Virginia Postrel on the History of Textiles and their Economic Relevance Throughout the World

This is our 100^th episode and I want to thank our listeners, the guests who have been exceptionally generous with their time and insights, the fantastic team at Mercatus that helps me produce and disseminate the podcast, and to all our donors and supporters.

Today my guest is Douglas Irwin, who is the John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of dozens of books and papers, most recently, Clashing over Commerce, which is a magisterial history of US trade policy. We spoke about India’s liberalization moment in 1991, the five phases of globalization, British repeal of Corn laws, premature deindustrialization, the relevance of the WTO, absolute versus comparative advantage, the future Argentina, and much more. 

Recorded January 23rd, 2024.

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Today my guest is Rahul Matthan, a technology lawyer and partner at Trilegal. He assisted the Indian government in developing India’s data privacy law and he is the author of the recent books Privacy 3.0 and The Third Way. We spoke about India’s digital public infrastructure revolution, India’s unified payments system, AI, blockchain, the design issues around India’s NCPI, Aadhaar, privacy, and much more.

Recorded January 22nd, 2024.

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Aditya Balasubramanian is a Senior Lecturer in History at Australian National University. His research focuses on various aspects of the history of modern South Asia. And he is the author of the new book, Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India. We spoke about the history of a conservative and ideological opposition politics of India, influence of BR Shenoy and more generally the Austrian economists on Swatratra party, about C Rajagopalachari, other members, and much more.

Recorded December 22nd, 2023.

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Today my guest is Nasreen Munni Kabir, a documentary filmmaker, TV producer and director, author, biographer, translator/subtitler, and an absolute authority on all things Hindi cinema. We spoke about her biographical conversation series of books with artists like Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Lata Mangeshkar, Waheeda Rahman, Zakir Hussain, AR Rahman. We also spoke about her documentary films on Guru Dutt, and television series Movie Mahal chronicling the history of Hindi cinema, how she chooses her subjects, the difficulty of subtitling Hindi films, her favorite films, songs, artists, and much more. 

Recorded December 12th, 2023.

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Today the roles are reversed. In the 2023 end of the year review episode, producer Dallas Floer asks Shruti questions from our listeners about Shruti's ideas of India, how Shruti prepares for the podcast, various guests, the most listened to and the most underrated episode picks of the year, and much more. 

Recorded December 12th, 2023.

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Our last scholar in the series this year is Rajat Kocchar, a post-doctoral scholar at University of Chicago’s Energy and Environment Lab. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Southern California, and his research lies in the field of environmental economics, in particular, on the understanding the factors that incentivize adaptation to climate shocks. We discussed his paper, “Does Market Power in Local Agricultural Markets Hinder Farmer Climate Change Adaptation?” We talked about the impact of distortionary policies and regulations on farmer’s ability to cope with weather shocks in India, the agricultural produce market system, the choice of crop mix, and the effectiveness of water audits in the UK and much more.

Recorded September 21st, 2023.

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Shruti spoke with Vani Swarupa Murali a PhD. Candidate and an instructor at the South Asian Studies Department in the National University of Singapore (NUS). She has a Masters in Asian Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Her research lies at the intersection of political science and agricultural policy and environmental governance. We spoke about “When Sowing is not Reaping: Decentralisation, Groundwater Extraction and Agrarian Livelihoods in Tamil Nadu.” We talked about the overly centralized administrative, political, and fiscal Indian state, its impact on farmers’ livelihood, groundwater depletion and other environmental consequences, and more.

Recorded August 31st, 2023.

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Shruti spoke with Kartikeya Batra, who is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Maryland and has a master’s in international affairs from The Fletcher School.

His research lies at the intersection of political economy, development economics, and economic history. They discussed his job market paper titled “Long-Run Effects of Land Redistribution: Evidence from India,” and talked about the erstwhile Zamindari or Taluqdari system and its impact on modern day Uttar Pradesh, land titling versus land redistribution in India, the importance of property rights, relationship between land owning castes and socioeconomic outcomes, and much more.

Recorded September 19th, 2023.

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In this episode, Shruti spoke with Vatsal Khandelwal, who is a junior research fellow at Merton College and an associate member of the Department of Economics at University of Oxford. His main research interest are development and behavioral economics, with a focus on social and economic networks.

They discussed his job market paper titled “Silent Networks: The Role of Inaccurate Beliefs in Reducing Useful Social Interactions,” (coauthored with Ronak Jain). They spoke about pessimistic beliefs and their impact on individual’s well-being, the methods to correct incorrect beliefs about social norms, the importance of social networks, support groups, students’ expectations’ impact on performance more.

Recorded September 21st, 2023.

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Shruti spoke with Sarath Pillai, who is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at University of Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Chicago, a Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School, a MA in history from the University of Delhi, and a Postgraduate Diploma in archives and records management from the National Archives of India, Delhi.

They discussed his job market paper titled “German Lessons: Comparative Constitutionalism, States’ Rights, and Federalist Imaginaries in Interwar India,” recently published in “Comparative Studies in Society and History.” They spoke about how the views of the princely states on federalism and constitutionalism are different from the view of the Indian nationalists; the influence of German thought on India in the early twentieth century; subnationalism and federalism in modern day India and more.

Recorded September 6th, 2023.

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