How Risk Fuels a Healthy Economy
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.8 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Allison Schrager joins Brian Anderson to discuss how risk propels economic growth and why government efforts that go too far to mitigate risk undermine America’s economic vitality.
“Risk, for better and worse,” writes Schrager for City Journal, “is at the heart of economic growth, and successfully apportioning it—not avoiding it—is the key to prosperity.” While government has a role to play in managing risk, the U.S. economy has thrived by trusting markets to allocate it efficiently. Overly intrusive efforts to reduce risk in the economy—such as California’s new law regulating freelance or “gig” work—may prove counterproductive to workers of all incomes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks Podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:04.9 | Coming up on today's show, I talk with economist and writer Alison Schrager. |
| 0:09.7 | Allison recently joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow, and we're happy to have her |
| 0:14.1 | back for a second appearance on the Ten Blocks podcast. She's written a piece for City Journal |
| 0:18.8 | that we posted online over the weekend. |
| 0:21.2 | It's called Propeller of Growth. |
| 0:23.5 | You can find it on our website, and we'll link to it in the description. |
| 0:27.1 | That's it for the introduction. |
| 0:28.6 | After the music, we'll be joined by Alison Schrager. |
| 0:31.3 | Music, we'll be joined economist Alison Schrager. |
| 0:50.9 | Allison is the newest senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Her new book, |
| 0:55.9 | which we talked about last time she was on the podcast, is called An Economist Walks |
| 1:00.3 | Into a Brothel and other unexpected places to understand risk. You can follow her on Twitter |
| 1:06.8 | at Allison Schrager. Allison, thanks for joining us and welcome to the Manhattan Institute. |
| 1:12.7 | Thank you. Thanks for having me. I want to focus on this piece you've just written for |
| 1:17.2 | City Journal, which really gets to the heart of a big ongoing interest of yours. The article is called |
| 1:23.7 | propeller of growth, and in it you write risk for better or worse is the heart of economic |
| 1:29.5 | growth, and successfully apportioning it, not avoiding it, is the key to prosperity. Can you explain |
| 1:36.8 | your reasoning for why risk is so important to a flourishing economy? Well, I think when we think |
| 1:42.9 | about risk, we always think of something to avoid or to eliminate, |
| 1:46.1 | but risk is both good and bad. Risk is the upside. It's the returns from investment. If it goes |
| 1:51.6 | well, it is the benefit of being an entrepreneur, which is a very risky endeavor. |
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