#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/31/25

Happy Halloween! I had a great time dressing up as one of today’s great TV/manga characters, and before doling out candy I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an engaging discussion on the economics of privacy between Alessandro Acquisti and Daniel Solove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhJmgd0uPg

Next was an excellent conversation with Narine Lalafaryan on the blurring lines of equity and debt in private capital on the Business Scholarship Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLOi7CZcgI

Next was a fascinating talk Yin Harn Lee on 18th and 19th century jurisprudence around the right to copy and copyright at the Cambridge Faculty of Law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxHbwLZI_T8

Next was an intriguing talk by Cecilia Ridgeway on how status influences perception at the Cornell University ILR School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU2Qnyk_D54

Next was "Peak" by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. This book provides a research-driven perspective on how to improve simple skills - those for which there are straightforward, near term, and mostly quantitative metrics. The authors certainly claim that their results extend far beyond that, but besides ignoring the massive biases and more complex factors that underlie other skill classes, they simply don't provide any scientific evidence to back up those claims. The chapter on the brain is... not good, and will horrify anyone with knowledge of neuroscience developments in the last ~40 years. That being said, there's still some good lessons in here that one can apply in these simpler situations, especially when one already has some level of expertise https://www.harpercollins.com/products/peak-anders-ericssonrobert-pool

Next was "The Corporation in the 21st Century" by John Kay. Kay provides a sweeping history of the modern firm, informed by deep economics expertise. Ironically the book doesn't get to the 21st century until the end of the book, and the vast majority of the book is from the macro perspective. Boards, legal structure, and firm goals are analyzed from a more or less traditional economics perspective, although Kay does point out many of the faults of these simplified models. Highly recommend https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300280197/the-corporation-in-the-twenty-first-century/

Last was "Design Justice" by Sasha Costanza-Chock. This book provides robust criticism of design practices that ignore the social, political, economic, and historic context of the process itself. This is extremely compelling, and Costanza-Chock provides voluminous call outs to some of the foundational texts in this area, which at a minimum offers an excellent reading list for those interested in this approach. They show how traditional methodologies fall short and what makes the design justice approach different https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262043458/design-justice/