Sorry everyone for the long Hiatus here. It took me a lot longer than anticipated to adjust to the workload in a master's degree. on top of that I also did an internship, so some of the upcoming episodes will deal with the topic I worked with there. I'll try to get the next episode out somewhere in the next 2 weeks and keep a biweekly schedule afterwards. Hopefully some of you will turn in again for what's coming up!

Best regards, Julius

Hello Everbody,

After a grueling six weeks were my master started and I was just too swamped in work, I have finally managed to produce another Episode. I will try as hard as I can to keep up with a weekly schedule again to keep things interesting for you.

This week I will have a look at income inequality in the United States and what adverse effects it can have. I will also take a look at the development of income inequality over time to allow you a comparison. Furthermore I will also briefly mention the "poverty trap" that people can fall into that limits social equality and what some of the reasons are such a poverty trap exists.

I will leave you with a link to the Ted Talk I mentioned in the podcast. I highly recommend it, but bear in mind that this is a talk and thus the data is presented in a way that is easily understood by laymen but not thorough enough. However in his paper Richard Wilkinson is more stringent in establishing the link between public health and income inequality.

http://blog.ted.com/2011/10/24/how-economic-inequality-harms-societies-richard-wilkinson-on-ted-com/

Have a good weekend,

Julius Frieling

Hello everybody,

Today I will talk a little bit about the influence of Opinion on policy recommendations. It's also a test if opinion posts work well within the format, so please leave some feedback, it is always appreciated!

Julius

Hello everybody,

In todays Episode I will talk to you about the evolvement of money from a pure commodity money to what we have today, fiat money. We will also talk about the oft discussed gold-standard and what it's disadvantages and advantages are. I feel like I left out a lot of stuff that I would have loved to talk about, but I wanted to keep the episode in a reasonably short time. But if you have any more questions regarding monetary economics, monetary policy, foreign exchange, etc. Please don't hesitate to ask!

Announcements: Carl is on vacation in India, so I'm flying solo for the next few episodes. Furthermore I would love to thank Andrew Sheerin for designing the awesome logo that graces our Facebook and Twitter and "soon" will also grace our Website. Check out his other work as a designer at www.dspoke.com. And finally a big shout-out to reddit, especially the /r/economics subreddit for helping me with ideas, criticism and interesting discussions.

Julius

Hello everybody,

This Episode will wrap up our short Economics 101 series for now. We will talk about externalities and how they shape the markets we all know. Specifically, we will talk about how externalities distort the normal equilibria and make regulation necessary in some aspects to ensure desirable market outcomes

Hello Everybody,

I hope you enjoyed last weeks glimpse into the theory of "homo oeconomicus". This week we continue with our Economics 101 series and we will explain to you what economists mean when they talk about incentives. We will give you some examples of positive and negative incentives and how incentives can go painfully wrong. Hope you enjoy it.

Hello everybody,

this weeks episodeis part 2 of our Economics 101 series and we talk about a concept that is central for the basic understanding of economics: the "homo oeconomicus", the rational human being who makes decisions based on the economic benefits. We willtalk about how the concept of homo oeconomicus was importantinshapingearly economic theories and why it shouldn't be applied without distinction.

We hope you enjoy this week and tune in next week for our Episode about incentives.

Hello everybody,

We recieved a lot of feedback regarding our cast and one thing stood out: While people enjoyed our in depth treatment of current affairs, some also needed some more clarification on the economic terminology and the principles governing the science of economics. Because I am leaving for China this week and won't be back for 3 weeks, we produced four Episodes dealing with the very fundamentals of economics and why we think it is important. Todays episode will explain what economics is and how an economist looks at the world. We will talk about how economists create models to explain markets and the economic interactions between people, societies and nations.

We hope you enjoy it, please leave feedback in the comments or shoot us an email to econcast@gmail.com

Econcast

Hello and welcome to the second episode of Econcast.

Today we are talking about a very big topic at the moment: Rating agencies. We explain how and why they are so influential, how they came to be and how they operate.

On a personal note: We would love to recieve more feedback on the cast and how we can continue to improve it. Rest assured, we are constantly working on production quality and we will try to experiment with different ways of entertaining while talking about economics, but we are sure you guys have a ton of ideas of what topics you want to have discussed and explained from an economic perspective. Just leave a comment here or write us at econcast@gmail.com

Your Econcast team.

Sources used:

Cowen attacks call for 'new faces' in Cabinet

Credit Raters' Power Leads to Abuses, Some Borrowers Say

PIGS or Lambs? The European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Role of Rating Agencies

Further reading (more technical):The economic function of credit rating agencies - What does the watchlist tell us?

Welcome to the premier of Econcast,

In todays Episode we will talk about Greece and its financial crisis. We will explain the concepts behind the different aspects of this crisis and try to give a neutral outlook on the economic situation.

Thanks for listening and please give us feedback or suggest topics you would love to hear about.

Sources used:

http://notfrisco2.com/leones/?p=5094

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/country-statistical-profile-greece_20752288-table-grc

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gr.html

http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/der-fahrplan-in-die-schuldenhoelle/4307730.html

http://www.faz.net/artikel/S30350/nach-vertrauensvotum-griechische-regierung-beschliesst-sparplaene-30446474.html

Articles used:

"The Macroeconomic Costs and Benefits of the EMU and Other Monetary Unions: An Overview of Recent Research" R. Beetsma, M Giuliodori; Journal of Economic Literature, 2010

"What lies beneath the Euro's effect on financial integration? Currency risk, legal harmonization, or trade?" S. Kalemli-Ozcan, E. Papaioannou, J. Peydró; Journal of International Economics, 2010