Adam Smith podcast
This is from Economics in Ten podcast, season one, episode one. The obvious starting point: Adam Smith is the patron saint of the discipline and Pete and Gav treat him accordingly. The episode covers both major works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, and does a good job of separating the real Smith from the cartoon version that appears in textbook summaries. Key ideas include the division of labour, the invisible hand, and the argument that markets ha
Egg and spoon race
Why do Easter eggs hit the shelves on Boxing Day? Taylor's answer is a tidy piece of oligopoly logic: once one supermarket brings Easter forward, rivals follow or risk losing not just the egg sale but the customer's whole shop, the same reasoning that keeps stores open 24 hours. She adds a behavioural layer on scarcity and FOMO around novelty products (a giant caramel croissant, a chocolate biscuit) that we buy early for fear of missing out. Useful for interdependence and str
16 Million Dollar Pikachu
Logan Paul's $16.5mn Pokemon card is the hook for a clear lesson in scarcity and value. With 10.2bn cards printed in a year, Taylor asks why one is worth millions, and lands on authentication and condition: grading services like PSA make scarcity credible in a market full of forgeries, much as provenance turned a £45 painting into a half-billion-dollar Leonardo. She also covers booster packs as a blind gamble and the 'stock market for Pokemon' where speculators trade on futur