Join us to discover how design thinking can revolutionize economics for the 21st century. Learn about the Institute for Economic Evolution's three tenets of design economics and meet the pioneering thinkers who are shaping this approach. From challenging economic orthodoxy to creating human-centered solutions, explore how design economics is evolving economics to better serve humanity and the environment.
Veronica Pesantes: Artist-Built Economies; Pooling, Sharing, Collecting Together
Veronica Pesantes's contribution to a Prazzle feature on women in the art world named something Vinny had been circling for years: the decades of artistic work deferred by talented people who took a traditional career instead. Veronica is an art writer, curator, and cultural strategist who has spent nearly forty years in art, from museum education at the Guggenheim to bylines in ARTnews. She's the founder of Miami Art Hang, an education program that places Miami's artists and galleries in front of the city's growing international population, turning interest into patronage and collecting. Veronica argues that recognition in the art world arrives either straight out of an MFA program or when retirement allows the work, with almost nothing in between. Over three centuries, economics has operated with an underlying myth, observed by Adam Smith, that selling a beautiful talent amounted to "a sort of public prostitution," and that assumption still shapes who can afford to make art. Their conversation explores what that costs, and how artists and collectors are pooling money, sharing studios, and building the patronage the market never provided.
Guest Links
Veronica Pesantes on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronica-pesantes-vallejo-59219192/)
Art Hang, her Substack (https://elportalbyverosantes.substack.com/)
Miami Art Hang on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/miamiarthang/)
Outlaw Paper: Sandy Rodriguez's Resistance Map of Gulf of Mexico (https://uslaf.org/essay/outlaw-paper-sandy-rodriguez/), US Latinx Art Forum
Sandy Rodriguez at the Ringling (https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/sandy-rodriguez-ringling-museum-of-art-exhibition-1234746496/), Veronica's ARTnews piece
The Art World, According to Women (https://www.prazzlearts.com/editorial/the-art-world-according-to-women-10-voices-on-what-still-needs-to-change), Prazzle
Referenced in this episode
Commissioner (https://www.commissioner.us/); Supporting artists, collecting art. Together.
Fiber Artists Miami Association (https://www.fiberartists-miamiassociation.com/) (FAMA)
Collective 62 (https://thecollective62.com/); Art Studios is an independent art space devoted to creation outside of the traditional circuits of art.
Art Thinking, book by Amy Whitaker (https://bookshop.org/p/books/art-thinking-how-to-carve-out-creative-space-in-a-world-of-schedules-budgets-and-bosses-amy-whitaker/35d9773c8a428ebd?ean=9780062358271&bkshp-astro=t)
Referenced Design Economics Podcast Episodes
Episode 19: Misty Heggeness on Swiftynomics (https://designeconomics.io/episodes/ep-19-misty-heggeness-swiftynomics-taylor-swift-the-women-economics-ignored)
Episode 7: Thaddeus Squire on fiscal sponsorship (https://designeconomics.io/episodes/ep-1-6-fiscal-sponsorship-management-commons-with-thaddeus-squire)
Click here to view the episode transcript. (https://share.transistor.fm/s/2439da45/transcript)
★ Support this podcast ★ (https://www.evolveeconomics.org/donate/)
8 Sept 2026
EP 22 Caroline Shenaz Hossein: Credit & Community; The Banker Ladies' Way
When Vinny discovered Caroline Shenaz Hossein's The Banker Ladies in audiobook format, he had found something rare: rigorous scholarship on Black cooperative economics that's accessible beyond the academy. Caroline is a Canada Research Chair in Africana Development & Feminist Political Economy and Full Professor of Global Development & Political Economy at the University of Toronto, founder of the Diverse Solidarity Economies Collective, and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada. For over fifteen years, she's researched ROSCAs, rotating savings and credit associations, informal banking systems used by over 200 million people globally. In the Caribbean and around the world, this type of mutual aid is celebrated. Yet in North America and Europe, these systems are criminalized, and their operators stigmatized. Their conversation explores what determines who's allowed to organize money, why established financial technologies are treated as innovations when commercial banks copy them, what citational justice means across sectors, and how making these systems visible transforms who we recognize as economic experts.
Guest Links
Africana Economics / DISE Collective (https://africanaeconomics.com)
DISE Socials: LinkedIn (https://linkedin.com/company/africana-economics/%20https://instagram.com/africana_economies%20https://bsky.app/profile/africanaeconomics.bsky.social), Instagram (https://instagram.com/africana_economies), Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/africanaeconomics.bsky.social)
Caroline's Socials: LinkedI (https://linkedin.com/in/carolinehossein/)n, Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/carolinehossein.bsky.social), Instagram, (https://instagram.com/ladyshenaz) TikTok (https://tiktok.com/@profhossein)
Referenced in this episode
The Banker Ladies film (Films for Action (https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-banker-ladies/))
The Banker Ladies book (University of Toronto Press (https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487557034))
ROSCA Network Canada (https://www.ontario.coop/the-rosca-network)
Community Economies Research Network (https://www.communityeconomies.org/)
Collective Courage (https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09750-3.html?srsltid=AfmBOopy0EXtIhZGu5B571t101bgc2dTZE0MT1RsNyTCE-PmTKmYK-_V), book by Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Click here to view the episode transcript. (https://share.transistor.fm/s/a55ddb26/transcript)
★ Support this podcast ★ (https://www.evolveeconomics.org/donate/)
17 Aug 2026
EP 21 Jody Levison-Johnson: Five & Rising; The Economy's Unfunded Engine
When Vinny came across Jody Levison-Johnson's Forbes piece arguing that the social sector deserves to be treated as an economic engine, he reached out. That conversation became this episode. Jody is President and CEO of Social Current, a national network of nearly 1,800 human service organizations, and the founder of Five & Rising, a movement to revalue, reframe, and rebuild how the social sector is funded and supported. Together they trace how a sector representing 5.3% of U.S. GDP has been systematically funded like a workaround, what it would take to change that, and why getting there matters for every community.
Guest Links
Five & Rising (https://www.fiveandrising.org)
Social Current (https://www.socialcurrent.org)
Jody on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodylevisonjohnson/)
Social Current on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/socialcurrentnews)
Referenced in this episode
UnCharitable Film (https://uncharitablemovie.com/)
Dan Pallotta TED Talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong)
Independent Sector (https://independentsector.org/)
Click here to view the episode transcript. (https://share.transistor.fm/s/58737b1b/transcript)
★ Support this podcast ★ (https://www.evolveeconomics.org/donate/)
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