Companies can and do build unique constitutional orders, and there’s lots of potential to apply the field of Constitutional Political Economy to the study of organisations. One example of constitutional management that I am especially interested in is Market-Based Management (R), which treats the institutions that generate economic prosperity as being analogous to the institutions that improve corporate performance.
I have also documented the spread of the Austrian school in Central and Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall, providing a rare history of “centre-right” political ideas in Eastern Europe; a chronology of the development and influence of libertarianism; cursory intellectual biographies of neglected Austrian economists; and empirical evidence that contributes to the epistemic communities approach to the study of idea diffusion.
My 2009 book, The Neoliberal Revolution in Eastern Europe, (co-authored with Paul Dragos Aligica) developed two research agendas: the study of the spread of ‘neoliberalism’ – as seen from the perspective of Eastern European post-communist evolutions; and the study of Eastern European transition – as seen from an ideas-centred perspective.
This is a list of ~80 minute sessions that I regularly teach across various general management programmes. The links provide access to lecture slides, cases, classroom activities, and additional resources that I make available to students once they’ve taken the class. If you are an instructor you can contact me directly for board plans and further advice.
As a professional educator one of my main concerns with the prevalence of digital content is the impact it has on a student’s ability to gather, synthesize, and critically engage with content. I try to ensure that all of my live sessions are unique and generate content that requires attention and consideration. For this reason I strongly encourage students to take notes, and debrief with group members, instead of relying on the provision of solutions, punchlines, or board plans at some future date. Part of my responsibility as an instructor is to ensure that you do not finish the course missing any important information. But your responsibility as a student is to be in charge of absorbing what happens in the classroom.
Rules > Discretion. Most trips that I make fit into a particular category – e.g. 2 weeks summer holiday, 1 week skiing, 3 days teaching/conference. For each type of trip I have a packing list and take the same things each time. Perhaps not the exact same items, but the same type of items. This avoids having to think about what I should take. If I feel the need to alter the packing list I always do it at the end of a trip rather than before.
MY TOP PACKING HACK IS …
Duplicate toiletries. I have a toothbrush, deodorant, razor, etc that I keep in a toilet bag and only use on trips. It means that I never have to collect those items from around the house and risk forgetting anything. It also means I don’t have to unpack when I get home.
I PACK FOR A TRIP BY …
Finding my packing list and rigidly sticking to it.
MY ESSENTIALS FOR A WORK TRIP INCLUDE …
iPhone and all necessary chargers
A good book
Either decent earbuds for short haul, or noise cancelling headphones for long haul
Throat lozenges
Bottle opener
MY LUGGAGE IS …
A Rimowa Topas.
MY TOP CARRY ON TIP …
A glossy magazine, such as The Week or The Economist. It’s often rude to plug into an iPhone as soon as you sit down and it’s hard to relax until the plane’s moving anyway. So it’s good to have something light and easy to read for take off/landing.
I NEVER BOARD A FLIGHT WITHOUT …
Touching the outside of the aircraft at the exact moment I step on board.
MY OUTFIT WHEN I TRAVEL …
Comfort. It used to be cargo trousers or sometimes jeans. But as dress standards have steadily fallen I’ve followed suit and so now it’s either tracksuit bottoms or shorts. A hoody and/or baseball cap helps to shut out the world. I sometimes wear a gilet so that I have accessible pockets but without getting too stuffy.
MY WASH BAG STAPLES INCLUDE …
Indigestion tablets, especially if I’m in Eastern Europe where the food is rich and the Rakija is tempting.
I USED TO PACK …
Too many pairs of trousers. They’re rarely worth the bulk and a pair can be worn on consecutive days.
MY BIGGEST PACKING MISTAKE WAS …
Believing I would need smart shoes but not wanting to wear them to travel.
MY GO-TO TRAVEL APP IS …
I used to use a fantastic flight app called Flight Track Pro, but it doesn’t work anymore. So I don’t really use anything.
I MAKE A HOTEL ROOM FEEL LIKE HOME BY …
The best part of a hotel room is that it doesn’t feel like home! I clear the desk so that I can lay out my own items (i.e. knoll) and then bask in the neutrality.
I’M DETERMINED TO IMPROVE MY PACKING HABITS BY …
At some point I may give up on checking my bag. I’d need to rethink my toiletries and perhaps pack even lighter. But for now I’m happy to spend a few minutes at the baggage reclaim, reflecting on the flight, and waiting.
Mural – visual collaborative software that is easy to use and allows students to directly contribute to a discussion
Here’s a list of some websites/apps that I recommend for tests/quizzes/forms:
sli.do – very useful for quick feedback, generated wordclouds, anonymous Q&A, and doesn’t require students to log in
Kahoot! – a fun quiz template best for in class experience
Google Forms – easy to build and monitor, can be used as a graded quiz
These are options that I used to use, but switched to Google Forms:
Socrative – a nice way to present quizzes and measure student performance. Can be teacher paced so that you ensure all students have answered before moving on to the next question
Typeform – a way to generate longer forms that are tailored to student responses
Qualtrics and Survey Monkey are great for running a survey, and purport to allow you to create a quiz, but in my experience lack the functionality required to be used in a classroom setting. I am very keen to find an intuitive quiz builder that allows students to see their score, and allows instructors to batch grade open ended questions and then export the results. So far it seems that Google Forms are the best option.
Here’s a list of some resources that have been recommended to me, but I don’t currently use:
Nearpod – allows interaction and student participation
Mentimeter— presentation software to encourage fun workshops
How can we identify, understand and solve the ethical dilemmas that emerge in a business situation?
This is a short course that surveys a number of frameworks and models that can be used to cope with moral and ethical dilemmas. Famous cases will be used to provide a realistic grounding to the content, and participants will be tasked to apply those concepts and discuss their insights. The course is heavily group-focused and includes case discussion and role playing activities.
Sometimes in life we may have to be expedient. But consider the following passage (from Charlotte Gray, p. 204),
The telephone was ringing in Julien’s office. I’m putting you through now,” said Pauline Bobotte,
It was a Communist from Limoges, whom Julien, against his better judgement, had approached for information. He did not want to associate with Communists, but in times of war you sometimes had to be expedient. Even as he explained this to himself he realised that this was exactly the argument employed by [Phillipe] Pétain and [Pierre] Laval.
The difference was that his position was not merely expedient, it had moral backing. Also, his judgement, unlike theirs, was sound. So he hoped.
Preliminary tasks
Before attending the module you should read about these mini cases:
Learning objective: The case introduces students to topics such as “responsible leadership” and “responsible business”. It also provides an engaging illustration of how people look at the same context or phenomenon, but reach very different interpretations and judgments.
Additional cases (for 2 day version)
Healy, P., and Soltes, E., “Rajat Gupta” Harvard Business School case no. 9-117-004, January 2018
Waytz, A., and Kilibarda, V., 2014, “Through the Eyes of a Whistle-Blower”, Kellogg School of Management
One of those most famous cases of insider trading is Martha Stewart. This podcast episode doesn’t go into detail on the issue (it points that that ultimately she was jailed for obstruction of justice and not insider trading) but I found it an enlightening explanation of her life, her business model and how that relates to shifting cultural dynamics in America. Stewart was entirely self made and provided a wholesome service of showing people how to make beautiful crafts, or – more likely – give them pleasure from watching her make them instead. The claim made in the podcast is that Stewart’s wealth was a function of being personally underestimated and capitalising on how neglected the value of domestic labour and household management had become. Both of these have a clear gender angle. The podcast host is clearly sympathetic to Stewart, but laments the necessity of having to embrace capitalist institutions for her talents to be recognised and rewarded. (Personally I would use this as evidence for the triumphs of capitalism, and how it liberates women from servitude). Regardless of whether Stewart knowingly dumped shares, or whether she was scapegoated and being made an example of (by men!) to bring her down a peg, her story is a fascinating one to reflect on.
This episode attempts to explain the low rates of prosecution and conviction for “white collar crime” in the US. It provides an interesting discussion of the discovery of lead paint in Mattel’s children toys, as a result of an outsourced supply chain with inadequate monitoring, and lack of US consumer protection checks. The data it provides on the lack of resources at the disposal of the government is incredible. One thing I believe it misses is the assumption that “corporate wrongdoing” necessarily involves individual (and criminal) wrongdoing. In many cases executives were making decisions under conditions of uncertainty with genuine conflict over the amounts of risk that people were exposed to. I believe that the systemic problems are due more to the regulatory system than any individual or particular corporation behaviour. We should also consider why limited liability exists and what would be lost if we erred on greater flexibility to use individual scapegoats. (Just because some communities lack the resources to adequately defend themselves, and just because society seems willing to make examples of certain types of criminal, does not make that a model to apply more broadly). For further resources on the financial crisis see here.
Textbook
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S., and Spence, L., 2019, Business Ethics (Oxford University Press, 5th Edition)
“it is better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason” Epicurus, ‘Letter to Menoeceus’
Further resources
An Inspector Calls is the classic literary depiction of how responsibility can be shared among many people. Although I find the social commentary to be frustratingly simplistic, there is a 2015 BBC Drama version that you may find worth watching. The 2017 Netflix Series, ‘13 Reasons Why‘ explores similar themes, but I haven’t watched it.
The 1957 movie, ‘12 Angry Men‘ is a classic. It shows how a natural drive to reach consensus can mask important insights, and that the role of Devil’s Advocate can be important in team settings.
The 2022 Netflix documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” is a compelling account of how the company attempted to pass blame for the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on pilot error, instead or recognising the risks caused by modifications to the aircrafts autopilot (which were underplayed in order to avoid additional and expensive pilot training). The trailer is here:
For more on “Dieselgate” see this BB article and this YouTube video:
For more on Theranos see here:
I didn’t include Carlos Ghosn’s actions at Nissan as an example of corporate wrongdoing because the accusations about him imply that the company was being wronged. Such cases of fraud and embezzlement are not a key part of our course, but there is a good Netflix documentary about Carlos Ghosn here.
Here is the DuPont Conaco Double-Hulled Oil Tankers Seal Clapping Commercial (1991), here is a discussion of Cecil the lion, and here is the Wikipedia article about Harambe. This article provides a list of greenwashing. I used to accuse L’Oreal of greenwashing in the lecture because they claim to be “natural” while using carcinogen ingredients (e.g. Titanium dioxide in eye shadow; formaldehyde-releasing preservatives in kids shampoo). Technically those ingredients are “natural” in the sense that they exist in nature, and in low doses are not considered to be particularly harmful. I think the main point is that it is harder to remove trace amounts of cancer-causing chemicals from bananas than it is to just stop using them in cosmetic products. But still, much of the campaign against L’Oreal may be over the top. Judge for yourself.
Eyal Press’s 2012 book ‘Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times‘ is a rich and engaging collection of stories about people refusing to adhere to authority. It shows how whistleblowers are not typically anarchists who enjoy flouting rules, but people who value those rules so highly they insist on holding their superiors to them. It includes the story of a Serbian man who, in 1991, risked his own life to protect captured Croatians from execution, as well a Swiss police official who broke the law by giving entry permits to Jewish refugees in 1938.
Regarding the importance of involving the local community in a company’s strategy, see Steve Jobs; testimonies to Cupertino city council, in 2006:
…and again in June 2011
For a contrarian view on sweatshops, see here:
My favourite documentary on Lance Armstrong is ‘The Armstrong Lie‘ (2013)
Learning objective: The case helps students to gain experience resolving ethical dilemmas in which two values may conflict, such as professional duty and personal ethics. It enables students to identify behaviors that help a whistle-blower be effective and discuss how incentive structures, management, and culture play roles in promoting or hindering ethical behavior in organizations.
I define whistleblowing as “the unauthorised revelation of wrongdoing”. The German Spy Museum define it as “someone who reveals confidential information about the illegal or immoral practises of their employer.”
The most famous whistleblowing case of recent times is Edward Snowden. Here is a nuanced account of Snowden’s actions and motivations, and the key part is “I found it hard to determine when, in Snowden’s own mind, he graduated from being the emotionally immature and naive person he disdainfully describes himself as at the beginning of his development to being the sophisticated person who could make sound decisions about what is good for humanity he claims to be when he takes the NSA documents.” Citizenfour is a critically acclaimed documentary:
“Official Secrets” is based on a true story, featuring whistleblower Katharine Gun. I found it interesting that she made no attempt to escalate issues internally before going outside the organisation. The fact that she worked for the UK security services added more weight to the magnitude of her actions, but also calls into question whether we should treat people with security clearance differently to dissent in other contexts.
Insider trading
“Rajat Gupta“, by Healy, P.M., and Soltes, E., Harvard Business School, 2019
Learning objective: The case explores how a prominent and successful executive can engage in misconduct. In addition, the case explores the nature of illicit insider trading.
In 2011 Raj Rajaratnum was given an 11 year prison sentence for insider trading. According to Philip Mirowski (2013) this makes him just one of two people (the other being Bernie Madoff) to have gone to jail for their roles in the 2007-08 global financial crisis. Martin Wolf (2023) claims that the only banker to go to prison from wither the US or the UK was Kareem Serageldin (whereas in Iceland 25 bankers were convicted, 11 in Spain, and 7 in Ireland.
Here is a New York Post article explaining how Nancy Pelosi (and her husband) have benefitted from trading off the stocks of companies that she regulates, and why she is resisting efforts to stop Congressional lawmakers from being able to continue to do so. You can track her trades here. Here is a funny halloween costume.
Here is a case that links insider trading with working from home – a man bought stock in a company that BP were intending to buy and made a $1.8m profit after they did so. His wife worked in M&A at BP, and had been discussing the deal on zoom calls within the family home. For more see here.
Final quote…
“I would think that men wanting revenge would simply have killed him where they found him. The other possibility is kidnap and ransom. Kalesh [a Sudanese Prince] tells me the local kidnappers are pretty honourable – if you pay, they give back the victim unharmed. It’s a matter of business ethics”
McCarry, C., 1973 [2007] The Miernik Dossier, Overlook Duckworth, p.211
Quiz
Finally, you can test your understanding of the content, and provide me with useful feedback, by completing this quiz:
A referee report is not meant to be a review or a reaction to an academic article, but an assessment. Your role as referee is to provide a judgement as to whether the article has been executed well, and whether it is convincing. You are providing a recommendation to the editor, and not a decision. As an input you may find this Research Assessment helpful.
If your recommendation is REJECT you should provide:
2 clear paragraphs for the editor
5 suggestions for the author
If your recommendation is R&R you should provide:
A clear explanation of what you consider to be the minimum requirements to get the paper over the line
Thoughts on how to improve the article beyond this
Note that you have the benefit of anonymity so you can be harsher than the editor and make their job easier.
Standard structure:
Brief synopsis – write a single paragraph (2 at most) summarising the article in your own words. Do not merely repeat the abstract. Either demonstrate that you understood the article or explain what your didn’t understand about it.
Assessment – provide a summary of your opinion of the paper. Assess how the paper fits into the broader literature. Be clear on any points that you don’t feel qualified to judge.
Areas/issues – provide detail on perceived weaknesses. Smaller issues (e.g. typos) shouldn’t form the bulk of the report.
Much of this advice is based on Ed Glaeser’s talk at the 2019 EEA Meetings.
Participants should select one of the countries under study and identify a potentially internationally competitive cluster. Using the format provided in the lecture, and the East Belarus mechanical engineering article as a guide, participants will submit a written report. The report should contain diamond analysis and cluster mapping.
Christmas is a great hook to think about economic concepts. For students, the urgency of course requirements eases and it’s permissible to deepen your interests. For interested laypeople, time to read allows you to broaden your horizons. Perhaps you received a “pop economics” book as a present, or – like me – you look forward every year to The Economist’s Christmas Special. I wanted to share some of my favourite resources.
For a fascinating account of what frankincense and myrrh are, and their role in the evolution of global trade, see Bernstein, W. (2008) “A Splendid Exchange” – pp. 58-67
To see that is is physically possible for Father Christmas to do what he needs to do, see here.
For my article on why our traditional model of christmas is communist propaganda, and the truth is far more romantic, see my review of The Polar Express.
Finally, don’t forget to do some charity work:
“Christians should not celebrate festivals in a state of drunkenness and gluttony, or by dancing or merrymaking, but by tending to orphans and paupers, and by helping and giving to the poor and infirm… Woe betide those who have not observed the wisdom of the scriptures and who have idled, danced and indulged in wine” Cyril of Turov (see Bazan, L., 2014, A History of Belarus, Glagoslav Publications, p.64)
If an economics instructor requires students to submit work using PowerPoint, they can reasonably expect that those students will either possess the skillset required to do so, or recognise the need to develop it. And student’s wouldn’t feel that the choice of format is a source of disadvantage. In a few years time the same will apply to the creation of a video. We all need to become capable of producing videos with ease.
I see 4 options to create simple content:
Normal video – the most obvious route is to use the video feature on a standard smartphone. Here’s an example. This can be done in a single shot without any additional resources. Here are some tips. This is the simplest way to record yourself, but I find it a little awkward when done as a lecture. If it’s more informal it’s more engaging, but slightly more complicated to plan. Using a light board is possibly the best way to do this. Social media platforms now have great video functionality. I like TikTok (here’s an example). Some important advice is (i) shoot the way you want it viewed (i.e. portrait for purely mobile content, but landscape for YouTube); (ii) upload directly from your phone (going back and forth via software like Photos can compress the file and reduce quality)
Powerpoint with voiceover – this is probably the simplest, and I have several examples. I use Camtasia to narrate over a PowerPoint screen record. Here’s another example. It also allows relatively easy editing but it’s not cheap and I’m sure there’s plenty of other options. Here’s some instructions for screen recording on a Mac. Quicktime has a very simple audio + screen capture device and it’s baked into Mac OS. See Tom’s Guide for some more. It’s important to be careful about whether to put the slides online as well, since this can reduce the likelihood of students watching the video.
Short video software – for shorter videos I like to use Adobe Express (previously known as “Spark”) that perform the same function as powerpoint with voiceover, but slightly slicker. The best part is you record the audio per slide, so much less pressure to make a mistake.
Dual video and slides – this is a great way to convey detailed content but in a personalised way (e.g. Andy Field). I’m keen to find simple software that allows a presentation recording, webcam footage, and note space. In other words I want to know what these guys use. But here are some different options:
Loom – best for people who want a free solution that is intuitive and easy to use
ManyCam – best for people with a license, and willing to learn how to use it
OBS Studio – best for people who want a free, open source option that is slightly more complicated to use but allows a lot more functionality (here’s a tutorial)
Zoom – best for people that are used to using Zoom
Interactive powerpoint – for my EMIB course we had an interactive green screen. This puts the presenter inside the screen and permits interaction (e.g. drawing directly on the screen). It’s basically reading the weather. It’s harder to plan but the final result can be quite effective. For lecturing, I don’t think that a green screen adds much value over a plain background. A virtual set though, may be worth investing in!
RapidMooc – this is integrated camera and software that serves as a “plug and play” method. Our setup at ESCP is a green screen so you need to prepare lecture slides to serve as a background. It’s similar to the above, but requires a clicker and good quality audio.
Finally, it’s not always necessary to reinvent the wheel. I think there’s value added in giving students content that you’ve created, since it generates a student-teacher bond. But I also utilise high quality videos created by others.
The chief goal of any academic is to have scholarly impact – to be published in elite journals and for your work to be read, shared, and cited. But it’s also common to seek wider impact, and publicise those findings and implications with society at large.
One problem is that our research topics are often driven by the existing literature. Therefore pursuing an academic career can easily become a slide towards wider irrelevance. As we focus on scaling the ivory tower, we lose track of what anyone else cares about. Before we realise it, the landscape looks like this:
Perhaps, if we’re lucky, we can identify the areas where media interest overlaps with our research interests. Therefore we can create a list of topics we feel qualified to talk about, and seek media engagements. We can be available for comment and publish op-eds on newsworthy issues. But be careful. We might have made scholarly contributions to the field, and we may well be experts, but those topics won’t map perfectly onto “my research”.
Once we abandon the solid grounding of our published competence, we’ve started a dangerous journey. There is a risk that we end up like this:
By being receptive to media engagements we are opening ourselves to the pull of opportunity. But what your PR company deem to be a “hit” (i.e. being quoted in an article in a magazine no one cares about) is not really a “hit”, and a desire to do this tempts us to stray outside our areas of expertise. If someone wants a comment we provide it – it builds the brand and it’s fun. The ego is nourished, we feel that we’re representing our institution, we’re being productive. (However our titles and status carry authority, and the wider public are likely to confuse the light blue dot for a dark blue dot. I believe that it is unethical to utilise our credentials for matters outside of one’s expertise. I could add links here, but I won’t…).
The holy grail, therefore, is to end up like this:
I think fame seeking academics have two potential strategies. However both of them carry risks.
If you can’t beat them, join them. The first option is to move our research towards wherever the media interest lies (either by tweaking our current research projects in that direction; or by starting new research projects from scratch). However using current media interest as the guiding principle of your academic strategy has the potential to backfire. It takes time to gain academic legitimacy and what’s to say interest won’t move on? In addition, the media interest will draw in other academics to create a contested and competitive environment that is attracting opportunists. As I see more and more people jumping on the blockchain bandwagon I assume that they’re following this strategy (although this is a charitable interpretation because in many cases it’s probably a light blue dot rather than a dark blue one…). I’m wary.
Hope the mountain comes to Mohammed. The second way to occupy the overlap is to get your head down, do quality work, rise to the top of your field, get widespread recognition, and become the go to person for that topic. That, in itself, can be newsworthy. Win prizes, break records, give talks at elite institutions.
Personally, I am not sure what to do. I’ve tried to be entrepreneurial by choosing a few topics that I think have the potential to become important, and I am working hard to improve the quality of my scholarly work. But I’m largely abandoning the aim of creating a media profile for my research.
Let’s be honest, the media do not care about academic research. When we issue press releases for a new publication it’s because we want to share it. However even if it’s published in an open access journal newspapers will rarely link to the actual paper anyway. Even PR companies act as gatekeepers for the actual paper, and promote the top line findings without allowing third parties to actually verify them. We have a crisis of scientific replication, and yet there’s a complete disjoint between how research is presented and our ability to engage with it.
Journalists don’t care about your research, they care about their article. They are writing articles to a deadline and need to fill them. They need contacts who will be available and tell them what they expect to hear. Editors don’t care about your research. They care about copy. They need people who supply well written content on a theme they want to publish.
I am aware that my profession and institution are underrepresented by people who aren’t white males. And as a white male I should reflect on my role in that. As I lose the novelty of youth I question whether the best use of my time is supplying free content to unremarkable publications by crowding out other voices.
***
Pivoting away from attempts to promote our research profile, however, doesn’t mean wallowing in academic irrelevance, and it doesn’t mean giving up on communicating economic ideas. It just means a recognition that our biggest value to the media is almost certainly a result of our teaching knowledge rather than our research findings. This is because the pool of media interest in which we’re able to play in is much wider when we act as teachers rather than researchers.
This may seems as though I’m risking becoming a light blue dot. But wearing our teaching hats massively expands our scope of “expertise”, provided we recognise the topics will be broader. As Steve Horwitz recently said on Facebook,
Advice for young economists who wonder whether they have enough expertise on a topic to do media requests on it: If you think you can explain your views to an Intro class, you can do media on that topic.
But you need to be able to explain it to an Intro class and it needs to be an issue that you would indeed explain to an Intro class.
So rather than send our new PR agency a list of my research topics, I’ve sent the following:
Price gouging – if a firm raises prices during a natural disaster I’m happy to defend their choice to do so and explain why it can actually benefits consumers.
Creative destruction – if a firm goes bankrupt through entrepreneurial error I’m happy to explain why this is crucial to a competitive market.
Free trade – if there’s a story about tariffs I’m happy to explain how they harm consumers and make us collectively worse off.
Offshoring – if a firm offshores production I’m happy to defend their decision and explain how this benefits workers in (typically) poorer countries.
Corporation tax – I’m happy to defend cuts to corporation tax on the grounds that they boost the wages of that companies employees.
Tax avoidance – I’m happy to defend the use of “aggressive” tax avoidance schemes and explain why the problem is complexity in the tax code.
Efficient Market Hypothesis – if an investment firm claims to be able to outperform a market index I’m happy to argue that this is bad investment advice.
I also think it’s potentially legitimate to comment on hot topics such as:
The gender pay gap
Brexit
A specific companies strategy
Executive pay
Congestion charging
Pandemics
Provided you limit your comments to the simple application of the economic way of thinking. However I fear that this won’t be providing journalists with what they want (which is a hook, or something controversial), and there’s a very real danger that you do turn into a light blue dot. So I personally avoid these topics. Leave them for commentators and opinion leaders and academic experts in the field. Don’t wade in as one masquerading as the other.
Finally, Steve Horwitz is also right to point out that such media engagements are also advantageous for the institution. Indeed I’ve stopped seeing media work as part of my research profile. It’s actually organisational (and civic) citizenship.
