Alex Tabarrok - Prizes, Prices, and Public Goods

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and with Tyler Cowen a founder of the online education platform http://MRU.org. I ask Alex Tabarrok about the Grand Innovation Prize, the Baumol effect, and Dominant Assurance Contracts. Episode website: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/alex-tabarrok Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3TGYbIz Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3ADoIxq Follow me on Twitter to be notified of future content: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp Follow Alex Tabarrok: https://twitter.com/ATabarrok Alex Tabarrok's and Tyler Cowen's excellent blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:34 Grand Innovation Prize 08:45 Prizes vs grants 14:10 Baumol effect 27:50 On Bryan Caplan's case against education 31:35 Scaling education online 48:50 Declining research productivity 52:15 Dominant Assurance Contracts 58:40 Future of governance 1:04:05 On Robin Hanson's Futarchy 1:06:02 Beating Adam Smith 1:08:35 Our Warfare-Welfare State 1:19:30 The Great Stagnation vs The Innovation Renaissance 1:21:40 Advice to 20 year old