This post is a bit overdue as the lectures/podcasts I listened happened during the last week of June, but I thought it would still be nice to go over some of the things that I learned from the lectures/podcasts. As you’ll see, this is a “Part 2” where the first part was dedicated to the music I had on my iPod (you can find Part 1 here). (Look for Part 3 in the coming week, which will list the Podcasts I included from this trip.)
As I mentioned in Part 1, I was in the midst of a long haul of a drive — 4o hours of driving time. Initially, I thought I’d be listening to more music than other things, but it didn’t turn out that way. Prior to leaving LA, I went through iTunes U and picked out a number of different lectures that I thought would be interesting. Part way through the trip, I discovered what Podcasts were and that allowed me to add a number of other “lecture”-type tracks along with the latest from a few shows that I like to watch to stay ‘informed.’ Without further adieu, here are the lectures along with a little snippet about them (note: partway through the trip, I erased some of the lectures I had heard to make room for others and I’ve forgotten which ones they were, so you won’t find them in this list):
The Authentic Leader: Interview with Bill George – From what I remember of this, it was quite short (about 10 minutes) and the interviewer asks a few questions of Bill George about some of the key findings of his book, Authentic Leadership.
Preventing Future Financial Failures – This was another short track (about 20 minutes). The interview is with David Moss, a professor of Business Administration at Harvard. Moss references his working paper called, “An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in Stabilizing the Financial System.”
Fiscal Policy in an Emerging Market – This was one of my favorite lectures. It was by the former Chilean Minister of Finance, Andres Velasco. He had some fascinating ideas and examples of the success that Chile observed in managing its fiscal policy (and how that could be applied to other countries). The most important takeaway: use the surplus from the “up times” as stimulus during the “down times.” (This is different in that most countries tend to borrow more money in the “up times.”)
Winners Don’t Take All – This probably was my favorite lecture. I learned so much from listening to Maggie Neale try to cram her regular (30-hour course) into 90 minutes. There were so many important takeaways from her lecture that I listened to it on three different occasions just to try to retain it all. In fact, I even mentioned her work on negotiation in a tweet (read: plea) to Democrats with regard to negotiation a few weeks ago (on the subject of the debt ceiling negotiations).
The last 4 lectures I have were all from a series from the University of Chicago aimed at educating the educators about “Understanding the Global Economy.” The four titles were:
Econ 101: What are Markets?
Markets, Trade, and Globalization
Teaching Economics and Trying to Step Outside the Bubble of Capitalism
Globalization: The Great Debate
The last lecture (Globalization: The Great Debate) was probably my favorite in this series. The speaker, John Branch, had the audience do a mock debate on the pros and cons to globalization. I learned some interesting points about (both) sides of this debate.
As I mentioned earlier, there were some more lectures I listened to, but I deleted them to make room for some new ones. If I recall correctly, one of them was a series by Oxford University on Global Economic Governance. In about a weeks times, I will be getting back in the car and driving from Ottawa to DC and I will have about 9-11 hours of time to listen to more lectures. If you can think of any that I might find interesting, please let me know with a comment (or email) or even a tweet! (@JStanghini)
Jeremiah Stanghini 
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