Good on Paper

Oct 29 2024 23 ep. 46 mins 754

Good on Paper Podcast artwork

Have you ever heard a commonly held belief or a fast-developing worldview and asked: Is that idea right? Or just good on paper? Each week, host Jerusalem Demsas and a guest take a closer look at the facts and research that challenge the popular narratives of the day, to better understand why we believe what we believe.

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Can Corporate Greed Really Explain Inflation?

Oct 29 2024 58 mins

Grocery store prices are up. Politicians have tried to pin it on supply-chain problems, price gouging, and corporate greed—or “greedflation.” But Ernie Tedeschi, a former chief economist of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, wonders if something else is going on. And it might just have to do with store-brand mac and cheese. Get more from your favorite Atlantic

Why Do Black People Vote for Democrats?

Oct 22 2024 58 mins

How is party ideology formed? Is it based on political strategy to garner the most votes? Or is it based on ideas and beliefs? The Georgetown professor Hans Noel traces the shift from the Civil War to the civil-rights movement to understand how Democrats and Republicans seemingly flipped sides during the 20th century—and what that says about the parties today. Get more from your

The Quiet Trump-Harris Trade Agreement

Oct 15 2024 58 mins

Are tariffs good? Or bad? And why do politicians love to talk about them so much? Scott Lincicome lays out the high costs of tariffs and who really bears the brunt. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our wo

What Really Fueled the ‘East Asian Miracle’?

Oct 08 2024 48 mins

How does a nation pull its residents out of poverty and into the developed world? The researcher Oliver Kim looked into how Taiwan, and a few other East Asian countries, managed to rise from a poor nation to the ranks of the global elite in just a short amount of time. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winnin

Would You Give Up Your Kidney for $50,000?

Oct 01 2024 50 mins

Would you donate a kidney? Would you do it for $50,000? Vox’s Dylan Matthews gave his to a stranger. But it made him wonder: Shouldn’t he have been paid? Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Su

Why Does Crime Go Up When School Starts?

Sep 24 2024 44 mins

Crime peaks during the summer for adults. But the economist Ezra Karger found that the same can’t be said for kids: It peaks during the school year. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe

How (Not) to Change Someone's Mind

Sep 17 2024 49 mins

When do fact-checks work? And when do they backfire and cause someone to dig in? Yamil Velez, a political scientist at Columbia University, set up an experiment using chatbots and found that people can change their mind, even on deeply held beliefs. Except under one condition: when the chatbot is rude. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjo

The Wandering Officer

Sep 10 2024 43 mins

Police rarely move between jobs and departments. But according to a paper co-authored by the University of Chicago law professor John Rappaport, officers aren’t necessarily choosing to stay in the same place—a lot of policies have made it costly for them to switch. And that lack of mobility can have all kinds of ripple effects. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when

Who's Responsible for the Housing Crisis?

Sep 03 2024 62 mins

Americans love local government. In a December 2023 Pew Research survey, 61 percent of respondents had a favorable view of their local government while 77 percent had an unfavorable view of the federal government. But behind this veneer of goodwill is a disturbing truth: Local government is driving a housing crisis that is raising rents, lowering economic mobility and productivity,

How Slaves Used the Law

Aug 27 2024 50 mins

There’s a traditional line of thinking about the history of Black people and the law. It describes how slaves were entirely shut out of the legal system, disenfranchised and bereft of even a modicum of legal know-how or protection. But research from the UC Berkeley professor Dylan C. Penningroth (in his book Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights) upends t