Tim Harford
Tim Harford’s long-running column in the Financial Times, “The Undercover Economist,” reveals the economic ideas behind everyday experiences. His first book, The Undercover Economist, was published in 30 languages and sold…
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Nicolae Ceaușescu was not beloved. His regime was vicious and he treated Romania as his personal wallet: while Ceaușescu emptied the coffers to construct a vast, ornate palace, his people starved. He imposed disastrous population control policies on his country, too, which saw hundreds of thousands of unwanted children left to rot in squalid orphanages. Ceaușescu’s rule endured for a quarter of a century – then crumbled overnight.
How do dictatorships unravel? In a second episode, Tim Harford partners with HBO’s new series “The Regime” to investigate real-life dictatorships and the social science that explains them.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
The Host
