Things That Made The Modern Economy

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Santa Claus2019122420211225 (R4)Consumerism and Christmas have gone hand in hand for a surprisingly long time. Santa Claus was an advertising icon in the 1840s, and Macy's department store in New York stayed open until midnight on Christmas Eve in 1867. In a seasonal edition of Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy, Tim Harford explores the history of Christmas consumerism across the years and around the world.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

01Air Conditioning20170630Tim Harford tells the surprising story of air conditioning which was invented in 1902 to counter the effects of humidity on the printing process. Over the following decades 'aircon' found its way into our homes, cars and offices. But air conditioning is much more than a mere convenience. It is a transformative technology; one that has had a profound influence on where and how we live.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Invented for the printing industry, air conditioning now influences where and how we live.

01Barbed Wire20170713In 1876 John Warne Gates described the new product he hoped to sell as 'lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust'. We simply call it barbed wire. The advertisements of the time touted it this fence as 'The Greatest Discovery Of The Age'. That might seem hyperbolic, even making allowances for the fact that the advertisers didn't know that Alexander Graham Bell was just about to be awarded a patent for the telephone. But - as Tim Harford explains - while modern minds naturally think of the telephone as transformative, barbed wire wreaked huge changes in America, and much more quickly.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Lighter than air, stronger than whiskey' - barbed wire wreaked huge changes in America.

01Battery20170623Murderers in early 19th century London feared surviving their executions. That's because their bodies were often handed to scientists for strange anatomical experiments. If George Foster, executed in 1803, had woken up on the lab table, it would have been in particularly undignified circumstances. In front of a large London crowd, an Italian scientist with a flair for showmanship was sticking an electrode up Foster's rectum. This is how the story of the battery begins - a technology which has been truly revolutionary. As Tim Harford explains, it's a story which is far from over.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The story of the battery begins inside a dead murderer. It's a tale that's far from over.

01Clock20170619There's no such thing as 'the correct time'. Like the value of money, it's a convention that derives its usefulness from the widespread acceptance of others. But there is such a thing as accurate timekeeping. That dates from 1656, and a Dutchman named Christiaan Huygens. In the centuries since, as Tim Harford explains, the clock has become utterly essential to almost every area of the modern economy.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The clock was invented in 1656 and has become an essential part of the modern economy.

01Cold Chain20171019The global supply chain that keeps perishable goods at controlled temperatures has revolutionised the food industry. It widened our choice of food and improved our nutrition. It enabled the rise of the supermarket. And that, in turn, transformed the labour market: less need for frequent shopping frees up women to work. As low-income countries get wealthier, fridges are among the first things people buy: in China, it took just a decade to get from a quarter of households having fridges to nearly nine in ten.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

Refrigeration revolutionised the food industry, and other industries too.

01Contraceptive Pill20170628The contraceptive pill had profound social consequences. Everyone agrees with that. But - as Tim Harford explains - the pill wasn't just socially revolutionary. It also sparked an economic revolution, perhaps the most significant of the late twentieth century. A careful statistical study by the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz strongly suggests that the pill played a major role in allowing women to delay marriage, delay motherhood and invest in their own careers. The consequences of that are profound.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The pill wasn't just socially revolutionary, it also sparked an economic revolution.

01Cuneiform20170703The Egyptians thought literacy was divine; a benefaction which came from the baboon-faced god Thoth. In fact the earliest known script - 'cuneiform' - came from Uruk, a Mesopotamian settlement on the banks of the Euphrates in what is now Iraq. What did it say? As Tim Harford describes, cuneiform wasn't being used for poetry, or to send messages to far-off lands. It was used to create the world's first accounts. And the world's first written contracts, too.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Cuneiform, the earliest known script, was used to create the world's first accounts.

01Department Store20170714Flamboyant American retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge introduced Londoners to a whole new shopping experience, one honed in the department stores of late-19th century America. He swept away previous shopkeepers' customs of keeping shopper and merchandise apart to one where 'just looking' was positively encouraged. In the full-page newspaper adverts Selfridge took out when his eponymous department store opened in London in the early 1900s, he compared the 'pleasures of shopping' to those of 'sight-seeing'. He installed the largest plate glass windows in the world - and created, behind them, the most sumptuous shop window displays. His adverts pointedly made clear that the 'whole British public' would be welcome - 'no cards of admission are required'. Recognising that his female customers offered profitable opportunities that competitors were neglecting, one of his quietly revolutionary moves was the introduction of a ladies' lavatory. Selfridge saw that women might want to stay in town all day, without having to use an insalubrious public convenience or retreat to a respectable hotel for tea whenever they wanted to relieve themselves. As Tim Harford explains, one of Selfridge's biographers even thinks he 'could justifiably claim to have helped emancipate women.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Harry Selfridge pioneered a whole new retail experience with his London department store.

01Disposable Razor20170620King Camp Gillette came up with an idea which has helped shape the modern economy. He invented the disposable razor blade. But, perhaps more significantly, he invented the two-part pricing model which works by imposing what economists call 'switching costs'. If you've ever bought replacement cartridges for an inkjet printer you experienced both when you discovered that they cost almost as much as the printer itself. It's also known as the 'razor and blades' model because that's where it first drew attention, thanks to King Camp Gillette. Attract people with a cheap razor, then repeatedly charge them for expensive replacement blades. As Tim Harford explains, it's an idea which has been remarkably influential.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

King Camp Gillette created the disposable razor. But his influence extends beyond shaving.

01Double-entry Bookkeeping20171013Luca Pacioli was a renaissance man - he was a conjuror, a master of chess, a lover of puzzles, a Franciscan Friar, and a professor of mathematics. But today he's celebrated as the most famous accountant who ever lived, the father of double-entry bookkeeping. Before the Venetian style of bookkeeping caught on, accounts were rather basic. An early medieval merchant was little more than a travelling salesman. He had no need to keep accounts - he could simply check whether his purse was full or empty. But as the commercial enterprises of the Italian city states grew larger, more complex and more dependent on financial instruments such as loans and currency trades, the need for a more careful reckoning became painfully clear. In 1494 Pacioli wrote the definitive book on double-entry bookkeeping. It's regarded by many as the most influential work in the history of capitalism. And as the industrial revolution unfolded, the ideas that Pacioli had set out came to be viewed as an essential part of business life; the system used across the world today is essentially the one that Pacioli described.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

Renaissance man Luca Pacioli wrote the definitive book on double-entry bookkeeping.

01Dynamo20171003You might think electricity had an immediate and transformative impact on economic productivity. But you would be wrong. Thirty years after the invention of the useable light bulb, almost all American factories still relied on steam. Factory owners simply couldn't see the advantage of electric power when their steam systems - in which they had invested a great deal of capital - worked just fine. Simply replacing a steam engine with an electric dynamo did little to improve efficiency. But the thing about a revolutionary technology is that it changes everything. And changing everything takes imagination. Instead of replacing their steam engines with electric dynamos, company bosses needed to re-design the whole factory. Only then would electric power leave steam behind. As Tim Harford explains, the same lag has applied to subsequent technological leaps - including computers. That revolution might be just beginning.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

The big story behind the way dynamos made electricity useful.

01Gramophone20170626Superstar' economics - how the gramophone led to a winner-take-all dynamic in the performing industry. Elizabeth Billington was a British soprano in the 18th century. She was so famous, London's leading opera houses scrambled desperately to secure her performances. In 1801 she ended up singing at both venues, alternating between the two, and pulling in at least £10,000. A remarkable sum, much noted at the time. But in today's terms, it's a mere £687,000, or about a million dollars; one per cent of a similarly famous solo artist's annual earnings today. What explains the difference? The gramophone. And, as Tim Harford explains, technological innovations have created 'superstar' economics in other sectors too.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Superstar' economics - how the gramophone transformed the performing industry.

01Index Fund20170710Warren Buffett is the world's most successful investor. In a letter he wrote to his wife, advising her how to invest after he dies, he offers some clear advice: put almost everything into 'a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund'. Index funds passively track the market as a whole by buying a little of everything, rather than trying to beat the market with clever stock picks - the kind of clever stock picks that Warren Buffett himself has been making for more than half a century. Index funds now seem completely natural. But as recently as 1976 they didn't exist. And, as Tim Harford explains, they have become very important indeed - and not only to Mrs Buffett.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Warren Buffett is one of the world's great investors. His advice? Invest in an index fund.

01Infant Formula20170711Not every baby has a mother who can breastfeed. Indeed, not every baby has a mother. In the early 1800s, only two in three babies who weren't breastfed lived to see their first birthday. Many were given 'pap', a bread-and-water mush, from hard-to-clean receptacles that teemed with bacteria. But in 1865 Justus von Liebig invented 'Soluble Food for Babies' - a powder comprising cow's milk, wheat flour, malt flour and potassium bicarbonate. It was the first commercial substitute for breastmilk and, as Tim Harford explains, it has helped shape the modern workplace.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

For many new mothers who want, or need, to get back to work, infant formula is a godsend.

01Intellectual Property20170705When the great novelist Charles Dickens arrived in America in 1842, he was hoping to put an end to pirated copies of his work in the US. They circulated there with impunity because the United States granted no copyright protection to non-citizens. Patents and copyright grant a monopoly, and monopolies are bad news. Dickens's British publishers will have charged as much as they could get away with for copies of Bleak House; cash-strapped literature lovers simply had to go without. But these potential fat profits encourage new ideas. It took Dickens a long time to write Bleak House. If other British publishers could have ripped it off like the Americans, perhaps he wouldn't have bothered. As Tim Harford explains, intellectual property reflects an economic trade-off - a balancing act. If it's too generous to the creators then good ideas will take too long to copy, adapt and spread. But if it's too stingy then maybe we won't see the good ideas at all.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Intellectual property reflects an economic trade off when it comes to innovation.

01Leaded Petrol20171002In the 1920s lead was added to petrol. It made cars more powerful and was, according to its advocates, a 'gift'. But lead is a gift which poisons people; something figured out as long ago as Roman times. There's some evidence that as countries get richer, they tend initially to get dirtier and later clean up. Economists call this the 'environmental Kuznets curve'. It took the United States until the 1970s to tax lead in petrol, then finally ban it, as the country moved down the far side of the environmental Kuznets curve. But as Tim Harford explains in this astonishing story, the consequences of the Kuznets curve aren't always only economic.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

When lead was added to petrol, it made cars more powerful - but it also poisoned people.

01Limited Liability Company20171004Nicholas Murray Butler was one of the great thinkers of his age: philosopher; Nobel Peace Prize-winner; president of Columbia University. When in 1911 Butler was asked to name the most important innovation of the industrial era, his answer was somewhat surprising. 'The greatest single discovery of modern times,' he said, 'is the limited liability corporation'. Tim Harford explains why Nicholas Murray Butler might well have been right.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

How some legal creativity has created vast wealth down the centuries.

01Management Consulting20171016If managers often have a bad reputation, what should we make of the people who tell managers how to manage? That question has often been raised over the years, with a sceptical tone. The management consultancy industry battles a stereotype of charging exorbitant fees for advice that, on close inspection, turns out to be either meaningless or common sense. Managers who bring in consultants are often accused of being blinded by jargon, implicitly admitting their own incompetence, or seeking someone else to blame for unpopular decisions. Still, it's lucrative. Globally, consulting firms charge their clients a total of about $125bn.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

If managers often have a bad reputation, what about those who tell them how to manage?

01Market Research20171010In the early years of the 20th century, US car makers had it good. As quickly as they could manufacture cars, people bought them. By 1914, that was changing. In higher price brackets, especially, purchasers and dealerships were becoming choosier. One commentator warned that the retailers could no longer sell what their own judgement dictated - they must sell what the consumer wanted. That commentator was Charles Coolidge Parlin, widely recognised as the man who invented the very idea of market research. The invention of market research marks an early step in a broader shift from a 'producer-led' to 'consumer-led' approach to business - from making something then trying to persuade people to buy it, to trying to find out what people might buy and then making it. One century later, the market research profession is huge: in the United States alone, it employs around half a million people.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

Market research marked a shift from a producer-led to a consumer-led approach to business.

01Paper Money20171005A young Venetian merchant named Marco Polo wrote a remarkable book chronicling his travels in China around 750 years ago. The Book of the Marvels of the World was full of strange foreign customs Marco claimed to have seen. One, in particular, was so extraordinary, Mr Polo could barely contain himself: 'tell it how I might,' he wrote, 'you never would be satisfied that I was keeping within truth and reason'. Marco Polo was one of the first Europeans to witness an invention that remains at the very foundation of the modern economy: paper money. Tim Harford tells the gripping story of one of the most successful, and important, innovations of all human history: currency which derives value not from the preciousness of the substance of which it is made, but trust in the government which issues it.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

Currency derives value from trust in the government which issues it.

01Part 24: Elevator20170629In 1853 Elisha Otis climbed onto a platform which was then hoisted high above a large crowd of onlookers, nervy with anticipation. A man with an axe cut the cable, the crowd gasped, and Otis's platform shuddered - but it did not plunge. 'All safe, gentlemen, all safe!' he boomed. The city landscape was about to be turned on its head by the man who had invented not the elevator, but the elevator brake. As Tim Harford explains, the safety elevator is an astonishingly successful mass transit system which has changed the very shape of our cities.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The safety elevator is a mass transit system that has changed the shape of our cities.

01Passport20170706How much might global economic output rise if anyone could work anywhere? Some economists have calculated it would double. By the turn of the 20th century only a handful of countries were still insisting on passports to enter or leave. Today, migrant controls are back in fashion. It can seem like a natural fact of life that the name of the country on our passport determines where you can travel and work - legally, at least. But it's a relatively recent historical development - and, from a certain angle, an odd one. Many countries take pride in banning employers from discriminating against characteristics we can't change: whether we're male or female, young or old, gay or straight, black or white. It's not entirely true that we can't change our passport: if you've got $250,000, for example, you can buy one from St Kitts and Nevis. But mostly our passport depends on the identity of our parents and location of our birth. And nobody chooses those.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

If anyone could work anywhere, some economists think global economic output would double.

01Plastic20171009A couple of decades after Leo Baekeland invented the first fully synthetic plastic - Bakelite - plastics were pouring out of labs around the world. There was polystyrene, often used for packaging; nylon, popularised by stockings; polyethylene, the stuff of plastic bags. As the Second World War stretched natural resources, production of plastics ramped up to fill the gap. And when the war ended, exciting new products like Tupperware hit the consumer market. These days, plastics are everywhere. We make so much plastic, it takes about eight percent of oil production - half for raw material, half for energy. And despite its image problem, and growing evidence of environmental problems, plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

We make so much plastic these days that it takes about eight percent of oil production.

01Plough20171020The plough was a simple yet transformative technology. It was the plough that kick-started civilisation in the first place - that, ultimately, made our modern economy possible. But the plough did more than create the underpinning of civilisation - with all its benefits and inequities. Different types of plough led to different types of civilisation.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

The plough kick-started civilisation - and ultimately made our modern economy possible.

01Property Register20171017Ensuring property rights for the world's poor could unlock trillions in 'dead capital'. According to Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, the value of extralegal property globally exceeds 10 trillion dollars. Nobody has ever disputed that property rights matter for investment: experts point to a direct correlation between a nation's wealth and having an adequate property rights system. This is because real estate is a form of capital and capital raises economic productivity and thus creates wealth. Mr de Soto's understanding - that title frees up credit, turning 'dead capital' into 'live capital' - has prompted governments in other countries to undertake large-scale property-titling campaigns.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

01Public Key Cryptography20170622Take a very large prime number - one that's not divisible by anything other than itself. Then take another. Multiply them together. That's simple enough, and it gives you a very, very large 'semi-prime' number. That's a number that's divisible only by two prime numbers. Now challenge someone else to take that semi-prime number, and figure out which two prime numbers were multiplied together to produce it. That, it turns out, is exceptionally hard. Some mathematics are a lot easier to perform in one direction than another. Public key cryptography works by exploiting this difference. And without it we would not have the internet as we know it. Tim Harford tells the story of public key cryptography - and the battle between the geeks who developed it, and the government which tried to control it.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Geeks versus government - the story of public key cryptography.

01Radar20171011Join our search for the 51st Thing! Exclusive podcast content - find out all about it after hearing how high-tech 'death ray' led to the invention of radar. The story begins in the 1930s, when British Air Ministry officials were worried about falling behind Nazi Germany in the technological arms race. They correctly predicted that the next war would be dominated by air power. To address the problem, Britain launched a number of projects in hopes of mitigating the threat - including a prize for developing a high-tech 'death ray' that could zap a sheep at a hundred paces. But even though the project failed to develop such a weapon, it did result in something potentially far more useful that was able to detect planes and submaries - radar. And it was an invention that was crucial in the development of the commercial aviation industry.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

A high-tech 'death ray' capable of zapping sheep led to the invention of radar.

01Robot20170621Robots threaten the human workforce, but their ubiquity and growing competence make them crucial to the modern economy. In 1961 General Motors installed the first Unimate at one of its plants. It was a one-armed robot resembling a small tank that was used for tasks like welding. Now, as Tim Harford explains, the world's robot population is expanding rapidly (the robot 'birth rate' is almost doubling every five years) and, coupled with rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robots are changing the world of work in unexpected ways.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Robots threaten the human workforce, but they are crucial to the modern economy.

01S-bend20171012If you live in a city with modern sanitation, it's hard to imagine daily life being permeated with the suffocating stench of human excrement. For that, we have a number of people to thank - not least a London watchmaker called Alexander Cumming. Cumming's world-changing invention owed nothing to precision engineering. In 1775, he patented the S-bend. It was a bit of pipe with a curve in it and it became the missing ingredient to create the flushing toilet - and, with it, public sanitation as we know it. Roll-out was slow, but it was a vision of how public sanitation could be - clean, and smell-free - if only government would fund it. More than two centuries later, two and a half billion people still remain without improved sanitation, and improved sanitation itself is a low bar. We still haven't reliably managed to solve the problem of collective action - of getting those who exercise power or have responsibility to organise themselves.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

The S-bend was a pipe with a curve in it, an invention that led to public sanitation.

01Seller Feedback20171006Why should we get into a stranger's car - or buy a stranger's laser pointer? In 1997, eBay introduced a feature that helped solve the problem: Seller Feedback. Jim Griffith was eBay's first customer service representative; at the time, he says 'no-one had ever seen anything like [it]'. The idea of both parties rating each other after a transaction has now become ubiquitous. You buy something online - you rate the seller, the seller rates you. Or you use a ride-sharing service, like Uber - you rate the driver, the driver rates you. And a few positive reviews set our mind at ease about a stranger. Jim Griffith is not sure eBay would have grown without it. Online matching platforms would still exist, of course - but perhaps they'd be more like hitch-hiking today: a niche pursuit for the unusually adventurous, not a mainstream activity that's transforming whole sectors of the economy.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

Without seller feedback, companies like eBay might not have grown as they have.

01Tally Stick20170707Tally sticks were made from willow harvested along the banks of the Thames in London. The stick would contain a record of the debt. It might say, for example, '9£ 4s 4p from Fulk Basset for the farm of Wycombe'. Fulk Basset, by the way, might sound like a character from Star Wars but was in fact a Bishop of London in the 13th century. He owed his debt to King Henry III. Now comes the elegant part. The stick would be split in half, down its length from one end to the other. The debtor would retain half, called the 'foil'. The creditor would retain the other half, called the 'stock'. (Even today British bankers use the word 'stocks' to refer to debts of the British government.) Because willow has a natural and distinctive grain, the two halves would match only each other. As Tim Harford explains, the tally stick system enabled something radical to occur. If you had a tally stock showing that Bishop Basset owed you five pounds, then unless you worried that Bishop Basset wasn't good for the money, the tally stock itself was worth close to five pounds in its own right - like money; a kind of debt, which can be traded freely.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The tally stick shows us what money really is: a kind of debt that can be traded freely.

01Tax Havens20170712The economist Gabriel Zucman is the inventor of an ingenious way to estimate the amount of wealth hidden in the offshore banking system. In theory, if you add up the assets and liabilities reported by every global financial centre, the books should balance. But they don't. Each individual centre tends to report more liabilities than assets. Zucman crunched the numbers and found that, globally, total liabilities were eight percent higher than total assets. That suggests at least eight percent of the world's wealth is illegally unreported. Other methods have come up with even higher estimates. As Tim Harford explains, that makes the tax haven a very significant feature of the modern economy.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Gabriel Zucman invented an ingenious way to estimate how much wealth is hidden offshore.

01Tv Dinner20170627The way educated women spend their time in the United States and other rich countries has changed radically over the past half a century. Women in the US now spend around 45 minutes per day in total on cooking and cleaning up; that is still much more than men, who spend just 15 minutes a day. But it is a vast shift from the four hours a day which was common in the 1960s. We know all this from time-use surveys conducted around the world. And we know the reasons for the shift. One of the most important of those is a radical change in the way food is prepared. As Tim Harford explains, the TV dinner - and other convenient innovations which emerged over the same period - have made a lasting economic impression.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The TV dinner, and other inventions from the same era, made a lasting economic impression.

01Video Game20170704From Spacewar to Pokemon Go, video games - aside from becoming a large industry in their own right - have influenced the modern economy in some surprising ways. Here's one. In 2016, four economists presented research into a puzzling fact about the US labour market. The economy was growing, unemployment rates were low, and yet a surprisingly large number of able-bodied young men were either working part-time or not working at all. More puzzling still, while most studies of unemployment find that it makes people thoroughly miserable, the happiness of these young men was rising. The researchers concluded that the explanation was simply that this cohort of young men were living at home, sponging off their parents and playing video games. They were deciding, in the other words, not to join the modern economy in some low-paid job, because being a starship captain at home is far more appealing.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

From Spacewar to Pokemon Go, video games have shaped the modern economy in surprising ways

01Welfare State20171018The same basic idea links every welfare state: that the ultimate responsibility for ensuring people don't starve on the street should lie not with family, or charity, or private insurers, but with government. This idea is not without its enemies. It is possible, after all, to mother too much. Every parent instinctively knows that there's a balance: protect, but don't mollycoddle; nurture resilience, not dependence. And if overprotective parenting stunts personal growth, might too-generous welfare states stunt economic growth?

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producer: Ben Crighton.

Do welfare states boost economic growth, or stunt it? It's not an easy question to answer.

0101Diesel Engine20170320Rudolf Diesel died in mysterious circumstances before he was able to capitalise on his extraordinary invention: the eponymous engine that powers much of the world today. Before Diesel invented his engine in 1892, as Tim Harford explains, the industrial landscape was very different. Urban transport depended on horses and steam supplied power for trains and factories. Incredibly, Diesel's first attempt at a working engine was more than twice as efficient as other engines which ran on petrol and gas, and he continued to improve it. Indeed, it wasn't long before it became the backbone of the industrial revolution; used in trains, power stations, factories and container ships.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight, Richard Vadon.

Rudolf Diesel died in strange circumstances after changing the world with his engine.

0102Haber-bosch Process20170321Saving lives with thin air - by taking nitrogen from it to make fertiliser, the Haber-Bosch Process has been called the greatest invention of the 20th century - and without it almost half the world's population would not be alive today. Tim Harford tells the story of two German chemists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, figured out a way to use nitrogen from the air to make ammonia, which makes fertiliser. It was like alchemy; 'Brot aus Luft', as Germans put it, 'Bread from air'.

Haber and Bosch both received a Nobel prize for their invention. But Haber's place in history is controversial - he is also considered the 'father of chemical warfare' for his years of work developing and weaponising chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War One.

Saving lives with thin air - by taking nitrogen from it to make fertiliser.

0103Shipping Container20170322How a simple steel box changed the face of global trade. Shipping goods around the world was - for many centuries - expensive, risky and time-consuming. But 60 years ago the trucking entrepreneur Malcolm McLean changed all that by selling the idea of container shipping to the US military. Against huge odds he managed to turn 'containerisation' from a seemingly impractical idea into a massive industry - one that slashed the cost of transporting goods internationally and provoked a boom in global trade. Tim Harford tells the remarkable story of the shipping container.
0104Concrete20170323It's improved health, school attendance, agricultural productivity and farm worker wages, but concrete has a poor reputation. It takes a lot of energy to produce and releases a great deal of CO2 in the process. However, architects appreciate its versatility and there are few more important inventions. Tim Harford tells the remarkable hidden story of a ubiquitous, unloved material.

It's improved health, school attendance, agricultural productivity and farm worker wages.

0105Iphone20170324Surprisingly, Uncle Sam played an essential role in the creation and development of the iPhone - of course, much has been written about the late Steve Jobs and other leading figures at Apple and their role in making the modern icon, and its subsequent impact on our lives. And rightfully so. But who are other key players without whom the iPhone might have been little more than an expensive toy? Tim Harford tells the story of how the iPhone became a truly revolutionary technology.

How Uncle Sam played an essential role in the creation and development of the iPhone.

0106Barcode20170327How vast mega-stores emerged with the help of a design originally drawn in the sand in 1948 by Joseph Woodland as he sat on a Florida beach, observing the furrows left behind, an idea came to him which would - eventually - become the barcode. This now ubiquitous stamp, found on virtually every product, was designed to make it easier for retailers to automate the process of recording sales. But, as Tim Harford explains, its impact would prove to be far greater than that. The barcode changed the balance of power between large and small retailers.

How vast mega-stores emerged with the help of a design originally drawn in the sand.

0107Banking20170328Warrior monks, crusaders and the mysterious origins of modern banking. You might think banks are so central to every economy that they have always existed. And they have, sort of. But the true story of the origins of modern banking is - as Tim Harford explains - as surprising and mysterious as the plot of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.
0108Light Bulb20170329Once too precious to use, now too cheap to notice - the significance of the lightbulb is profound. Imagine a hard week's work gathering and chopping wood, ten hours a day for six days. Those 60 hours of work would produce light equivalent to one modern bulb shining for just 54 minutes. The invention of tallow candles made life a little easier. If you spent a whole week making them - unpleasant work - you would have enough to burn one for two hours and twenty minutes every evening for a year. Every subsequent technology was expensive, and labour-intensive. And none produced a strong, steady light. Then, as Tim Harford explains, Thomas Edison came along with the lightbulb and changed everything, turning our economy into one where we can work whenever we want to.

Once too precious to use, light is now too cheap to notice.

0109M-pesa20170330Transferring money by text message is far safer and more convenient than cash. M-Pesa, as it is known, first took off in Kenya. The idea was to make it easier for small businesses to repay micro-finance loans. But, almost immediately, M-Pesa exploded into something far bigger - there are now 100 times more M-Pesa kiosks than ATMs in Kenya - and with far-reaching consequences, in many developing economies. Tim Harford describes how money transferred this way is easy to trace, which is bad news for the corrupt. And good news for tax authorities.
0110Compiler20170331Installing Windows might take 5,000 years without the compiler, a remarkable innovation which made modern computing possible. Tim Harford tells a compelling story which has at its heart a pioneering woman called Grace Hopper who - along the way - single-handedly invented the idea of open source software too. The compiler evolved into COBOL - one of the first computer languages - and led to the distinction between hardware and software.

Installing Windows might take 5,000 years without the compiler.

0111Billy Bookcase20170403An Ikea Billy bookcase rolls off the production line every three seconds. There are thought to be over 60 million of them already in service. Few could find the Billy bookcase beautiful. They are successful because they work and they are cheap. They are, in short, boringly but brilliantly efficient. And - as Tim Harford explains in this fascinating story - brilliantly boring efficiency is essential to the modern economy. The humble Billy bookcase epitomises the relentless pursuit of lower costs and acceptable functionality.

The Billy bookcase epitomises the pursuit of lower costs and acceptable functionality.

0112Antibiotics20170404In 1928 a young bacteriologist named Alexander Fleming failed to tidy up his petri dishes before going home to Scotland on holiday. On his return, he famously noticed that one dish had become mouldy in his absence, and the mould was killing the bacteria he'd used the dish to cultivate. It's hard to overstate the impact of antibiotics on medicine, farming and the way we live. But, as Tim Harford explains, the story of antibiotics is a cautionary one. And unhelpful economic incentives are in large part to blame.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The tale of antibiotics is a cautionary one, and economic incentives are often to blame.

0113Paper20170405The Gutenberg printing press is widely considered to be one of humanity's defining inventions. Actually, you can quibble with Gutenberg's place in history. He wasn't the first to invent a movable type press - it was originally developed in China. Still, the Gutenberg press changed the world. It led to Europe's reformation, science, the newspaper, the novel, the school textbook, and much else. But it could not have done so without another invention, just as essential but often overlooked: paper. Paper was another Chinese idea, just over 2000 years ago.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

The Gutenberg press changed the world - but it could not have done so without paper.

0114Insurance20170406Legally and culturally, there's a clear distinction between gambling and insurance. Economically, the difference is not so easy to see. Both the gambler and the insurer agree that money will change hands depending on what transpires in some unknowable future. Today the biggest insurance market of all - financial derivatives - blurs the line between insuring and gambling more than ever. Tim Harford tells the story of insurance; an idea as old as gambling but one which is fundamental to the way the modern economy works.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

Insurance is as old as gambling, but it's fundamental to the way the modern economy works.

0115Google20170407The words 'clever' and 'death' crop up less often than 'Google' in conversation. That's according to researchers at the University of Lancaster in the UK. It took just two decades for Google to reach this cultural ubiquity. Larry Page and Sergey Brin - Google's founders - were not, initially, interested in designing a better way to search. Their Stanford University project had a more academic motivation. Tim Harford tells the extraordinary story of a technology which might shape our access to knowledge for generations to come.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.

02Bicycle2019090920200710 (R4)On an early cycle ride, the bicycle engineer Pierre Lallement was mistaken for the devil: he did appear to be a strange centaur-like creature, and he was flying downhill at speed while screaming. Bicycle brakes had, after all, not yet been invented. The bicycle was to prove transformative. Cheaper than a horse, it freed women and young working class people to roam free. And the bike was the testing for countless improvements in manufacturing that would later lead to Henry Ford's production lines. Tim Harford considers whether the bicycle has had its day - or whether it's a technology whose best years lie ahead.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Has the bicycle had its day? Or is it a technology whose best years lie ahead?

02Blockchain2019091220200430 (R4)In a series about things that made the modern economy, blockchain may not yet deserve the past tense. But venture capitalists are pouring billions into startups and enthusiasts say blockchain could become as disruptive as the internet. How can we decide if they're right? First we need to get our heads around the most famous blockchain - Bitcoin - and see why the underlying technology might have much wider applications. But, as Tim Harford explains, we need to think about all the challenges that first need to be overcome.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Blockchain: a digital technology that some say could become as disruptive as the internet.

02Bonsack Machine2019112820191121 (R4)
20201009 (R4)
One historian of the cigarette industry reckons it invented much of modern marketing. Why did such huge sums go into advertising early brands such as Camels and Lucky Strikes? Before an inventor called James Bonsack came along, cigarettes were far less popular than cigars, pipes or chewing tobacco. Bonsack's machine made it possible to make huge amounts of cigarettes more cheaply - creating the need to persuade people to buy them. But, as Tim Harford explains, many modern regulators think we should be worried about the power of cigarette branding.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

02Bricks2019052820200612 (R4)`I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble`, Caesar Augustus apparently boasted. If so he wasn't the only person to under-rate the humble brick. Bricks have been used for tens of thousands of years. They are all rather similar - small enough to fit into a human hand, and half as wide as they are long - and they are absolutely everywhere. Why, asks Tim Harford, are bricks still such an important building technology, how has brickmaking changed over the years, and will we ever see a robot bricklayer?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Bricks: used for tens of thousands of years and still such a vital building technology.

02Canned Food2019112520191118 (R4)
20200918 (R4)
What does canned food have in common with Silicon Valley? More than you might think. Its story reveals how little some dilemmas around innovation have changed in two hundred years. Initially developed for military purposes, then commercialized in a place with plenty of venture capital and no stifling bureaucracy, the path of canned food is shared by many recent technological innovations. But, as Tim Harford explains, canned food may also hold lessons about the dangers of under-regulation.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

02Cassava2019111820191111 (R4)
20200727 (R4)
Cassava roots are a vital source of calories in tropical countries. They are also a puzzle: cassava is highly toxic, and to be made safe it requires a tedious and complex preparation ritual. Plants such as cassava have routinely poisoned the unwary, and yet societies who are accustomed to it manage to make it safe despite all the hurdles. Tim Harford asks how humans have learned to do this without dropping dead. And what does cassava teach us about the hidden social forces that support a modern economy?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

02Cellophane2019052120200501 (R4)Plastic food packaging often seems obviously wasteful. But when Jacques Brandenberger invented cellophane, consumers loved it. It helped supermarkets go self-service, and it was so popular Cole Porter put it in a song lyric. Nowadays people worry that plastic doesn't get recycled enough - but there are two sides to this story. Plastic packaging can protect food from being damaged in transit, and help it stay fresh for longer. Should we care more about plastic waste or food waste? As Tim Harford explains, it isn't obvious - and the issue is complicated enough that our choices at the checkout may accidentally do more harm than good.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Cellophane transformed how consumers purchased food, as well as how producers sold it.

02Chatbot2019112020191113 (R4)
20200729 (R4)
Have computers finally passed the Turing test? Some computers claim to have passed the Turing test - convincing humans that they themselves are human. Tim Harford asks what the Turing test really signifies. How do computers try to pass it, and what does this have to teach us about business, politics - and the art of conversation itself?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Have computers finally passed the Turing test, convincing us they themselves are human?

02Cubesat2019091620200521 (R4)Satelites used to weigh several tonnes and be as long as a bus. Now they're closer to the size of a Beanie Baby. In fact, as Tim Harford explains, the new microsatellites were originally a student engineering challenge: design a satellite that can fit into a Beanie Baby box. So how are these CubeSats changing the way we use space? And how are they changing the way economics itself is done?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Satellites were once the length of a bus. Now they're roughly the size of a Beanie Baby.

02Dwarf Wheat2019091020200717 (R4)In 1968, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich published an explosive book, The Population Bomb. Ehrlich predicted that populations would grow more quickly than food supplies, causing mass starvation. Ehrlich was wrong - food supplies kept pace. And that's largely due to the years Norman Borlaug spent growing different strains of wheat in Mexico. The `green revolution` vastly increased yields of wheat, corn and rice. Yet, as Tim Harford describes, worries about overpopulation continue. The world's population is still growing, and food yields are now increasing more slowly - partly due to environmental problems the green revolution itself made worse. Will new technologies come to the rescue?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Norman Borlaug averted famine predictions by tinkering with the genetic design of wheat.

02Factory2019091320200514 (R4)The factory age began with a thunderclap, the climax to a tale of espionage, assassination, and vaulting ambition. Factories have absorbed our attention ever since, from the 'dark Satanic mills' of William Blake's poem, to the conditions that obsessed Engels and Marx, through to the vast industrial parks of Shenzhen, where iconic consumer products are assembled. Tim Harford asks if factories have been a force for improving the conditions of ordinary workers? And what comes next for the factory in an increasingly service-driven age?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Have factories been a force for improving the conditions of ordinary workers?

02Fire20190920Try to imagine the economy before our ancestors tamed fire. There'd be nothing made with metal or glass or plastic, nothing that requires burning fossil fuels to manufacture or transport. We can hardly call it an 'economy'. Some experts say fire created not only the economy, but humans - that our brains were built by cooked food and evenings around the campfire. Economic development has seen us increasingly confine fire to furnaces, or internal combustion engines. But, as Tim Harford reveals, our fear of wildfires may hold a surprising lesson about the modern financial system.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Has fire created not only the economy, but also modern humans?

02Fundraising Appeal2020040320201120 (R4)Charity has become big business. One recent study estimates that the British give about as much to charity as they spend on beer. The modern, professional approach to fundraising dates back to an American called Charles Sumner Ward, who worked for the YMCA in the early 1900s. Tim Harford explains how economists now study what are the most effective techniques to elicit donations - should charities put more energy into doing the most good they can with the money they raise, or employing attractive young women to knock on doors?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Charity has become big business - but what's the best way to elicit donations?

02Glasses2020033120201030 (R4)How many people around the world need glasses and don't have them? Until surprisingly recently, nobody knew. Now we have an eye-popping answer: 2.5 billion. Many of these people may not be aware that a simple pair of reading glasses could help them to see more clearly. The very first pair of spectacles was probably made in Italy in the late thirteenth century, inspired by the writings of an eleventh-century Arabic scholar. They were a godsend for ageing monks and merchants - and, as Tim Harford explains, they ended up inspiring the invention of the microscope and telescope, too.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

How many people on earth need glasses and don't have them? An eye-popping 2.5 billion.

02Gps2019112920191122 (R4)
20201016 (R4)
What would happen if GPS (the Global Positioning System) stopped working? From emergency services to ride-sharing apps to just-in-time supermarket logistics networks, the ability to navigate using GPS is baked into the economy. And that's just the start. GPS is not so much a location service as a time service. Power grids, stock markets and cloud computing all depend on the ability to agree on the exact time. No wonder GPS is sometimes called the `invisible utility`. But Tim Harford thinks that perhaps what we should really fear is not so much GPS signals going down, as being spoofed in ways we fail to notice.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

GPS is sometimes called the \u201cinvisible utility\u201d. What would happen if it stopped working?

02Gyroscope2019052220200515 (R4)When the HMS Victory sank in 1744, with it went an inventor named John Serson and a device he'd dreamed up. He called it the `whirling speculum`, but we now know the basic idea as a gyroscope. Serson thought it could help sailors to navigate when they couldn't see the horizon. Nowadays gyroscopes are tiny and, as Tim Harford describes, they are used to guide everything from submarines to satellites, from rovers on Mars to the phone in your pocket. They are also integral to drones - a technology that some believe could transform how we do our shopping. But for that, they'll need to work in all weathers.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The gyroscope: a remarkable device used to guide everything from submarines to satellites.

02Interchangeable Parts2019112220191115 (R4)
20200911 (R4)
A sweltering afternoon in July 1785, in the cool of a dungeon east of Paris, was the site of a remarkable demonstration of French engineering - and French insouciance. Honor退 Blanc, a gunsmith, showed how he could take apart flintlock rifles, jumble up the parts, and reassemble the rifles. The parts were interchangeable, promising a revolution in maintenance and production. Thomas Jefferson, future President of the US, was in the audience. As Tim Harford explains, the world of engineering was about to change - but could either Blanc or Jefferson take advantage of what was coming?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Interchangeable parts revolutionised the world of engineering.

02Interface Message Processor2019112620191119 (R4)
20200925 (R4)
In 1958, ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, was dubbed `a dead cat hanging in the fruit closet`. All the interesting projects had been transferred to its newer, more fashionable rival, NASA. And yet the dead cat turned out to have an extra life: ARPA commissioned and created a way for any computer in the world to contact any other computer in the world. As Tim Harford explains, the ARPAnet was the forerunner of today's Internet - and the heart of the ARPAnet was a massive, heavily armoured piece of kit that set the stage for how the internet works: The Interface Message Processor, the most important hunk of silicon you've never heard of.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The Interface Message Processor: the most important hunk of silicon you've never heard of.

02Langstroth Hive2019052020200424 (R4)Humans have valued bees for their honey for thousands of years - and economists have long admired bees for their cooperative work ethic, too. But few of us, whether economists, honey-lovers, or both, have quite appreciated just how much the honey bee has been industrialised - and the simple yet radical invention that made that industrialisation possible. As Tim Harford explains, it's a sign of just how far the modern market economy has penetrated that it now reaches deep into the heart of the beehive.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The Langstroth Hive: a wooden box that made the industrialisation of the bee possible.

02Like Button2019091120200423 (R4)Facebook's `like` button is ubiquitous across the web. Seeing what people `like` helps Facebook understand its users - which means they can target adverts more effectively, and tailor newsfeeds so people spend more time on Facebook. Some say there's nothing to worry about - targeted adverts are nothing new. Others worry that the Cambridge Analytica scandal shows how Facebook might shape our opinions. But perhaps what we should worry about most is that social approval can be addictive, and a `like` is social approval distilled into its purest form. Tim Harford asks how should we manage our compulsions in this brave new social media world?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Facebook's ubiquitous 'like' button can reveal a treasure trove of potential insights.

02Mail Order Catalogue20190527Some say the Montgomery Ward catalogue was among the most influential books in American history. Mail order transformed middle class living in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But at first, Ward struggled to get people to understand his business model - his prices were so low, people assumed there must be a catch. As mail order took off, it created demand to improve roads and the postal service. Tim Harford describes how today similar dynamics are transforming middle-class living in China - with the internet playing the role of the postal service, and e-commerce as the new mail order.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Montgomery Ward's catalogue: once ranked among the most influential books in US history.

02Oil2019112120191114 (R4)
20200904 (R4)
The price of oil is arguably the most important price in the world economy. So when did the oil boom begin, and how did we become so excruciatingly dependent? Tim Harford wonders if there is any prospect of us weaning ourselves off what one oil minister called `the devil's excrement`.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

02Pencil2019053120200703 (R4)`I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove.`

So declares the slim, graphite-spined narrator of one of the most famous essays in economic history, `I, Pencil`. The pencil claims to be a miracle product of the free market - but is that true? Why, asks Tim Harford, do engineers, as well as economists like himself, think the pencil is so underrated? And how on earth do pencil-makers get the lead inside the wood?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The pencil claims to be a miracle product of the free market, but is that true?

02Postage Stamp2019091820200723 (R4)Rowland Hill was annoyed with Great Britain's expensive and inefficient postal service, so he decided to invent a better system. His ideas proved so popular, the government agreed to put him in charge. Hill made senders, not recipients, pay for postage. And he sold stamps for an affordable sum, convinced that more people would use the postal service if it were cheaper. He was right: in 1840, as Tim Harford explains, the first year of `penny post`, the number of letters sent more than doubled - with consequences that still hold lessons for today.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Rowland Hill went from disgruntled user to radical reformer of Britain's postal system.

02Prohibition2019112720191120 (R4)
20201002 (R4)
Economists in the 1920s argued in favour of Prohibition, the short-lived attempt to ban sales of alcohol in the United States. They were worried about drunkenness affecting productivity. But economics didn't yet have the idea of the `rational criminal`, which helps to explain why Prohibition was so widely flouted. Now debates are raging about whether cannabis should continue to be prohibited. Tim Harford reveals how a branch of economics called public choice theory has a surprising explanation for why alliances in favour of banning things can command such wide support.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The idea of the \u201crational criminal\u201d helps explain why Prohibition was so widely flouted.

02Qwerty2019052320200522 (R4)The QWERTY keyboard layout has stood the test of time, from the clattering of early typewriters to the virtual keyboard on the screen of any smart-phone. Myths abound as to why keys are laid out this way - and whether there are much better alternatives languishing in obscurity. Tim Harford explains how this is a debate about far more than touch-typing: whether the QWERTY keyboard prospers because it works, or as an immovable relic of a commercial scramble in the late 19th century, is a question that affects how we should deal with the huge digital companies that now dominate our online experiences.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

From the early typewriters, the QWERTY keyboard layout has stood the test of time.

02Recycling2019053020200626 (R4)Globalisation hasn't just meant moving goods around - it's meant moving rubbish around, too. For decades wealthy countries shipped huge volumes of waste to China for sorting and recycling. But now China is getting richer, it no longer wants to be a dumping ground - and the recycling industry is struggling to respond. For centuries people have reused and recycled to save money. The idea that it's also a moral obligation is relatively new. Tim Harford asks if we should we take a more hard-headed view of the economic costs and benefits.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The idea recycling is a moral obligation, as well as an economic one, is relatively new.

02Rfid2019091920200724 (R4)At the beginning of the Cold War, musical inventor Leon Theremin managed to bug the US embassy in Moscow. The ingenious device he used is a predecessor of a humble technology that surrounds us every day: the Radio-Frequency Identification tag. Tim Harford asks if RFID is introducing an 'internet of things'. Or are its glory days behind it?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Is RFID introducing an 'internet of things'? Or are its glory days behind it?

02Rubber20190917Charles Goodyear was determined to invent a way to make natural rubber withstand extremes of heat and cold. Eventually he succeeded - we now know the process he devised as vulcanisation. When John Boyd Dunlop later figured out how to make pneumatic tyres from rubber, it sparked a boom in demand that had horrific consequences in the Congo Free State, a colony ruled by Belgium's King Leopold. Tim Harford tells how natural rubber still goes mostly into tyres, and its production still causes a degree of controversy.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Natural rubber still goes mostly into tyres, and its production still causes controversy.

02Solar Photovoltaics2019111920191112 (R4)
20200728 (R4)
Solar power is a very old technology: Socrates explained how to use it to heat a house, while the Romans, the Chinese, the Puebloans all used houses to be shady in summer while trapping sunlight in the winter. All very elegant: but in recent years, solar power has come to mean something altogether more technologically advanced and disruptive to the oil energy order. So just how quickly is solar photovoltaic energy becoming affordable? And how will the world change, asks Tim Harford, if, or when, the cheapest source of power is solar power?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Solar power: an old technology now more advanced and disruptive to the oil energy order.

02Spreadsheet2019052920200619 (R4)What does a robot accountant look like? Not C-3PO, or Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator, I'd suggest. It looks more like a grid on a computer screen: the digital spreadsheet, a technology which took the world of accountancy by storm in the early 1980s and made countless accounting tasks effortless. We should all spend more time pondering the spreadsheet because, as Tim Harford explains, in that four-decade-old technology lies a glimpse of what automation is really likely to do to all of our jobs.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The digital spreadsheet: a technology which took the world of accountancy by storm.

02Swift2020040220201113 (R4)From blocked vacuum tubes to mistyped telegrams, sending sensitive financial information is no easy matter. SWIFT - the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication - has solved some of the key problems. But, asks Tim Harford, has it created a new one?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

How a system for sending sensitive financial data securely may have created a new problem.

02Vickrey Turnstile2020033020201023 (R4)Subways get crowded, aeroplanes over-booked and roads congested. Back in the 1950s, a future Nobel laureate suggested a solution to these problems that worked well in theory but was unpalatable to the decision-makers of the day. Was he impractical, asks Tim Harford, or was he ahead of his time?

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

The electromechanical Vickrey Turnstile worked well in theory, but was never built.

02Wedgwood2020040120201106 (R4)Josiah Wedgwood was a man of many talents - potter, chemist, pioneering accountant. But perhaps his most remarkable achievement was solving a problem it took another two centuries for a Nobel Prize-winning economist even to identify. That problem was how to make wealthy clients pay a premium for your goods, then add to your profits by selling them more cheaply to the mass market. Tim Harford explains how Wedgwood's 18th century pottery was a precursor to the `trickle-down` theory of fashion that still shapes the economy today.

Producer: Ben Crighton

Editor: Richard Vadon

Josiah Wedgwood's pottery was a precursor to the \u201ctrickle-down\u201d theory of fashion.