Expanding Economics

Welcome back to the Expanding Economics podcast! In this episode, Noé and Zoya dive into the complex history and future of the natural resource trade. They explore how the wealth of developing nations—from oil in Venezuela to copper in Zambia—has been shaped by a legacy of colonial extraction and neocolonial influence. Their discussion traces the path from the 1884 Berlin Conference to the lost de...

Welcome back to the Expanding Economics podcast! In this episode, Noelle and Zoya pull back the curtain on dynamic pricing—the invisible force changing the cost of everything from your Uber Eats order to your next concert ticket. While traditional models suggest that shifting prices simply balance supply and demand, the rise of Personalized Dynamic Pricing (PDP) tells a much more intrusive story....

In this episode, Amelia and Zoya dissect the long awaited Mark Carney budget.

Welcome back to the Expanding Economics podcast! In this episode, we dive into an emerging market, the attention economy. Noelle and Zoya explore how our attention is being traded like a currency by major companies and how that impacts our economy, our wellbeing, and our personal choices. They examine how platforms “mint” attention into metrics, set the exchange rates from views to dollars, and ca...

Welcome back to the Expanding Economics podcast! In this episode, we dive into a complex and often overlooked aspect of abortion discourse: economics. Sasha and Zoya explore the impact of abortion policies on economic outcomes, particularly for women. They examine how access to abortion influences issues such as workforce participation and income equality and how abortion access can fit into the b...

As the 2024 election season heats up, politicians are throwing around familiar economic buzzwords like “inflation,” “price gouging,” and “economic growth.” Behind these seemingly simple phrases lies a web of complex, interconnected issues that are often glossed over in campaign speeches. In this episode of the Expanding Economics Podcast, hosts Sasha and Zoya dive into the languages of the 2024 ca...

In this episode, Sasha and Zoya explore the unique dynamic between the newly emerging legal market for cannabis and the long established black market. When faced with a choice between legal and illegal, why do some consumers still choose the latter? Together with special guest Dr. Tiffanie Perrault we discuss the driving factors that determine the success (or failure) of the legal market, why the...

Claudia Goldin is a labor economist at Harvard who is the most recent Nobel Laureate in economics “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes”. Among her many accolades and contributions, she has made history becoming the first woman to get tenure in Harvard's economics department as well as the first woman to receive the Nobel prize in economics solo. We wanted to con...

In this episode, Sofia shares some of her previous work in Economic Sociology, a subfield that often clashes with Neoclassical economics in its analysis of various economic phenomena. Within it, the study of money and its social meanings is a central topic and subject to widespread debate. After outlining the various perspectives and theories posed by scholars in the field, Sofia searches to expla...

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Expanding Economics! To follow up on our last episode on Degrowth Economics, we invited Jade to discuss the attempts to implement green growth policies and how effective they are at achieving C02 reduction targets. After talking a bit about her own experience at McGill and some of the pros and shortcomings of studying economics and political science, we touch on wh...

As we all grapple with the threats posed by the climate crisis, economists, politicians, and everyday people outside the ivory tower are searching for a way forward. The Degrowth movement offers a solution that challenges the traditional pursuit of perpetual economic growth as the ultimate goal for society. Instead, it proposes a steady state economy that prioritizes social and ecological well-bei...

Professor Kristen Ghodsee teaches Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is known for her ethnographic work in post-soviet countries where she studies gender relations and other legacies of 20th century communism. In her book, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism, she argues that when the state steps in to support families with reproductive labour and care wo...

In this episode we are joined by Michael Babcock; Ph. D. candidate at McGill University where he studies natural resource development and teaches Ecological Economics. After taking Michael's class myself, I felt that the way I viewed the discipline of economics and the world more broadly had been drastically changed. Economists of the future must be thinking about how we will go on to power societ...

For the last few episodes the Expanding Economics team has been discussing inflation, crashing markets, and whatever other economic problems we uncovered along the way. This time, we wanted to hear from someone outside of the group and see how their economic perspective differs from ours. On this episode, we are joined by fellow economics undergrad Georges Rigas to see how well our education has (...

In this episode Sofia and Andrew discuss NIMBYism and why it is pervasive and harmful to the Canadian housing market. After months of consecutive record breaking highs, Canadian housing prices have finally begun to show signs of decline in response to rising interest rates, but what caused this boom in the first place? Has housing just become another speculative asset or do prices reflect market f...

Welcome back to the Expanding Economics podcast, in part three of our series on inflation, we delve into the economic history of inflation to better understand why it is a problem and how we keep getting ourselves into this situation. We discuss post-WW1 Germany, the 1970s oil crisis, and how the low inflation in the decades since led us to where we are today. Finally, we ask ourselves the age-old...

Welcome back to the Expanding Economics Podcast!   This episode is part one of a three-part series on inflation. As inflationary pressures continue to rise throughout the world, we look at how we got here, what it signals for future economic outcomes and what economic theory does or does not have to say about it.   In part one we start with the impact of the pandemic and government fiscal policies...

Montreal is an international hub for artificial intelligence research, with the world’s largest academic AI research community. Industry has quickly followed, with leaders in big tech such as Microsoft establishing research labs in Montreal. In this episode, we unpack the current state of the local AI industry and AI governance with scholar Ana Brandusescu to understand the impacts of this industr...

While many universities are divesting from fossil fuels in response to the climate crisis, McGill University continues to invest about $40 million in oil and gas. The student activists at Divest McGill have been working hard since 2012 to change this, but McGill’s Board of Governors is not budging. In this episode, we discuss why fossil fuel divestment is important for the environmental justice mo...

In this episode, we dive into a topic that is ignored by many economists: the role of race and group identity in economics. We have an obligation to acknowledge how, by externalizing race, economic theory upholds racist systems and perpetuates socially unequal outcomes. Our economic status quo fails to support black lives, especially amidst economic shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We speak w...

There has been a sense of urgency to restart the economy, given that measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 have simultaneously caused a major slowdown of economic activity. Some politicians, such as Lt. Governor of Texas Dan Patrick, have gone as far as promoting human sacrifice in the hopes of saving economic life. This sort of rhetoric that favours the economy over human life brings into ques...

In our second episode, we spoke with Julian Karaguesian, economic history professor at McGill University. We discussed how the neoclassical school of thought came to dominate economics as we know it and shape global capitalist society at large. Get in touch at expandingecon.mtl@rethinkeconomics.org

Most university economics students are exposed to mainly one school of economic thought: neoclassical economics. For students to have an education that promotes critical thinking and an understanding of economic events and policies, they must gain exposure to alternative perspectives, the so-called 'heterodox' schools. The Expanding Economics Podcast aims to shift the focus in economics and incorp...