Nobel Economist: The Market That Lets People Die

A Nobel laureate in economics argues the bans we pass to protect our morals are quietly killing people, and the data backs him up. Why the line between a market we allow and one we forbid is mostly an accident of disgust. My guest won the 2012 Nobel Prize for designing the systems that match kidney donors to patients who would otherwise die waiting. We cover why it's easy to buy heroin but hard to hire a hitman, what surrogacy bans actually do to the babies they're meant to protect, why paying kidney donors could end a shortage that kills thousands a year, and the trade-off statement he wants every lawmaker to say out loud. He has been called an organ trafficker. He explains why that's the point. What you'll hear: - Why banning something people want often makes it more dangerous - The kidney market America won't build, and what that silence costs - What the hitman vs. heroin asymmetry reveals about prohibition that works - The McCormick statement: the trade-off most policy debates refuse to make - How prediction markets are eroding the line between public and private information - Whether Milton Friedman was right to be embarrassed by the economics Nobel There's no such thing as a solution. There are only trade-offs. CHAPTERS 00:00 Heroin is easy. Hitmen are not. Why? 01:05 Why bans without social support build black markets 03:30 The man they called an organ trafficker 06:00 Prohibition, NASCAR, and the limits of a ban 08:30 Surrogacy: legal here, criminal in Europe 11:00 When adding money turns the legal into a crime 13:30 Can religion corrupt a market? 15:30 Who actually pays for college? 19:00 The Enhanced Games: doping as a marketing platform 21:30 Adderall, Erdős, and the science of getting sharper 26:00 Why AI makes market congestion worse before it gets better 31:00 130,000 kidney failures a year. Fewer than 30,000 transplants. 35:00 Portland decriminalized drugs. Why it failed. 38:00 The trade-off statement politicians refuse to make 42:00 Can you legalize sex work and shrink trafficking? 48:00 Kahneman chose how he died. Who should decide? 54:00 America is the Saudi Arabia of blood plasma 58:00 Prediction markets and the inside-information problem 60:00 Why phone-based sports gambling is built to addict 66:00 Peter Nobel called the economics prize a marketing stunt 70:00 Is economics a real science? Get the transcript, bonus content, and my Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: https://briankeating.com/yt Have a .edu email and live in the USA? You automatically win a meteorite: https://BrianKeating.com/edu Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 Support Into the Impossible on Patreon, get my weekly M.A.G.I.C. Message, unfiltered bonus content, and live monthly Office Hours with me: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Join this channel for perks, monthly Office Hours, and your name in the Member Roster at the end of every episode: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/join Featured Guest: Alvin Roth Website: https://web.stanford.edu/~alroth/ Moral Economics (book): https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Economics-Prostitution-Controversial-Transactions/dp/1541702018 My books: Losing the Nobel Prize (memoir): http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U Galileo's Dialogue (first-ever audiobook): https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un Twitter/X: https://x.com/BrianKeating Substack: https://briankeating.substack.com Blog: https://briankeating.com/blog Audio-only: https://briankeating.com/podcast