About Peter Lorentzen

I am an economics professor at the University of San Francisco. I head our Applied Economics Master's program, which focuses on the digital economy. My own research is mainly on China's political economy.

Peter Lorentzen is economics professor at the University of San Francisco. He heads USF's Applied Economics Master's program, which focuses on the digital economy. His research is mainly on China's political economy.

Peter's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Peter:

Matthew O. Jackson, "The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs, and Behaviors" (Vintage, 2019)

January 5, 2024

The Human Network

Matthew O. Jackson
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Social networks existed and shaped our lives long before Silicon Valley startups made them virtual. For over two decades economist Matthew O. Jackson,…

Martin K. Dimitrov, "Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 7, 2023

Dictatorship and Information

Martin K. Dimitrov
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Fear pervades dictatorial regimes. Citizens fear leaders, the regime's agents fear superiors, and leaders fear the masses. The ubiquity of fear in suc…

Iza Ding, "The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China" (Cornell UP, 2022)

February 3, 2023

The Performative State

Iza Ding
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

What does the state do when public expectations exceed its governing capacity? The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in…

Ajay Agrawal et al., "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence" (HBR Press, 2022)

January 24, 2023

Power and Prediction

Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Disruption resulting from the proliferation of AI is coming. The authors of the bestselling Prediction Machines describe what you can do to prepare. B…

Jeffrey Carpenter and Andrea Robbett, "Game Theory and Behavior" (MIT Press, 2022)

January 14, 2023

Game Theory and Behavior

Jeffrey Carpenter and Andrea Robbett
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Jeffrey Carpenter and Andrea Robbett's book Game Theory and Behavior (MIT Press, 2022) is an introduction to game theory that offers not only theoreti…

Renee M. P. Teate, "SQL for Data Scientists: A Beginner's Guide for Building Datasets for Analysis" (John Wiley & Sons, 2021)

December 19, 2022

SQL for Data Scientists

Renee M. P. Teate
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Economists and other social scientists are used to working with data that comes nicely organized into a table with a series of variable names across t…

Jeremy L. Wallace, "Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology, and Authoritarianism in China" (Oxford UP, 2022)

December 18, 2022

Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts

Jeremy L. Wallace
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

For decades, a few numbers came to define Chinese politics--until those numbers did not count what mattered and what they counted did not measure up. …

Paul Belleflamme and Martin Peitz, "The Economics of Platforms: Concepts and Strategy" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

November 30, 2022

The Economics of Platforms

Paul Belleflamme and Martin Peitz
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Digital platforms controlled by Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Tencent and Uber have transformed not only the ways we do business, but …

Aynne Kokas, "Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty" (Oxford UP, 2022)

November 22, 2022

Trafficking Data

Aynne Kokas
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

On August 6, 2020, the Trump Administration issued a ban on TikTok in the United States, requiring that the owner, Beijing-based Bytedance, sell the c…

Lynette H. Ong, "Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China" (Oxford UP, 2022)

November 18, 2022

Outsourcing Repression

Lynette H. Ong
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

How do states coerce citizens into compliance while simultaneously minimizing backlash? In Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporar…

Brian A. Wong, "The Tao of Alibaba: Inside the Chinese Digital Giant That Is Changing the World" (PublicAffairs, 2022)

November 1, 2022

The Tao of Alibaba

Brian A. Wong
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

This podcast features Brian A. Wong, discussing his new book, The Tao of Alibaba: Inside the Chinese Digital Giant That is Changing the World (Public …

Josh Chin and Liza Lin, "Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)

September 9, 2022

Surveillance State

Josh Chin and Liza Lin
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

As we build the AI-powered digital economy, how far do we want to go? Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control (…

Justin Grimmer et al., "Text as Data: A New Framework for Machine Learning and the Social Sciences" (Princeton UP, 2022)

September 5, 2022

Text as Data

Justin Grimmer, Brandon M. Stewart, and Margaret E. Roberts
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

From social media posts and text messages to digital government documents and archives, researchers are bombarded with a deluge of text reflecting the…

Paul Oyer, "An Economist Goes to the Game: How to Throw Away $580 Million and Other Surprising Insights from the Economics of Sports" (Yale UP, 2022)

August 29, 2022

An Economist Goes to the Game

Paul Oyer
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Should you train your kid to become a pro athlete? Why do Koreans dominate women’s golf? Why should ticket scalpers get more respect? Why are pro spo…

Roselyn Hsueh, "Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

August 12, 2022

Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism

Roselyn Hsueh
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Roselyn Hsueh’s Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism (Cambridge, 2022) presents a new framework for understanding how developing countries in…

Nick Huntington-Klein, "The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality" (CRC Press, 2021)

August 4, 2022

The Effect

Nick Huntington-Klein
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality (Routledge, 2021) is about methods for using observational data to make causal inferences…

Marc F. Bellemare, "Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School—But Didn’t" (MIT Press, 2022)

July 21, 2022

Doing Economics

Marc F. Bellemare
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Graduate students and newly-minted economists often find that while their time in graduate school taught them a lot about great research of the past a…

Vivian Jing Zhan, "China's Contained Resource Curse: How Minerals Shape State Capital Labor Relations" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

July 14, 2022

China's Contained Resource Curse

Vivian Jing Zhan
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Contrary to intuition, many countries have found that having abundant natural resources such as petroleum or diamonds may be a curse as much as a bles…

Scott Gehlbach, "Formal Models of Domestic Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

June 30, 2022

Formal Models of Domestic Politics

Scott Gehlbach
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Formal mathematical models have provided tremendous insights into politics in recent decades. Formal Models of Domestic Politics (Cambridge UP, 2021)…

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, "Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in LIfe" (Dey Street Books, 2022)

June 22, 2022

Don't Trust Your Gut

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Today I talked to Seth Stephens-Davidowitz about his new book Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in LIfe (Dey Street Books, …

Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, "Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century" (Princeton UP, 2022)

June 17, 2022

Spin Dictators

Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning au…

Michael Munger, "The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises" (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2021)

June 15, 2022

The Sharing Economy

Michael Munger
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Transactions have always taken place. For hundreds of years that 'place' was a market or, more recently, a shopping mall. But in the past two decades …

Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success" (Public Affairs, 2022)

May 18, 2022

Streets of Gold

Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse—yet, in most cases, the things we believe…

Nate G. Hilger, "The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis" (MIT Press, 2022)

April 26, 2022

The Parent Trap

Nate G. Hilger
Hosted by Peter Lorentzen

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, a…