Business Talk

In his book, Private Power and Democracy's Decline: How to Make Capitalism Support Democracy, Stanford Economics Professor Emeritus Mordecai Kurz examines how tech monopolies fuel income inequality and social polarization. Expanding on the ideas in The Market Power of Technology (2023), Dr. Kurz presents concrete policy solutions, including antitrust reform and taxing monopoly profits, to protect...

Dr. Sibel Kusimba, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, joins us to explore her fascinating book, Reimagining Money: Kenya in the Digital Finance Revolution. a 2023 SEA Book Prize finalist from the Society for Economic Anthropology. In an episode of Business Talk, Dr. Sibel Kusimba discusses her book, Reimagining Money: Kenya in the Digital Finance Revolution. Tr...

Dr. Allan Lichtman, Distinguished Professor of History at American University, offers a fresh perspective on the evolution of conservative thought in the United States in his compelling book, Conservative at the Core: A New History of American Conservatism, sharing his rich ideas, experiences, and insights. Applying philosopher Dr. Imre Lakatos’s framework, Prof. Lichtman argues that conservative...

Professor Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, takes us to one of modern science’s most thrilling frontiers: the search for alien worlds. In Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity, he poses a question that could define our species, where else might life exist, and what does it mean for us? Dr. Impey highlighted...

Dr. Xu Jiang, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, focuses his research on banking regulation, optimal disclosure policies, accounting standards, and strategic communication. Inspired by real-world observations of companies delaying their scheduled earnings calls to coincide with Federal Reserve meetings, Dr. Jiang co-authored an original st...

In a recent deep-dive interview on the Business Talk podcast hosted by Deepak Bhatt, Dr. Sapnoti K. Eswar, Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of St. Andrews Business School, unpacked her landmark Research Policy paper co-authored with Dr. Laura Dimitrova, exploring whether FX derivatives adoption directly drives technological innovation. Capitalizing on the exogenous shock of the 1987 IS...

In this episode of Business Talk, hosted by Deepak, guest Professor Moshe Vardi, Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, and 2026 National Academy of Artificial Intelligence Academy Award laureate, delves into the profound intersection of AI, consciousness, logic, and human welfare. Addressing historical and modern debates on whether mac...

Professor Andrew Lison, Associate Professor in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) unpacked the key themes of his book, 100% Utilization: Computation and Labor after Moore's Law. Since CPU clock speeds plateaued around 2004, the tech industry has faced the physical limits of computing, shifting focus from hardware windfalls to software efficiency, parallel processing,...

Dr. Yamini Narayanan, ARC Future Fellow and Deputy Director of Partnerships, Impact & Engagement at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University (Australia), shares insights from Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India, a conversation exploring cows, politics, identity, and what it truly means to build a just society. Over the discuss...

Dr. Jülide Etem, Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, joins Business Talk to unpack her book, Film Diplomacy: A Media History of Turkey-US Relations. Drawing on her Istanbul upbringing and years in the archives, she traces how educational and missionary films quietly built the US-Turkey alliance, turning military pacts and NATO ties into emotionally resonant stories of friendship and...

In this episode of Business Talk, host Deepak Bhatt speaks with University of Chicago economist Dr. David W. Galenson about his book Innovators, which challenges the belief that creativity belongs only to the young. Using data on auction prices and textbook citations, Professor Galenson identifies two types of creators: conceptual innovators, who work toward a clear vision and often peak early (li...

In this Business Talk episode, host Deepak Bhatt speaks with Dr. Steve Gump, Associate Director at the University of Virginia and author of How to Review Scholarly Books: Reading, Writing, Relishing (Princeton University Press, 2025), about the art and ethics of scholarly book reviewing. Dr. Gump argues that reviews should be written with the same joy and craft as literary criticism rather than tr...

Dr. Keren Bar-Hava, Head of the Accounting Department at the Hebrew University Business School and a member of the Israel Accounting Standards Board, explores her groundbreaking research on whether independent directors truly tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” when they step down, and what that honesty, or lack thereof, means for investors, companies, and markets. Indepen...

In this episode of Business Talk, host Deepak Bhatt speaks with Dr. F. Scott Bentley, Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management at Rutgers University, about his research on job-hopping and newcomer success. Drawing on a large, 15-year dataset of hedge fund managers, Dr. Bentley’s paper “Movin’ and Groovin’! Increased Prior Mobility Facilitates Newcomers’ Transitions Into Organizations” show...

In this episode of the Business Talk podcast, host Deepak speaks with Dr. Tad Skotnicki, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, about his groundbreaking book The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture. Drawing on his training at the University of California, San Diego and earlier studies at the University of Chicago and the Universit...

In this episode of Business Talk, Professor Dr. Robert Dur of Erasmus University Rotterdam discussed his research on policy experimentation and public attitudes toward randomized controlled trials in government policy. Drawing on survey evidence from the Dutch LISP panel and replications in Finland, France, Poland, Ireland, Romania, the United States, and Australia, he showed that voters are gener...

Dr. Joel Stillerman, Professor of Sociology at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, joins us to discuss key insights from his book Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile. Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile explores how Chilean middle-class families weave moral values, emotions, and politics...

Dr. Ha Hoang, Professor of Management & Association Dean (Research) at ESSEC Business School, joins us to share insights from her research on “Physician Entrepreneurship: A Study of Early Career Physicians’ Founding Motivations and Actions.” Through her stories and findings, we explore the journeys of early-career physicians who choose to become founders, and what their experiences reveal about en...

This episode presents Dr. Poornima Luthra as an accomplished global expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), highlighting her role as Principal Lecturer in People, Culture, and Inclusion at Imperial College London, her award winning authorship, and her advisory work with leading international organizations. In this episode, she shares core insights from her book Can I Say That?: Your Go-T...

This episode of the Business Talk Podcast features an in-depth conversation between host Deepak Bhatt and distinguished guest Dr. Charles H. Cho, Professor of Sustainability Accounting and holder of the Irving K. Hope Chair in Business and Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business, York University. Together, they explore Dr. Cho’s thought-provoking research paper, “Organized Hypocrisy, Org...

Dr. Helen Pearson, Senior Editor at Nature and Honorary Professor of Practice in the UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies, shares key insights from her book Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works. This meeting overview captures a focused conversation with Dr. Helen Pearson, senior editor at Nature and award winning science journalist, centered on her book Beyond Belief: Ho...

In this episode of Business Talk, host Deepak Bhatt speaks with Dr. Roland Betancourt, Chancellor’s Professor of Art History at UC Irvine, about his book on Disneyland and the history of automation and technology. Betancourt reframes Disneyland not just as a storytelling space but as a factory where guest experience is the key product, built on hidden systems of technology, control, and feedback....

Dr. Samuel Moyn, Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University, discusses his latest book Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Hoard Power and Wealth, and What to Do About It. In this work, he applies a historical and philosophical lens to a pressing and contentious issue in contemporary American life, the concentration of political and economic power among older generations, and examines i...

Sir Robert T. Watson, Emeritus Professor and former Strategic Director at the University of East Anglia, shares powerful insights from his influential work Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act. Business Talk hosted Emeritus Professor Sir Robert T. Watson for a wide-ranging discussion of Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act, highlighting how climate...

This episode of Business Talk features historian Dr. Zhongping Chen of the University of Victoria discussing his groundbreaking book, The Transpacific Chinese Diaspora: Migration Networks from China to Canada and Beyond, 1788–1898. The conversation traces the origins of Chinese migration to North America back to 1788, when Cantonese laborers from Guangdong, via Macau, joined the Pacific Northwest...