Search Results for: alex

Episode 206: Lessons From 2020

…should think more about inter-generational tradeoffs, and consider lowering the voting age. (Shruti)
6. Software is eating the biological world. (Alex)
7. Science is not the problem. The problem is economic illiteracy. (Shruti)
7.5. We should move from collectivized decision-making to respecting individual choice. (Alex)
8. We need to rethink education. Not just the delivery of it, but how we think of education itself. (Amit)
9. A bigger problem than state capacity is state will. (Alex)
10. Politicians don’t always behave in a rational, self-interested way. (Shruti)
11. Politics is driven only by tribalism. (Amit)
12. The internet is even better than we thought. (Alex)
13. Markets don’t solve everything. (Shruti)
14. We should worry more about computer viruses. (Alex)
15. We should take a closer look at how we relate to other people. (Amit)
15.5 Be like dogs. Live in the moment. (Shruti)

Also check out: 1. Elite Imitation…

Episode 180: Elite Imitation in Public Policy

Indian decision makers often blindly copy public policy from abroad, without considering whether it would work in local conditions. Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok join Amit Varma in episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen to explain the damage caused by such ‘isomorphic mimicry,’ and why it happens in the first place.

Also check out:
1. Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State — Shruti Rajagopalan & Alexander Tabarrok.
2. Modern Principles of Macroeconomics — Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok.
3. Modern Principles of Microeconomics — Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok.
4. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State — Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
5. The Delhi Smog — Episode 44 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).
6. Is India a Flailing State? — Lant Pritchett.
7. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian…

Episode 394: Arnold Kling and the Four Languages of Politics

…is Everything.
21. Arnold Kling’s extended biographical note on himself.
22. The Best and the Brightest — David Halberstam.
23. The Wind in the Willows — Kenneth Grahame.
24. The State of AI with Marc & Ben — The A16Z Podcast.
25. The Cash Nexus — Niall Ferguson.
26. Marginal Revolution — Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok’s blog.
27. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Alex Tabarrok: 1, 2, 3, 4.
28. Stubborn Attachments — Episode 106 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tyler Cowen).
29. Conversation and Society — Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts).
30. This Be The Verse — Philip Larkin.
31. Free to Choose — The documentary series by Milton Friedman.
32. The Anxious Generation — Jonathan Haidt.
33. The Life and Times of the Indian Economy — Episode 387 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari…

Episode 176: The Nuances of Lockdown

…a false binary between lockdown and no-lockdown? Anup Malani joins Amit Varma in episode 176 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his insights on these subjects and more.

Also check out:
1. Anup Malani’s homepage.
2. Taking Stock of Covid-19 — Episode 169 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
3. We Are Fighting Two Disasters — Amit Varma.
4. The Economic Approach to Human Behaviour — Gary Becker.
5. Learning During a Crisis: the SARS Epidemic in Taiwan — Daniel Bennett, Chun-Fang Chiang, Anup Malani.
6. Identifying Placebo Effects with Data from Clinical Trials — Anup Malani.
7. FSI (Floor Space Index) — Episode 11 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alex Tabarrok).
8. Rent Control — Episode 14 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alex Tabarrok).
9. Slums — Episode 21 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pavan Srinath)….

Episode 313: The Long Road From Neeyat to Neeti

…Should Be Scrapped — Amit Varma.
43. We All Gamble. Make It Legal — Devangshu Datta.
44. Yes We Cannabis! — Devangshu Datta.
45. Prohibition doesn’t work. Tax Alcohol Instead — Devangshu Datta.
46. Legalise Prostitution to Fight Trafficking — Amit Varma.
47. Sea of Poppies — Amitav Ghosh.
48. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
49. Rent Control — Ep 14 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alex Tabarrok).
50. A Theory of Justice — John Rawls.
51. Anarchy, State and Utopia — Robert Nozick.
52. Politics and Money — Amit Varma’s limerick.
53. The Great Redistribution — Amit Varma.
54. Power and Prosperity — Mancur Olson.
55. Swaminathan S Aiyar at Times of India, Amazon and his own website.
56. The Lost Decade — Puja Mehra.
57. India’s Lost Decade — Episode 116…

Episode 138: Twelve Dream Reforms

…28 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul)
8. Early Indians — Ep 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph)
9. Immigration — Ep 4 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shikha Dalmia)
10. Rent Control — Ep 14 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alex Tabarrok)
11. FSI — Ep 11 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alex Tabarrok)
12. Women at Work — Ep 132 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Namita Bhandare)
13. IL&FS and the Indian Financial System — Ep 91 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul & Ashutosh Datar)
14. The DNA of the NPA — Ep 32 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul & Kumar Anand)
15. Demystifying GDP — Ep 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta)
16. India’s Lost Decade — Ep 116 of…

Episode 282: Naushad Forbes Wants to Fix India

…(w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
7. The Great Redistribution — Amit Varma.
8. Early Indians — Tony Joseph.
9. Tony Joseph’s episode of The Seen and the Unseen.
10. Who We Are and How We Got Here — David Reich.
11. Two-and-a-Half Bengalis Have an Economics Adda — Episode 274 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswaro Sengupta and Shrayana Bhattacharya).
12. India’s Problem is Poverty, Not Inequality — Amit Varma.
13. On Inequality — Harry Frankfurt.
14. Our Unlucky Children (2008) — Amit Varma.
15. Fund Schooling, Not Schools (2007) — Amit Varma.
16. The Beautiful Tree — James Tooley.
17. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan).
18. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya).
19. Black Beauty — Anne Sewell.
20. Enid Blyton and Gerald Durrell…

Episode 169: Taking Stock of Covid-19

How should India handle Covid-19? Every option on the table carries huge costs, and will take countless lives. Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 169 of The Seen and the Unseen to help navigate the complex decisions that policy makers are being forced to make with little information.

Also check out:
1. India must shut itself down to contain the coronavirus — Shruti Rajagopalan (Mar 16)
2. Shruti Rajagopalan on India and the coronavirus — Marginal Revolution (Mar 25)
3. The lockdown may be doing us more harm than good — Shruti Rajagopalan (Mar 30)
4. Assessing Healthcare Capacity in India — Shruti Rajagopalan and Abishek Choutagunta
5. Pandemic Policy in Developing Countries: Recommendations for India — Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok
6. We have miles of roadblocks to remove before we sleep (Apr 13) — Shruti Rajagopalan
7. We Are Fighting Two Disasters:…

Episode 339: The Poetic Feminism of Paromita Vohra

…the Unseen.
39. Stage.in.
40. On Exactitude in Science — Jorge Luis Borges.
41. On Uniform Civil Code, intent matters — GN Devy.
42. Past Lives — Celine Song.
43. Joseph Fasano on Twitter.
44. Imaginary Number — Vijay Seshadri.
45. Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women — Translated by Charles Hallisey.
46. Early Indians — Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph).
47. Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From — Tony Joseph.
48. Why Children Labour (2007) — Amit Varma.
49. The Life and Times of Urvashi Butalia — Episode 287 of The Seen and the Unseen.
50. Manjima Bhattacharjya: The Making of a Feminist — Episode 280 of The Seen and the Unseen.
51. Roots — Alex Haley.
52. Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To — David Sinclair.
53. Outlive: The Science…

Episode 11: FSI (Floor Space Index)

Mumbai is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and one of the reasons is that there is too little land and too much sky. Alex Tabarrok joins Amit Varma to discuss Mumbai’s insanely low Floor Space Index (FSI), a key reason why real estate here is at such a premium.

…

Episode 14: Rent Control

Rent control is a classic example of a regulation meant to help the poor that ends up hurting everyone. Alex Tabarrok joins Amit Varma to discuss how real estate in Mumbai would be so much cheaper if not for such government regulation.

…

Episode 271: Crossing Over With Deepak Shenoy

…Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas — Natasha Dow Schüll.
21. When Harry Met Sally — Rob Reiner.
22. Dil Dhoondhta Hai Phir Wohi Fursat Ke Raat Din — Bhupinder Singh.
23. Dave Barry on Amazon.
24. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years — Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai).
25. Gurpriya Sidhu’s tweet thread on sitting alone at cafes.
26. Self-Esteem (and a Puddle) — Amit Varma’s post with Douglas Adams’s puddle quote.
27. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande — Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen.
28. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus — John Gray.
29. The Blank Slate — Steven Pinker.
30. $800,000 to Zero – The FASCINATING History of DaVinci Resolve — Alex Jordan of Learn Color Grading.
31. Casey Neistat and MrBeast on YouTube.
32. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly.
33. 1000 True…

Episode 397: Larry White and the First Principles of Money

…Gold Rushes — Lawrence H White.
26. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass — Frederick Douglass.
27. Lombard Street – A Description of the Money Market — Walter Bagehot.
28. Has Government Any Role in Money? — Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz.
29. Antifragile — Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
30. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis.
31. Gambling with Other People’s Money — Russell D Roberts.
32. The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure — John Allison.
33. Check Your Financial Privilege — Alex Gladstein.
34. Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin — Andrew Bailey, Bradley Rettler and Craig Warmke.
35. Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptoassets — Fabian Schär and Aleksander Berentsen.
36. The Denationalisation of Money — Hayek.
37. The Theory of Free Banking — George Selgin.
38. Money: Free and Unfree — George Selgin.
39. The Experience of Free Banking —…

Episode 200: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

…Sengupta (1, 2), Aanchal Malhotra, Alex Tabarrok (1, 2, 3), Madhavi Menon and Mohit Satyanand (1, 2, 3, 4)
2. A Godless Congregation — Amit Varma.
3. Agarkar’s Donkeys: A Meditation on God — Amit Varma.
4. Luck is All Around — Amit Varma.
5. Why I Loved and Left Poker — Amit Varma.
6. The archives of Amit Varma’s poker column for the Economic Times, Range Rover.
7. Selected works by George Orwell: Essays, 1984, Animal Farm.
8. Selected Works by Frédéric Bastiat: The Law, That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.
9. A World of Stopped Watches — Amit Varma.
10. A Picture of Hell, and No Kerosene — Amit Varma.
11. ये लिबरल आख़िर है कौन? — Episode 37 of Puliyabaazi, featuring Amit Varma discussing Friedrich Hayek.
12. Facts Don’t Matter. Stories Do — Amit Varma.
13. Every Act of Government Is an Act…

Episode 308: Saaz Aggarwal Enters a Vanished Homeland

…— Frédéric Bastiat.
8. Frédéric Bastiat’s writings at Bastiat.org and Amazon.
9. Remembering Frédéric Bastiat (2007) — Amit Varma.
10. Autobiography of Malcolm X — Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley.
11. A Shot At History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold — Abhinav Bindra with Rohit Brijnath.
12. Odyssey: My Journey Through Life — Nandlal P Tolani with Saaz Aggarwal.
13. Veda Aggarwal’s website.
14. Comparative Advantage.
15. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen.
16. ‘Indian languages carry the legacy of caste’ — Chandra Bhan Prasad interviewed by Sheela Bhatt.
17. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya).
18. Vipassana meditation at Dhamma.org.
19. India Moving — Chinmay Tumbe.
20. India = Migration — Episode 128 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chinmay Tumbe).
21. Rekhta.
22….

Episode 285: The Life and Times of Montek Singh Ahluwalia

…24. The Beautiful Tree — James Tooley.
25. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
26. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah.
27. The Business of Winning Elections — Episode 247 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shivam Shankar Singh).
28. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.
29. Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma
30. Minoo Masani, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Isaiah Berlin, John Hicks and Ian Little.
31. Spontaneous Order.
32. The Evolution of Everything — Episode 96 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Matt Ridley).
33. Jagdish Bhagwati and Padma Desai on Amazon.
34. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
35. The Loneliness of…

Episode 251: Amit Schandillia, History Communicator

…32. Two Girls Hanging From a Tree — Episode 209 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sonia Faleiro).
33. Typefully.
34. Sake Dean Mohamed at Internet Archive and Wikipedia.
35. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor).
36. Public Opinion — Walter Lippmann.
37. The World Outside and the Pictures in our Heads — Walter Lippmann.
39. Irfan Habib on Amazon.
40. Pilgrim Nation: The Making of Bharatvarsh — Devdutt Pattanaik.
41. History of Western Philosophy — Bertrand Russell.
42. The Gulag Archipelago — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
43. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
44. Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire — Alex von Tunzelmann.
45. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich — William L Shirer.
46. Hardcore History by Dan Carlin.

This episode is sponsored by…

Episode 225: Understanding Indian Healthcare

…are Not the Problem! — Alex Tabarrok.
15. The Tabarrok Curve.
16. The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development — Michael Kremer.
17. Why Abhijit Banerjee Had to Go Abroad to Achieve Glory — Amit Varma.
18. That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen — Frédéric Bastiat.
19. Lancelot Pinto’s reply (about Asthma patients) to Amit Varma’s tweet.
20. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta).
And now, for some foundational papers:
21. Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure clinical competence (2005)– Jishnu Das & Jeffrey Hammer.
22. Money for nothing: The dire straits of medical practice in Delhi, India (2007) — Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer.
23. Is There a Doctor in the House?: Medical Worker Absence in India (2011) — Karthik Muralidharanan, Nazmul Chaudhury, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer & F Halsey Rogers.
24. Quality and Accountability…

Episode 319: Jahnavi and the Cyclotron

…JL Heilbron and Robert W Seidel.
44. A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes — Rodrigo Garcia.
45. Ironic — Alanis Morisette.
46. The Argumentative Indian — Amartya Sen.
47. Behave — Robert Sapolsky.
48. Robert Sapolsky’s biology lectures on YouTube.
49. $800,000 to Zero – The FASCINATING History of DaVinci Resolve — Alex Jordan of Learn Color Grading.
50. Justice with Michael Sandel.
51. The Case Against Sugar — Gary Taubes.
52. The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet — Nina Teicholz.
53. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
54. Falsifiability.
55. The Logic of Scientific Discovery — Karl Popper.
56. Merchants of Doubt — Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway.
57. Priyanka Pulla on Twitter and LinkedIn.
58. The Ultimate Pocket Camera: Insta360 X3! — Marques Brownlee.
59. Listen, The Internet Has SPACE — Amit Varma.
…

Episode 405: The Forces That Shaped Hinduism

…Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha).
38. Three Statesmen — BR Nanda’s biographies of GK Gokhale, MK Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
39. Essentials of Hindutva — Vinayak Savarkar.
40. Savarkar: The True Story of the Father of Hindutva — Vaibhav Purandhare.
41. Hindutva and Violence: VD Savarkar and the Politics of History — Vinayak Chaturvedi.
42. Vinayak Calling Vinayak — Episode 385 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinayak Chaturvedi).
43. The Savarkar Boxset — Vikram Sampath.
44. Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva — Janaki Bakhle.
45. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha Is the Impartial Spectator — Episode 388 of The Seen and the Unseen.
46. Anne with an E — Moira Walley-Beckett.
47. Arcane — Christian Linke and Alex Yee.

This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off.

Amit Varma and Ajay Shah…

Episode 154: The Art and Science of Economic Policy

…5. The Delhi Smog — Ep 44 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul)
6. Public Choice Theory — Ep 121 of The Seen and the Unseen
7. Narendra Modi takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma
8. Three Reasons Why A Cashless Society Would Be A Disaster — Amit Varma
9. Where Have All the Leaders Gone? — Amit Varma
10. India’s Agriculture Crisis — Ep 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra & Kumar Anand)
11. Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State — Shruti Rajagopalan & Alex Tabarrok (pdf link)
12. Our Political Discourse — Ep 49 of The Seen and the Unseen (w transcript)
13. The Facts Do Not Matter — Amit Varma

Follow The Seen and the Unseen on iTunes, Stitcher, and Tunein. You can also listen to us on Spotify and the Saavn app.

…

Episode 320: South India Would Like to Have a Word

…Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
47. Centrally Sponsored Government Schemes — Episode 17 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane).
48. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
49. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem.
50. Athenian Democracy and Socrates.
51. Plato (or Why Philosophy Matters) — Episode 109 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rebecca Goldstein).
52. Our Parliament and Our Democracy — Episode 253 of The Seen and the Unseen (w MR Madhavan).
53. The Anti-Defection Law — Episode 13 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra)..
54. Urban Governance in India — Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
55. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mahadev Govind Ranade and Gopal Ganesh Agarkar.
56. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala,…

Episode 357: Seema Sirohi and the View From Washington

She’s covered US-India relations as a foreign correspondent for more than 30 years — and now she’s told that momentous story in a book. Seema Sirohi joins Amit Varma in episode 357 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about her life as a journalist — and the love-hate relationship between countries that she saw at close quarters.

Also check out
1. Seema Sirohi on Twitter, Economic Times, India Today and Amazon.
2. Friends with Benefits: The India-US Story — Seema Sirohi.
3. The Luxury Travel Expert on YouTube.
4. The Front Page — Billy Wilder.
5. The Bhopal Gas Tragedies — Episode 35 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
6. Playboy Stories: The Best of Forty Years of Short Fiction — Edited by Alice K Turner.
7. Marginal Revolution — Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok.
8. Persuasion — Founded and edited…

Episode 100: The 100th Episode Ramble

The Seen and the Unseen reaches 100 episodes! Yea! Economist Shruti Rajagopalan, the most frequent guest on the show, joins host Amit Varma as they shoot the breeze about the 99 episodes before this, the horrors of 2018, and the further horrors of 2019.

Also check out:
These past episodes with Gunvant Patil, Vikram Doctor, Harsha Bhogle, Gideon Haigh+Prem Panicker, Rajesh Jain, Vishwanath S, Parth Shah, Amit Chandra, Alex Tabarrok, Naveen Noronha, Kumar Anand, Vivek Kaul, Ashok Malik, Nikita+Supriya (on #MeToo), Devika+Nidhi+Hamsini and Matt Ridley.

And also with Shruti on the Right to Property, DeMon, GST, #MeToo and Caste.

And ah, The Matunga Racket.

…

Episode 359: Danish Husain and the Multiverse of Culture

…of Average — Alex Murrell.
39. Nothing is Indian! Everything is Indian! — Episode 12 of Everything is Everything.
40. Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages — Peggy Mohan.
41. Understanding India Through Its Languages — Episode 232 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Peggy Mohan).
42. Early Indians — Tony Joseph.
43. Early Indians — Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph).
44. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen.
45. ‘Indian languages carry the legacy of caste’ — Chandra Bhan Prasad interviewed by Sheela Bhatt.
46. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya).
47. Premchand, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie on Amazon.
48. Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Saul Bellow, Henry Miller and Octavio Paz on Amazon..
49….

Episode 321: Josh Felman Tries to Make Sense of the World

…and the Unseen (w Rukmini S).
24. Pramit Bhattacharya Believes in Just One Ism — Episode 256 of The Seen and the Unseen.
25. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
26. Maya on IMDb and Wikipedia.
27. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen.
28. Stage.in.
29. Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things — Gurwinder.
30. The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization — Bryan Ward-Perkins.
31. Richard Clarida and Thomas Laubach.
32. Thomas Laubach remembered by Ila Patnaik and Ajay Shah.
33. Parkinson’s Law — C Northcote Parkinson.
34. That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen — Frédéric Bastiat.
35. A History of European Morals — WEH Lecky.
36. I, Pencil — Leonard Read.
37. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome —…

Episode 360: Rahul Matthan Seeks the Protocol

…Build for Tomorrow — Jason Feifer.
38. Ex Machina — Alex Garland.
39. Arrival — Denis Villeneuve.
40. The Great Manure Crisis of 1894 — Rahul Matthan.
41. Climate Change and Our Power Sector — Episode 278 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshay Jaitley and Ajay Shah).
42. The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect — Judea Pearl.
43. The New World Upon Us — Amit Varma on Alpha Zero.
44. Brave New World — Vasant Dhar’s podcast, produced by Amit Varma.
45. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare — Episode 4 of Brave New World (w Eric Topol).
46. The Colonial Constitution — Arghya Sengupta.
47. Beyond Consent: A New Paradigm for Data Protection — Rahul Matthan.
48. The Puttaswamy case.
49. Judicial Reforms in India — Episode 62 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alok Prasanna Kumar.)
50. Accidental Feminism: Gender…

Episode 410: Shruti Rajagopalan Remembers the Angle of the Light

…economic growth is enough — Lant Pritchett with Addison Lewis.
68. What is Libertarianism? — Episode 117 of The Seen and the Unseen (w David Boaz).
69. What Does It Mean to Be Libertarian? — Episode 64 of The Seen and the Unseen.
70. The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom — David Boaz.
71. Publish and Perish — Agnes Callard.
72. Classical Liberal Institute.
73. Shruti Rajagopalan’s YouTube talk on constitutional amendments.
74. What I, as a development economist, have been actively “for” — Lant Pritchett.
75. Can Economics Become More Reflexive? — Vijayendra Rao.
76. Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State — Shruti Rajagopalan & Alexander Tabarrok.
77. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
78. Invisible Infrastructure — Episode 82 of Everything is Everything.
79. The Sundara Kanda.
80. Devdutt Pattanaik and the Stories…

Episode 290: Karthik Muralidharan Examines the Indian State

…Mahesh).
49. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope — Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen.
50. The Tamilian gentleman who took on the world — Amit Varma on Viswanathan Anand.
51. Running to Stand Still — U2.
52. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
53. India’s Founding Moment — Madhav Khosla.
54. The Ideas of Our Constitution — Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla).
55. The Life and Times of Urvashi Butalia — Episode 287 of The Seen and the Unseen.
56. Pitfalls of Participatory Programs — Abhijit Banerjee, Rukmini Banerji, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster and Stuti Khemani.
57. Our Parliament and Our Democracy — Episode 253 of The Seen and the Unseen (w MR Madhavan).
58. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
…

Episode 361: Pritika Hingorani Wants to Fix Our Cities

…Bombay: The Cities Within — Sharada Dwiwedi and Rahul Mehrotra.
7. Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities — Alain Bertaud.
8. The Death and Life of Great American Cities — Jane Jacobs.
9. Norwegian Wood — Haruki Murakami.
10. Absolutely on Music — Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa.
11. Haruki Murakami and Ryu Murakami on Amazon.
12. Piercing — Ryu Murakami.
13. Pranay Kotasthane Talks Public Policy — Episode 233 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
15. Miniature early episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on FSI and Rent Control with Alex Tabarrok, and Slums with Pavan Srinath.
16. The Mystery of Capital — Hernando De Soto.
17. The Incredible Insights of Timur Kuran — Episode 349 of The Seen and the Unseen.
18. The Power Broker — Robert Caro.
19. Urban expansion: theory, evidence…

Episode 191: Our Cities After Covid-19

…— Karen Harris, Andrew Schwedel and Austin Kimson.
8. Triumph of the City — Edward L Glaeser.
9. Order Without Design – How Markets Shape Cities — Alain Bertaud.
10. The Importance of Cities — Episode 108 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Reuben Abraham & Pritika Hingorani.)
11. The Seen and the Unseen episodes with Alex Tabarrok on FSI and Rent Control.
12. Urban Governance in India — Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
13. Taking Stock of Covid-19 — Episode 169 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
14. The Nuances of Lockdown — Episode 176 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Anup Malani).
15. India’s Economy in the Time of Covid-19 — Episode 177 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).
16. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik…

Episode 412: Probal DasGupta Goes to the Himalayas With Books in His Bag

…Global History Of The Creation Of Bangladesh — Srinath Raghavan.
24. The chair-raising scene between Adenoid Hynkel and Benzino Napaloni in The Great Dictator.
25. One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
26. One Hundred Years of Solitude, the web series.
27. Until August — Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 28. Chronicle of a Death Foretold — Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
29. No One Writes to the Colonel — Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
30. Love in the Time of Cholera — Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
31. Feast of the Goat — Mario Vargas Llosa.
32. Indian Summer — Alex von Tunzelmann.
33. The Last Emperor — Bernardo Bertolucci.

Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new course called Life Lessons, which aims to be a launchpad towards learning essential life skills all of you need. For more details, and to sign up, click here.

Amit and Ajay also bring out…

Episode 323: SVB, Banking and the State of the Economy

…of Montek Singh Ahluwalia — Episode 285 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. The Long Road From Neeyat to Neeti — Episode 313 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S Jaitley).
15. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
16. Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State — Shruti Rajagopalan & Alexander Tabarrok.
17. Public Opinion — Walter Lippman.
18. The World Outside and the Pictures in our Heads — Walter Lippman.
19. Watching the Wheels — John Lennon. (Amit also loves Chris Cornell’s version.)
20. You’re Missing — Bruce Springsteen.
21. The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) — Ben Thompson on Stratechery.
22. This Banking Crisis Won’t Wreck the Economy — Tyler Cowen.
23. SVB Took the Wrong Risks — Matt Levine.
24. Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market…

Episode 365: Rakhshanda Jalil Watches the Changing World

…Jalil.
10. The Temple and The Mosque — Premchand (translated by Rakhshanda Jalil).
11. Fear, Depression in Indian Muslims Is Palpable Even Among Those Who Are ‘Privileged’ — Rakhshanda Jalil.
12. In New India, a Muslim Rose Smells Different From a Hindu Rose — Rakhshanda Jalil.
13. Aaliya Waziri’s essay about her mother Rakhshanda Jalil.
14. Being Muslim in India — Episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ghazala Wahab).
15. Hussain Haidry, Hindustani Musalmaan — Episode 275 of The Seen and the Unseen.
16. The Many Cities of Delhi — Episode 172 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rana Safvi).
17. The Age of Average — Alex Murrell.
18. Order Without Design — Alain Bertaud.
19. Asar–us–Sanadid — Syed Ahmed Khan.
20. Basu Da’s Bombay.
21. Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life — Episode 326 of The Seen and the Unseen.
22. The Refreshing…

Episode 279: Abhijit Bhaduri Breaks the Algorithm

…Annie Gives It Those Ones — Pradip Krishen.
39. How Social Media Threatens Society — Episode 8 of Brave New World (Jonathan Haidt speaking to host Vasant Dhar).
40. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (on isomorphic mimicry, with Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
41. Skeuomorphic Design.
42. The New World Upon Us — Amit Varma on Alpha Zero.
43. Google’s AlphaZero Destroys Stockfish In 100-Game Match — Mike Klein.
44. Dicing An Onion — Gordon Ramsey.
45. Satyajit Ray on Amazon.
46. Feluda @ 50 — Edited by Boria Mazumdar.
47. Days & Nights In The Forest — Sunil Gangopadhyay.
48. The Art of Translation — Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha).
49. Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages — Peggy Mohan.
50. Understanding India Through Its Languages — Episode 232 of…

Episode 233: Pranay Kotasthane Talks Public Policy

…of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).
30. Bootleggers and Baptists-The Education of a Regulatory Economist — Bruce Yandle.
31. Pigs Don’t Fly: The Economic Way of Thinking about Politics — Russell Roberts.
32. Raees: An Empty Shell of a Gangster Film — Amit Varma.
33. Shubhra Gupta’s review about which Tapsee Pannu kicked up such a fuss.
34. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills — Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah).
35. Wilson’s Interest Group Matrix — Charles Cameron from The Political Analyst’s Toolkit.
36. Government’s End: Why Washington Stopped Working — Jonathan Rauch.
37. The Great Redistribution — Amit Varma.
38. Behave — Robert Sapolsky.
39. Robert Sapolsky’s lectures on YouTube.
40. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan & Alex Tabarrok).
41. Taxes Should Be Used for Governance, Not Politics…

Episode 370: Yugank Goyal Is out of the Box

…— Agnes Callard.
11. The Long Divergence — Timur Kuran.
12. The Incredible Insights of Timur Kuran — Episode 349 of The Seen and the Unseen.
13. Suyash Rai Embraces India’s Complexity — Episode 307 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. Premchand on Amazon and Wikipedia.
15. Dead Poet’s Society — Peter Weir.
16. Maithili Sharan Gupt and Jaishankar Prasad.
17. Kafan — Premchand.
18. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
19. Is There an Indian Way of Thinking? — AK Ramanujan.
20. The Intimate Enemy — Ashis Nandy.
21. The Colonial Constitution — Arghya Sengupta.
22. Arghya Sengupta and the Engine Room of Law — Episode 366 of The Seen and the Unseen.
23. The History of British India — James Mill.
24. SN Balagangadhara (aka Balu) on Amazon and Wikipedia.
25. Episodes of…

Episode 316: In a Silent Way

…Chintamani on the School of Bass Podcast.
14. The Life and Times of Shanta Gokhale — Episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen.
15. Hard work vs. Long work — Seth Godin.
16. Warren Mendonsa Plays the Universal Pentatonic — Episode 273 of The Seen and the Unseen.
17. The Beatles on YouTube Music, Spotify and Wikipedia.
18. Bob Dylan on YouTube Music, Spotify and Wikipedia.
19. Choo Lo — The Local Train.
20. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra, Snehal Pradhan, Chuck Gopal, Nishant Jain, Deepak Shenoy and Abhijit Bhaduri.
21. Four Thousand Weeks — Oliver Burkeman.
22. Redemption Song — Bob Marley.
23. The Beach (book) — Alex Garland.
24. The Beach (film) — Danny Boyle.
25. John Cage on YouTube Music, Spotify and Wikipedia.
26. A Scientist in the Kitchen — Episode 204 of…

Episode 326: Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life

…Gaurav Chintamani).
36. Kishore Mahbubani on Amazon.
37. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie — Luis Buñuel.
38. Chance and Necessity — Jacques Monod.
39. Try Anything Twice — Peter Cheyney.
40. Rakesh Raghunathan on YouTube.
41. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor).
42. Cooking the world’s oldest known curry — Soity Banerjee.
43. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen.
44. Stage.in.
45. The Slow Fire Chef on Twitter.
46. Marginal Revolution posts on books.
47. The Myth of the Holy Cow — DN Jha.
48. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
49. The Lady’s Dressing Room — Jonathan Swift.
50. My Friend Dropped His Pants — Amit Varma.
51. A Paean to the Paan —…

Episode 374: Making Policy Fun with Khyati Pathak and Friends

…Puliyabaazi (w Amit Varma).
62. We the Living — Ayn Rand.
63. so you want to be a writer? — Charles Bukowski.
64. Vijay Kelkar’s legendary CD Deshmukh Lecture.
65. In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah.
66. Why Does the Indian State Both Fail and Succeed? — Devesh Kapur.
67. Milton Friedman on India.
68. The Dalit Emancipation Manifesto of 1951 — Babasaheb Ambedkar.
69. How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time — Hal Varian.
70. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen.
71. We Want More FSI — Episode 11 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Alex Tabarrok).
72. Defending the Undefendable — Walter Block.
73. The Use of Knowledge in Society — Friedrich Hayek.
74. Free To Choose — Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman.
…