Scott Cunningham on the Economics of Prostitution
This episode features an interview with Scott Cunningham about markets for prostitution and his book on causal inference. Cunningham is a thoughtful scholar working at the cutting edge of empirical microeconomics. He is a professor of economics at Baylor University, a research fellow at the texas Hunger Initiative and at the Computational Justice Lab. He is also an associate editor at the Journal of Human Resources. He is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Prostitution, and as we discuss, the author of Causal Inference: The Mixtape, forthcoming from Yale University Press. Our conversation covers his research on the changing technology of prostitution markets, the difficulty regulating these markets, and some discussion about what a Christian response should look like. We also discuss his forthcoming textbook on causal inference. Scott Cunningham’s Website, which includes links to the papers we discuss in the episode. (https://www.scunning.com/) The free early version of his causal inference textbook. (https://www.scunning.com/mixtape.html) The website for Causal Inference: The Mixtape at Yale University Press, available for order in January 2021. (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251685/causal-inference)