Chalk Radio

Author: MIT OpenCourseWare

Chalk Radio is an MIT OpenCourseWare podcast about inspired teaching at MIT. We take you behind the scenes of some of the most interesting courses on campus to talk with the professors who make those courses possible. Our guests open up to us about the passions that drive their cutting-edge research and innovative teaching, sharing stories that are candid, funny, serious, personal, and full of insights. Listening in on these conversations is like being right here with us in person under the MIT dome, talking with your favorite professors. And because each of our guests shares teaching materials on OCW, it's easy to take a deeper dive into the topics that inspire you. If you're an educator, you can make these teaching materials your own because they're all openly-licensed. Hosted by Dr. Sarah Hansen from MIT Open Learning. Chalk Radio episodes are offered under a CC BY-NC-SA license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/).
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MIT Economist Jon Gruber on AI, Trade-offs & Healthcare
Episode 3
Wednesday, 5 November, 2025

Prof. Jonathan Gruber, our guest for this episode, likes to tell his students that economics is a fundamentally right-wing science. What he means by that is that classical economics is built on one powerful explanatory insight: that free markets—networks of buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, weighing the trade-offs of different options and making self-interested choices based on supply and demand—do a better job of deciding how to allocate resources than can be achieved by a top-down, command-economy approach. But as Gruber goes on to explain, that principle only holds when all participants have equal access to markets and to information; in the real world, imbalances in that access lead to market failures, inefficient allocations of resources that leave most people worse off than they would otherwise be. That’s why government regulation still has a role in a properly functioning economy. Tune in to hear Prof. Gruber explain why we need “capitalism with gutter guards” to ensure equitable outcomes, especially in sectors of the economy such as healthcare where the ideal markets envisioned by classical economics are particularly unattainable or undesirable. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator portalProf. Gruber’s faculty page14.01 Principles of Microeconomics on MIT OpenCourseWare14.41 Public Finance and Public Policy on MIT OpenCourseWarePower and Progress (book by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson)Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Jackson Maher, producerShow notes by Peter Chipman