Interview with Gary Becker and Richard Posner

The most recent Radio Economics interview is now available. This one is with Gary Becker and Richard Posner, of the Becker-Posner blog. I was intrigued by two points made there:

1. Posner talked as if he doesn't consider family blogs to be serious blogs. Okay, sometimes they aren't, but the comment also reveals Posner's intense academic bias. And the comment should not be surprising in light of his comment that he doesn't care for family get-togethers all that much. [see here for links about Posner]
2. Becker said they don't have research assistants. Maybe not explicitly for their blog, but I would be surprised if there weren't some overlap. What he did say is that they rely heavily on Google for their research, a point made as well by Margaret Wente in her work.

I must say that all-in-all, even though James Reese does a great job putting together these interviews, listening to them is time-consuming.

Update: Craig Newmark sent me an e-mail about my own interview on Radio Economics, saying,

Hey, now you can require your students to get iPods for the educational purpose of listening to you. :-) Just like Duke. Duke purchases iPods for some of the undergraduates; they are enthusiastically received, but I rather doubt the educational value.