Decode Econ

Abdullah Al Bahrani

About Decode Econ: The Podcast The economy touches everything — from the price of your morning coffee to the decisions shaping our future. Decode Econ breaks it all down. Hosted by Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani (“Dr. A”), economist, educator, and storyteller, this podcast makes economics personal, practical, and easy to understand. Each episode explores the trends behind the headlines — inflation, jobs, technology, policy, and the everyday decisions that drive them. Through stories, data, and conversations with thinkers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders, you stay informed.

  1. há 5 dias

    Development Economics: Micro vs Macro

    Development economics explained simply: what's the difference between the macro and micro sides of the field? Development economics sounds like a topic for "somewhere else." It's not. In my latest Decode Econ conversation, I sat down with two economists who study the same big question — how economies, and the people inside them, actually develop — from completely different altitudes. Dr. Amrita Dhar tracks capital flows into emerging markets and, closer to home, how U.S. states split the bill for K-12 schools. Dr. Shreyasee Das studies what happens inside a household in rural India after the lights come on. That second one stopped me. Shreyasee's research on rural electrification found that as women gained more independence, information, and control over their own lives, fertility often dropped — but in some households, so did stability and safety. Progress doesn't move in a straight line. Sometimes it just moves the friction somewhere else. We also got into something I think about a lot: development economics isn't just a lens for poor countries. Flint's water crisis, schools without air conditioning, sewage problems in the rural South — the same forces we study abroad are sitting here in our own zip codes. And we closed on something I want to actually do something about, not just talk about: why the researchers doing this work — especially women — aren't the ones you see on podcasts and panels. That's turning into a real project between the three of us now. Resources  Amrita’s Resources 1. Poor Economics by Abhijeet Banerjee and Esther Duflo https://amzn.to/4cIhgFd  2. Analytical Development Economics - Kaushik Basu https://amzn.to/4cBAQTG   Shreyasee 1. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach Amartya Sen's Capability Approach https://amzn.to/4gXNf5C   2. Amartya Sen's Tanner Lecture #1: Equality of What https://tannerlectures.org/lectures/equality-of-what/  3. Amartya Sen's Tanner Lecture #2: Standard of Living https://tannerlectures.org/lectures/the-standard-of-living/  4. Women's Role in Economic Development by Ester Boserup   https://amzn.to/4AbIJsZ

  2. 7 de set.

    AI in the Classroom: One Professor's Radical Teaching Experiment

    No homework. No midterms. No final exam. In this episode of Decode Econ, I sit down with Dr. Shishir Shakya, an economist at Appalachian State University, who redesigned his entire econometrics and statistics courses around one question: what happens if we stop preparing students for the job market of 2022 and start preparing them for 2028?We get into:Why he cut his curriculum down to the "absolute theoretical minimum" — and how that made his students learn fasterHis AI-based oral exam system that catches understanding gaps multiple-choice tests missThe uncomfortable question I pushed him on: if students can't use AI, why can professors?Why he thinks every student — marketing, supply chain, or otherwise — needs to start thinking like an engineerWhat "flourishing" means in an AI economy, and why creative destruction isn't just a threatIf you're an educator, a student, or just trying to figure out what skills actually matter in an AI-driven labor market, this conversation will change how you think about learning itself.Connect with Dr. Shishir Shakya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishir-shakya/ Subscribe to Decode Econ for weekly breakdowns of the economy and your place in it.00:49 – Intro: How AI is disrupting education02:17 – No homework, no midterms, no finals — what replaced them11:22 – The moment AI broke his old teaching model16:05 – Inside his AI-powered oral exam system24:33 – "If students can't use AI, why can professors?"39:06 – Preparing students for the job market of 2028

  3. 30 de ago.

    The Economics of Entrepreneurship

    Startups just had a record funding quarter — $285 billion in Q1 2026. Here's what the headline doesn't tell you: 43% of that went to one company's raise, and the rest of the money is piling into AI. So if you're a student founder building anything else, what does "record year" actually mean for you?I sat down with Dr. Jeni Al Bahrani, who teaches entrepreneurship at Miami University's Farmer School of Business, and Sarah Bosse, a senior who went from a student in Dr. A's class to her TA to her mentee. We get into why entrepreneurs can't outsource economics to their accountant, the pricing mistake Sarah watched half her classmates make as a TA, why rising interest rates change what investors are willing to fund, and why TAM/SAM/SOM is really a demand-estimation problem dressed up as a pitch-deck slide. We also get into why I've stopped calling them "soft skills" — they're durable skills, and they're the actual product of a good entrepreneurship classroom.Timestamps:0:00 – Why should entrepreneurs learn economics at all?10:00 – The pricing mistake that burns first-time founders17:00 – Interest rates, the $285B funding headline, and what it means if you're not building AI33:00 – TAM/SAM/SOM: the market-sizing mistake that isn't really about math44:00 – Why "soft skills" is the wrong word, and what workforce-ready actually meansIf this episode connects to something you're building — or teaching — leave a comment and tell me what's landing.

  4. 3 de ago.

    ClaudeFishing- Will this be the death of the newsletter?

    Last week, Substack released a new feature to detect AI-written text. They partnered with Pangram to let readers scan a post and see how much of it is AI-generated. I both love and hate this update, and I want to share my views with you.As I read it, they’re attempting to solve for two problems: the rise of AI slop, and reader trust. Both are real concerns. However, there is a big difference between AI slop and AI-enhanced posts, and Substack AI score does not make a distinction between those two.With that said, Substack is upfront that Pangram isn’t perfect, just that “independent research suggests it detects AI-generated text with a high degree of accuracy.” Fine.But they also admit the actual limitation:“Pangram can only detect whether AI was used to make the text, not whether great human care went into creating it, nor whether AI tools were used as a source.”Anyone who’s spent time in higher education already knows this. Detection tools flag patterns, not quality, and not authorship in any meaningful sense. Moreover, there are good and bad uses of AI, and that nuance is lost in the Substack AI score. The problem I have with this is that the score measures how much AI touched the writing and editing, not how much AI shaped the thinking, whether it was used for research, or whether a human sat with the final draft and meant every word. The Substack measure doesn’t capture when AI is used for the followingIdeationResearch and sourcesImages and visualsIt strictly captures the use of AI in text. Read more at DecodeEcon.com about what the research says will happen.

  5. 26 de jul.

    Learning Economics at a Startup

    Decode Econ is a startup. Our goal is to help you see the economy clearly — and your place in it. It is a media firm with a mission to improve economic understanding. It is fun building it and seeing its impact, but the biggest joy is in working with the team that makes this work possible. I love working with young professionals and current students. They bring energy and creativity, and in return I mentor them on public engagement and translating research into impact. It is a win-win situation. This week, we sat down with Frannie and Claire to talk about experiential learning through on-the-job work at Decode Econ.They talked about how working at Decode Econ has taught them so much about economics and business, but also about teamwork, creativity, and understanding your audience. Most importantly, they discussed how they grew their adaptability muscle.The classroom only gets you halfway.Claire told me she joined Decode Econ because of my macro class. She learned to love the content, but she appreciated my class more for the energy I brought to a silent classroom on day one, which made her feel comfortable speaking up.Frannie said something similar about her marketing classes: the value wasn’t the frameworks, it was “being able to be applicable and actually figure it out for myself” before getting thrown into a real job.This tells me that the actual value of what we do is to help our students transfer knowledge and skills into action.Confidence isn’t taught. It’s built in reps.Claire shares with us that her turning point in college was showing up to observe the Haile research lab, staying silent for a while, then finally speaking up. Each exposure helped her open up new doors to new opportunities. Opportunity rewards students who are already in the room.My favorite moment: Frannie was on campus for an unrelated meeting when Dr. Raska (Chair of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management) passed by and, on a whim, invited her, on the spot, to tour a market research firm partnering with our college. There was no calendar invite and no time for her to prepare. She said yes anyway. Being present helped her open a new door and expand her network. Adaptability is the actual labor market skill, and startups teach it for free.Both students described Decode Econ’s early days as constant pivoting. The daily changes in direction that, at first, felt like personal failure. Frannie said she used to wonder, “Did I do something wrong?” every time we changed course. It wasn’t her. It was a small team figuring out its audience in real time, which is exactly what most of their future employers will also be doing.This is the argument I’d make directly to other business and econ educators: if you want to teach adaptability, you cannot lecture it into existence. You have to put students inside genuine ambiguity — a live project, a startup, a research team— and let them feel the discomfort of the pivot. That discomfort is the curriculum; do not shy away from it.Pick the manager and team over the salaryThat was a big takeaway from this conversation.If you are interested in supporting the students or have projects you want to work on together, please reach out. Students are funded through consulting projects, public speaking engagement, sponsorship, and gifts.Timestamps00:00 — Economic literacy has to meet Gen Z where they already are02:18 — Frannie’s background: marketing coursework meets real-world application07:05 — Claire’s origin story: how one macro class built her classroom confidence09:31 — Building confidence through low-stakes reps at the research lab14:17 — Purpose and impact: why Gen Z engagement is the point, not a side effect19:09 — FOMO as a signal of investment21:25 — Career advice: pick the manager and team over the salary23:54 — Naming and working through perfectionism and imposter syndrome31:05 — What community inside a startup actually provides

Sobre

About Decode Econ: The Podcast The economy touches everything — from the price of your morning coffee to the decisions shaping our future. Decode Econ breaks it all down. Hosted by Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani (“Dr. A”), economist, educator, and storyteller, this podcast makes economics personal, practical, and easy to understand. Each episode explores the trends behind the headlines — inflation, jobs, technology, policy, and the everyday decisions that drive them. Through stories, data, and conversations with thinkers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders, you stay informed.