The Economics of Scarcity and the UNC-Duke Basketball Game (with Michael Munger)

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 January 4th, 2026. And my guest today is Michael Munger. This is Mike's 51st appearance on Econ Talk. He was last year in July of 2025 talking about capitalism.

If all goes as planned, this is airing on March 16th, 2026, which is 20 years to the day since the first episode of Econ Talk. Mike is, of course, averaging almost exactly two and a half appearances a year. That's 51 divided by 20, for those of you keeping square at home. Which is to say that Mike has made a significant contribution to this program and played a significant role in helping make EconTalk what it is. Thank you, Mike, and welcome back to EconTalk.

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