Ep. 7. It's Raining on My Prices

Gregory King was a pioneer of economic science. He was the first to document how volatility in production affects prices more than proportionally. How a small change in the available quantity of a crop can send prices through the roof.

I suppose that what we now call King’s Law is intuitive for some people, but it wasn’t for me. Perhaps because the modern world -especially in developed countries- has shielded us from some fundamental truths.

In many other parts of the world and in other times, people were painfully aware of the suffering caused by scarcity. Mr King simply put numbers to it and explained the mechanism back in the 17th century. But the truth was always there for anyone willing to see it.

What follows is the story of how, despite having studied all of this at university, I only truly understood it when I was already out there, working. It seems there are things you can only learn through the school of hard knocks and street fights.

Welcome to a new episode of Freshconomics Podcast!