Employment in the music and motion-picture industries has expanded. The new jobs pay less than when gatekeepers ruled the earth, but Waldfogel found that as a whole, the industry is producing an ever-increasing number of well-reviewed movies and albums.

The University of Minnesota Department of Economics has historically been one of the top in the world, producing nine Nobel Prize-winning faculty and alumni along the way. Launched in 2010, the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute was founded as a renewed commitment to supporting synergy in economic research, policy influence, and the communication channels required to solve real-world challenges.

President Donald Trump and other political leaders have touted the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin as good for the local economy, but critics point out that this is one of the largest subsidy packages offered to a foreign business by a state government. Hear from University of Minnesota economist Art Rolnick.

University of Minnesota economist Manuel Amador studies what causes less-developed countries to pile on more debt than they can repay, what happens next, and the stakes the rest of the world have in the financial fitness of relatively small national economies.