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EconTalk · 2026-04-20 · 64 min · 10,061 words

Adam Smith's Warning About Wealth, Fame, and Status (with Ross Levine)

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Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.

We'd love to hear from you. Today is March 10th, 2026, and my guest is economist Ross Levine, the Booth Derbis family, Edward Lazaire Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-director of Hoover's Financial Regulation Working Group. Prior to joining Hoover, he was a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley's High School of Business. Ross, welcome to Econ Talk. Oh, it's great to be here, Ross.

Our topic for today is Adam Smith. Today is March 10th. Yesterday, March 9th, was the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations. And Ross, you decided to Honor this anniversary year in an unusual way.

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