Photo by Jon Stahl
Dr. Yoram Bauman is an environmental economist at the University of Washington who has an unusual second career: stand-up comedian. Calling himself “the world’s first stand-up economist,” Bauman spends his spare time performing in comedy clubs, such as Carolines on Broadway, as well as more scholarly venues, such as the American Economic Association. He also authored The Cartoon Introduction to Economics.
His hilarious take on “Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics” has almost a million YouTube viewers. Here’s a look at some of his funny business:
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After the success of his previous tour, the 2008 “Supply Side World Tour,” (which he admits “was mostly a trip to Israel with my father”), Bauman will be touring the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore this year on his “Gold Standard World Tour.”
I spoke to Bauman about the comedy in his economics and the economics in his comedy.
What came first, the economics or the funny?
The economics came first. I went to graduate school, and the funny didn’t start until my Mankiw parody. I wrote it in 2001, and it got published in a