In this episode of The Economist Next Door, host Paul Mueller speaks with Jeff Degner and Aidan Grogan about the global fertility crisis and the sharp decline in family formation across advanced economies. Are falling birth rates primarily an affordability problem—or the result of deeper cultural changes?

The conversation connects inflation, housing costs, and economic uncertainty with delayed marriage, shifting fertility preferences, and the emergence of dating apps as large-scale matching platforms that alter incentives, selection, and relationship formation. The discussion also introduces the concept of an "inflation culture" and its potential effects on time preference, planning horizons, and family decisions.

The episode closes by examining what population decline means for economic growth, social cohesion, and the future of government.

In this episode of The Economist Next Door, host Paul Mueller sits down with Nobel Prize–winning economist Vernon Smith to explore how markets actually work—and how people really behave within them.

Smith, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for pioneering experimental economics, explains how simple market experiments reveal powerful truths: prices emerge from decentralized interactions, markets converge toward equilibrium even with limited information, and people learn quickly through exchange and experience.

The conversation goes beyond economics into philosophy, drawing on Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. Smith argues that economic order is rooted in moral psychology, social norms, and bottom-up rules formed through everyday human interaction.

From asset bubbles to spontaneous order, this episode offers a deeper look at markets not just as engines of wealth, but as systems of discovery, learning, and human cooperation.

SHOW NOTES

WN - ​An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [Cannan Edition (Vol. 1 & 2)](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/smith-an-inquiry-into-the-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations-cannan-ed-in-2-vols

TMS - https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS.html

Nobel lecture - https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1061&context=esi_pubs

Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets - https://www.academia.edu/17750757/Bubbles_Crashes_and_Endogenous_Expectations_in_Experimental_Spot_Asset_Markets

Asset Bubbles, Learning and Information - https://www.academia.edu/17767320/Stock_market_bubbles_in_the_laboratory

How does the US produce its energy, and why does regulation sometimes get in the way of innovation? Paul Mueller chats with Julia Cartwright and Ryan Yonk to break down energy policy, electricity grids, and the future of nuclear, renewables, and fossil fuels in America.

The scholars explore how market forces, government decisions, and consumer choices shape the energy we rely on every day—and why understanding these dynamics matters for both affordability and innovation.