science
Hosted by Michael Munger · science · EN-US
" The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." -Adam Smith (WoN, Bk I, Chapter 5) In which the Knower of Important Things shows how transaction costs explain literally everything. Plus TWEJ, and answers to letters. If YOU have questions, submit them to our email at taitc.email@gmail.com There are two kinds of episodes here: 1. For the most part, episodes June-August are weekly, short ( 2. Episodes September-May are longer (1 hour), and monthly, with an interview with a guest. Finally, a quick note: This podcast is NOT for Stacy Hockett. He wanted you to know that.....
Required Pod Score for this podcast. PitchCentric checks your profile against host openness, topical fit, and audience signals before you generate a pitch.
Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
33%
Guest openness
Selective
Sign up to generate a grounded pitch for The Answer Is Transaction Costs.
Signup to Generate a Pitch" The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." -Adam Smith (WoN, Bk I, Chapter 5) In which the Knower of Important Things shows how transaction costs explain literally everything. Plus TWEJ, and answers to letters. If YOU have questions, submit them to our email at taitc.email@ There are two kinds of episodes here: 1.
The Answer Is Transaction Costs is hosted by Michael Munger. The show has published 88 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "Bookmakers Set Odds To Maximize Profit Not Balance Bets" (25 October 2026, 65 minutes), "A Pension Promise Only Works When Politics Honors It" (27 September 2026, 60 minutes), and "God Speaks Hebrew But Understands Yiddish" (25 August 2026, 28 minutes).
The Answer Is Transaction Costs publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 48 minutes across 88 episodes.
Booking probability for The Answer Is Transaction Costs is 33%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. The Answer Is Transaction Costs requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. The Answer Is Transaction Costs's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for The Answer Is Transaction Costs are Investing & Wealth Management and Business & Management Consulting. The Answer Is Transaction Costs has a science audience.
Michael Munger hosts The Answer Is Transaction Costs, a science podcast with 88 episodes published.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We talk with economist Karl Whelan about how sportsbooks actually set odds, why the “balanced book” story falls apart, and how modern betting products are engineered to raise margins. We also trace how...
Episode #15
Send us Fan Mail We walk through how Chile converts retirement savings into lifelong income and why inflation protection and competition make the design work. Then politics collides with contract law as COVID-era...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We trace how Hebrew goes from a “museum language” to a living vernacular by treating language as a coordination good with huge network effects and real transaction costs. We follow Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We tell the story of the Chicago dinner where Ronald Coase walks into a hostile room, and by the end everyone votes with him, led by Milton Friedman changing his mind in real time. Along the way, we...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We walk through the weirdly powerful math that makes a stable $10,000 profit stream worth $50,000 in one world and $1,000,000 in another. Then we apply the same present value logic to politics and show...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We argue that “friction” is not always a flaw and can be a deliberate shield against bad collective decisions. We use Buchanan and Tullock’s public choice framework to show why supermajorities, veto...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We test a simple bakery price-fixing pact and watch it unravel, then use that failure to explain how transaction costs shape institutions, from unenforceable contracts to the rise of the corporate...
Episode #7
Send us Fan Mail We start with a simple mystery: how the same person can make a proud plan at night and break it in the morning, even while still believing the plan is good. We connect akrasia, free will, and moral...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We trace a straight line from a 1697 blasphemy execution to modern cancel culture by focusing on one variable: the cost of turning speech into coordinated punishment. We break down how social media...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We tell a story about German academic quarter hours-- akademische Viertel -- and use it to argue that lateness is an economics problem of coordination, incentives, and transaction costs, not just...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We try to make sense of a real problem many of us feel: paying a lot for U.S. healthcare while still waiting months to see a doctor. We trace how engineered transaction costs, from the Flexner Report to...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: The information in this episode comes from Red Flags Press. Their main web site is very useful for research purposes, and I recommend it! We follow the idea of the “social...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We break down how sportsbooks function as brokers that match contracts, set prices through the point spread, and earn their living through the vig. Kevin Braig joins us to explain how law, technology...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail Hereditary monarchy seems like a ridiculous way to pick a leader, yet it dominates most of human political history. We argue the reason is transaction costs: succession systems survive when they settle...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail Permits feel like “just paperwork”, until they quietly become the biggest barrier to building, investing, and even basic economic growth. We use Chile’s fight with “permisologia” to show how bureaucracy...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail A talk with Dr Anya Shortland about the economics of ransomware and the gray-zone institutions that let extortion markets function when nobody can truly enforce trust. We dig into how cyber insurance...
Episode #21
Send us Fan Mail We connect Adam Smith’s moral psychology to the modern idea of transaction costs and argue that the biggest frictions in markets start with the cost of understanding other people. We show how sympathy...
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Send us Fan Mail We assess Adam Smith’s enduring ideas—moral authorization of commerce, division of labor, emergent order—and confront where his optimism breaks: how democratic politics and business fuse to create...
Episode #24
Send us Fan Mail We walk through Book Five of The Wealth of Nations to map a state that defends, adjudicates, and builds wisely, then pays for it without killing growth. From militias to standing armies, fee-based...
Episode #19
Send us Fan Mail Smith closes Book IV by dismantling mercantilism through the lens of colonial policy, monopoly, and rent seeking, then weighs physiocracy against the system of natural liberty. We trace why colonies...
Recent guests on The Answer Is Transaction Costs. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
Duke University
Lead of Indian Vertical, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University Scalia Law School
Professor of economics, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
PitchCentric classifies The Answer Is Transaction Costs under these industries. Guests from them are the closest fit, and each links to the best podcasts in that industry.
Shows with the most semantically similar episode content. Pitch one, pitch all; producers cluster.
Is this podcast yours and you'd like to remove or correct details? Request removal or email privacy@pitchcentric.com.
Questions about the free trial? See the pricing FAQ
