy as well as his take on G.A. Cohen's parable of the camping trip.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:09.2	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.7	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:18.7	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.7	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:26.0	back to 2006.
0:28.2	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:30.7	We'd love to hear from you.
0:34.6	Today's April 7th, 2016, and my guest is frequent e-contalk guest, Arnold Kling.
0:41.5	Economist, author, and his latest book, which is coming out soon, is Specialization and
0:46.4	Trade, a reintroduction to economics.
0:49.4	Arnold, welcome back to e-contalk.
0:51.4	Thanks, Russ.
0:52.7	Now, what's special about Specialization Trade?
0:55.6	Why do you put it at the center of this economics framework that you've written?
1:00.5	Well, you could start by saying that Adam Smith, who is considered the founder of economics,
1:07.1	started out, of course, talking about Specialization.
1:10.8	And I think that economists have a bit lost their way by getting away from that in the
1:15.9	last 50 years.
1:18.4	In some ways, the organizing principle of this book is I'm trying to use the focus on
1:25.9	Specialization and Trade to get people away from misconceptions that they hold about economics.
1:32.9	And these misconceptions are misconceptions that economists have and that non-economists
	...

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