It was positively springlike in Boston today, and while basking in a glimpse of warmth I went for a run and listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a thought-provoking talk by David Yanagizawa-Drott on misperception of gender norms across 60 countries at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp4PIO2ufrw

Next was an informative panel on the state of US-Japan economic relations at the Peterson Institute for International Economics with Marcus Noland, Leila Aridi Afas, Mary E. Lovely, and Shujiro Urata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjBVBPRW9yo

Next was an excellent discussion with Lina Khan on antitrust enforcement and Big Tech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY3RzOmAM7c

Next was a great panel on AI, digital platforms, and antitrust with Keler Marku, Alessandro Acquisti, Helena Malikova, and Sheila R. Adams James https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvol4ak-qnU

Next was an interesting panel on antitrust enforcement across different geographies with Margaret Loudermilk, Elinor Hoffmann, Roger Alford, and Pierantonio D’Elia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPaCbv89wpU

Next was a compelling panel on antitrust and labor with Rosa M. Morales, Suresh Naidu, Ioana Marinescu, Evan Starr, and Jonathan Guryan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1V6OH5B_qA

Next was an intriguing panel on AI supply chain power and resurrecting tried-and-true remedies with Ankur Kapoor, Maurice Stucke, Luigi Zingales, and Koren W. Wong-Ervin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShoI7e2A7Zw

Last was "The Social Transformation of American Medicine" by Paul Starr. This is a prescient, eye-opening look at how the medical profession developed in the US - from its pseudo-scientific origins, to its pre-regulatory phase, to its initial organization and professionalization, and ultimately to the sprawling web of practitioners, hospitals, payers, and political stakeholders. The fact that early doctors received only room and board during residency, with the hopes that patients who they treated would follow them to private practice, and yet was able to form a professional organization to both enforce standards and act as a modern guild to drive up wages and prestige is incredible. The chapters on more recent eras will be more familiar to most readers, but learning that we were within a hair's breadth of having single payer insurance in 1974 was genuinely heartbreaking.

The original version of this book was written in 1982 is amazing given its prescience, although one will have to forgive some anachronistic term usage. The new edition has an extra section bringing the history up to 2016. Highly recommend https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/paul-starr/the-social-transformation-of-american-medicine/9780465093038/