Have you ever wanted to walk in the footsteps of the great economists? Do you want to breathe the same air they breathed? Do you want to be inspired by the ghosts of Economics past? Well now's your chance. Cambridge is rich with economic history and in this podcast special, recorded on the hoof, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, take you on a 4 mile journey around Cambridge. Starting at Keynes’ family home and ending at Jesus College, you will find out why certain landmarks are important within the world of economics. It should take you 90 minutes to walk and on the journey, you can pay homage to the likes of Robinson, Marshall, Deaton and Malthus. Technical support as always comes from 'I think they are usable' Nic.

One of the fundamental principles of orthodox economics the idea that all economic agents "maximise" - consumers aim to maximise utility (econ speak for happiness) and producers profit. Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon challenged this assumption and in doing so coined a new verb, ‘to satisfice’ to show how consumers and producers in the ‘real world’ behave somewhat differently. This is the first episode of Season 8 of our award winning podcast, with the theme of the season being "the economists' economist'. In this episode, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, enter the world of Ha-Joon Chang’s favourite economist - Herbert Simon. In the course of our journey of discovery we will meet a robot named after Herb, suggest the perfect past-time for long train journeys and discover Simon's surprising and unusual sartorial choices. As always there is a challenging quiz and lashings of bonhomie. Technical support comes from our muse Nic.

PS You may hear background vocals from baby Henry during the course of the episode and we would correct the following errata which occurred during the course of enthusiastic discussions:

Tom Swift was a character from American teen sci-fi books

Mr Miyagi of Karate Kid fame was, in fact, Japanese

A feature of our economic world is how dominated many markets are by a single firm. If you want to search for something, you ‘Google’ it, if you want a cab, you reach for Uber and if you want to shop, Amazon is the place many will go. Standard economics would suggest this is a bad thing as competition is good for the market, so how has this happened? How bad are monopolies? And are there any upsides? In this podcast special, your friendly neighbourhood economists (who were slightly under the weather) Pete and Gav, explore these questions and more! It’s absolutely stuffed with economic terminology, expertly explained, with lots of case studies to apply your new knowledge to. Perfect for students but perfect for everyone! As always there is a quiz and plenty of book recommendations. Technical support as always comes from our own monopoly on production Nic!