This week, Russ Roberts welcomed back University of Chicago's Luigi Zingales to talk about a recent essay in which Zingales argues that economists are subject to many of the same sorts of biases as regulators because of the incentives they face.

And now we want to hear from you. Use the following questions to reflect on this episode, assign them to students in your class, use them to strike up conversation at your next social gathering. No matter how, we love to hear from you.

Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about Zingales's essay, "Preventing Economists' Capture." Zingales argues that just as regulators become swayed by the implicit incentives of dealing with industry executives, so too with economists who study business: supporting business interests can be financially and professionally rewarding. Zingales outlines the different ways that economists benefit from supporting business interests and ways that economists might work to prevent that influence or at lease be aware of it.

This week, there was a new sheriff in town! Russ Roberts was the guest in this week's episode, while EconTalk fave Mike Munger stood in as interviewer. The subject was Roberts's new book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life. Whether your life changes have already happened or are still pending, we want to hear from you.

Use the prompts below to share your thoughts in the comments, use them as a classroom assignment, or use them to spark conversation at a cocktail party. But do let us know your thoughts; we love to hear from you.

EconTalk host Russ Roberts is interviewed by long-time EconTalk guest Michael Munger about Russ's new book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness. Topics discussed include how economists view human motivation and consumer behavior, the role of conscience and self-interest in acts of kindness, and the costs and benefits of judging others. The conversation closes with a discussion of how Smith can help us understand villains in movies.

Are you concerned that robots will take your job? Could you write out complete instructions for riding a bike? This week, EconTalk host Russ Roberts explored these questions and more with MIT's David Autor. Now we'd like to hear from you.

Please use the questions below as prompts for the comments section. Or use them in your offline interactions. Either way, we're anxious to broaden the conversation. We love to hear from you.

David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the future of work and the role that automation and smart machines might play in the workforce. Autor stresses the importance of Michael Polanyi's insight that many of the things we know and understand cannot be easily written down or communicated. Those kinds of tacit knowledge will be difficult for smart machines to access and use. In addition, Autor argues that fundamentally, the gains from machine productivity will accrue to humans. The conversation closes with a discussion of the distributional implications of a world with a vastly larger role for smart machines.

This week's episode was a conversation with University of Chicago philosopher Martha Nussbaum. She and EconTalk host Russ Roberts discussed her work on the capabilities approach, the limits of GDP, stoicism, and the value of philosophy.

We'd like to hear your reaction to their conversation. As always, our goal is to broaden the conversation, so share the results with us, using the prompts below. We love to hear from you.

Martha Nussbaum of the University of Chicago and author of Creating Capabilities talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about an alternative to GDP for measuring economic performance at the national level. She is a proponent of the capabilities approach that emphasizes how easily individuals can acquire skills and use them, as well as the capability to live long and enjoy life. Nussbaum argues that government policy should focus on creating capabilities rather than allowing them to emerge through individual choices and civil society.

This week, EconTalk host Russ Roberts talked with Thomas Piketty, author of the controversial and best-selling tome, Capital in the 21st Century.

As always, we'd like to hear your thoughts on this episode. Use the prompts below and share in the comments section, or use them to prompt discussion offline. Either way, we know you have something to say, and we love to hear from you.

Here are my thoughts on the Piketty episode.