Podcast appearances and mentions of alberto alesina

Thomas Drechsel is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maryland. He joins David on Macro Musings to talk about the political pressure on the Fed and the new ways to measure monetary policy shocks. Thomas and David also discuss fiscal and monetary dominance, the impact of political pressure on inflation, why we should care about central bank independence, and more.   Transcript for this week's episode.   Thomas's website Thomas's Twitter: @td_econ   David Beckworth's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth Follow us on Twitter: @Macro_Musings   Check out our new AI chatbot: the Macro Musebot! Join the new Macro Musings Discord server!   Join the Macro Musings mailing list! Check out our Macro Musings merch!   Related Links:   *Estimating the Effects of Political Pressure on the Fed: A Narrative Approach with New Data* by Thomas Drechsel   *Identifying Monetary Policy Shocks: A Natural Language Approach* by S. Boragan Aruoba and Thomas Drechsel   *Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence* by Alberto Alesina and Lawrence Summers   *Narrative Sign Restrictions for SVARs* by Juan Antolin-Diaz and Juan Rubio-Ramirez   *Threats to Central Bank Independence: High-Frequency Indentifcation with Twitter* by Francesco Bianchi, Thilo Kind, and Howard Kung   *A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications* by Christina Romer and David Romer   Timestamps:   (00:00:00) – Intro   (00:04:47) – Why Should We Care About Central Bank Independence?   (00:08:01) – Fiscal and Monetary Dominance   (00:12:41) – Estimating the Effects of Political Pressure on the Fed   (00:27:14) – Breaking Down the Research Results   (00:36:46) – The Impact of Political Pressure on Inflation   (00:43:07) – Identifying Monetary Policy Shocks: Background, Methodology, and Results   (00:59:45) – Outro

Jon Hartley and Edward Glaeser discuss the latter's seminal work on urban economics, zoning, land use regulation, and economic growth. They also discuss industrial policy, the important role of human capital and education in economic growth, as well as why crime has rebounded in recent years. Recorded on August 26, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Edward L. Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught economic theory and urban economics since 1992. He also leads the Urban Economics Working Group at the National Bureau of Economics Research, co-leads the Cities Programme of the International Growth Centre, and co-edits the Journal of Urban Economics. He has written hundreds of papers on cities, infrastructure and other topics, and has written, co-written and co-edited many books including Triumph of the City, Survival of the City (with David Cutler) and Fighting Poverty in the U.S. and Europe: A World of Difference (with Alberto Alesina). Ed has served as director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and chair of Harvard's Economics Department. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the Econometric Society. He received the Albert O. Hirschman prize from the Social Science Research Council. He earned his A.B. from Princeton University in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1992.    Jon Hartley is a Research Associate at the Hoover Institution and an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, where he specializes in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is also currently a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jon is also a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and serves as chair of the Economic Club of Miami. Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as well as in various policy roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, US Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.  Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC, and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. ABOUT THE SERIES: Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics. For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/ RELATED RESOURCES: Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward Glaeser  Survival of the City: The Future of Urban Life In An Age of Isolation by Edward Glaeser and David Cutler 

Explanations for the 20th century increase in secessionism. According to University of California, Santa Barbara, political scientist Bridget L Coggins, there are four potential explanations in the academic literature for the drastic increase in state birth during the 20th century: Ethnonational mobilization – Ethnic minorities have been increasingly mobilized to pursue states of their own. Institutional empowerment – The growing inability of empires and ethnic federations to maintain colonies and member states. Relative strength – Increasingly powerful secessionist movements are more likely to achieve statehood. Negotiated consent – Home states and the international community increasingly consent to secessionist demands. Other scholars have linked secession to resource discoveries and extraction. David B. Carter, H. E. Goemans and Ryan Griffiths find that border changes among states tend to conform to borders for previous administrative units. Several scholars have argued that changes in the international system have made it easier to survive and prosper as a small state. Tanisha Fazal and Ryan Griffiths link increased numbers of secessions to an international system that is more favorable for new states. For example, new states can obtain assistance from international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the United Nations. Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore argue that greater levels of free trade and peace have reduced the benefits of being part of a larger state, thus motivating nations within larger states to seek secession. Woodrow Wilson's proclamations on self-determination in 1918 created a surge in secessionist demands. Rights to secession. Most sovereign states do not recognize the right to self-determination through secession in their constitutions. Many expressly forbid it. However, there are several existing models of self-determination through greater autonomy and through secession. In liberal constitutional democracies the principle of majority rule has dictated whether a minority can secede. In the United States Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that secession might be possible through amending the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court in Texas v White held secession could occur "through revolution, or through consent of the States". The British Parliament in 1933 held that Western Australia could secede from the Commonwealth of Australia only upon vote of a majority of the country as a whole; the previous two-thirds majority vote for secession via referendum in Western Australia was insufficient. The Chinese Communist Party followed the Soviet Union in including the right of secession in its 1931 constitution in order to entice ethnic nationalities and Tibet into joining. However, the Party eliminated the right to secession in later years, and had anti-secession clause written into the Constitution before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma contained an express state right to secede from the union under a number of procedural conditions. It was eliminated in the 1974 constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (officially the "Union of Myanmar"). Burma still allows "local autonomy under central leadership". As of 1996, the constitutions of Austria, Ethiopia, France, and Saint Kitts and Nevis have express or implied rights to secession. Switzerland allows for the secession from current and the creation of new cantons. In the case of proposed Quebec separation from Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 ruled that only both a clear majority of the province and a constitutional amendment confirmed by all participants in the Canadian federation could allow secession. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/law-school/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/law-school/support

Comprar en Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QCwihT Javier Garabal es Consultor e Inversor en Innovación Digital y en esta entrevista, nos explica por qué tenemos leer este libro si queremos crecer. Biografía del autor Johan Norberg (Estocolmo, 1973) es escritor, conferenciante y autor de documentales. Es miembro del Cato Institute de Washington D. C. y del Centre for International Political Economy de Bruselas. Ha publicado más de veinte libros que se han traducido a veinticinco idiomas. Progreso (Deusto, 2017) fue un bestseller internacional que The Economist consideró libro del año. Además, se han publicado en español En defensa del capitalismo global (Unidad Editorial, 2005) y Fiasco Financiero: Cómo la obsesión de los americanos por la propiedad inmobiliaria y el dinero fácil causó la crisis económica (Unidad Editorial, 2015). Norberg escribe habitualmente para medios como The Wall Street Journal, Reason y HuffPost. Diego Sánchez de la Cruz es uno de los analistas económicos más influyentes de España. Dirige el think tank Foro Regulación Inteligente y es investigador asociado del Instituto de Estudios Económicos. Escribe a diario en Libre Mercado y colabora frecuentemente con diferentes medios de prensa, radio y televisión. Además, imparte docencia en varias universidades como la Universidad Camilo José Cela o la IE Business School. Es autor de Por qué soy liberal (Deusto, 2017) y ha traducido al español las obras de destacados autores internacionales tales como Johan Norberg, Alberto Alesina o Robert J. Shiller. Las malas noticias son omnipresentes en las televisiones, los periódicos y las conversaciones. Sea por razones económicas, políticas o debido a catástrofes naturales, parece que nuestro mundo va cada vez peor. Sin embargo, eso no es cierto. El progreso que la humanidad ha experimentado en las últimas décadas ha sido asombroso y no tiene precedentes. Y así lo demuestra el detallado examen que Johan Norberg hace en este libro de las cifras oficiales de organizaciones internacionales como Naciones Unidas, el Banco Mundial o la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Nuestra percepción puede decirnos que todo va mal, pero los datos indican que el mundo mejora y que lo hace, en muchas ocasiones, para aquellos que se encuentran en un peor punto de partida: en casi todos los rincones del mundo la gente vive más años, con mayor prosperidad, más seguridad y mejor salud. Por supuesto, ni todos los problemas han sido resueltos ni todas las partes del mundo pueden compartir este optimismo. Pero en la mayoría de los casos sabemos, al menos, qué herramientas pueden ayudarnos; muchas veces, una tecnología tan simple como la que permite el acceso al agua potable y sistemas de fontanería domésticos puede marcar una enorme diferencia. La educación y la nutrición son también claves y constituyen indicadores que mejoran. Nada debería hacernos pensar, en consecuencia, que el mundo del futuro va a ser peor que el actual. De hecho, y como nos recuerda Norberg en las páginas de este libro, vivimos en la mejor época de la humanidad.

Episode #25 - partie 2 Suite et fin de l'entretien avec François Facchini, économiste, professeur agrégé des universités à Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, spécialiste mondialement reconnu des politiques publiques, des dépenses qui en résultent et de leur financement. Nous parlons avec lui des facteurs qui ont amené les dépenses de l'Etat et des administrations à prendre une place dominante dans l'économie française, au risque de l'écraser de mettre en péril les générations futures. Interview et production par Pierre Schweitzer. Ce podcast est réalisé pour Contrepoints. Vous pouvez soutenir ce travail en faisant un don Programme : 00:46 - Intérêt général transcendant ou immanent ? 05:38 - Les problèmes engendrés par une forte dépense publique 11:23 - Plus de dépense publique égal plus de prospérité ? 19:00 - Les coûts de la défense de la liberté et de l'égalité : modèle de Scully 23:03 - La proportion de dépense publique peut-elle augmenter indéfiniment ? 26:32 - Débat sur la "monnaie hélicoptère" 31:45 - Réformer l'Etat : un investissement rentable ? 36:43 - Qui veut encore réduire la dépense publique en 2022 ? 39:03 - Quelles leçons seront tirées de la crise économique qui s'annonce ? Pour aller plus loin : - "Les dépenses publiques en France" (F. Facchini, De Boeck Supérieur, 2021) - Articles de François Facchini dans le Journal des Libertés - Les coûts de la défense de la liberté-égalité : modèle de Scully - Peter Bernholz sur les limites extrêmes du niveau de dépense publique - Harold Demsetz et les incitations imparfaites dans le secteur public - Alberto Alesina et la notion d'austérité expansive - La notion de « préférence temporelle » - Christian Bjoernskov (économiste danois spécialisé dans les choix publics) Pour nous contacter : podcast@contrepoints.org pierre.schweitzer@liberaux.org http://www.contrepoints.org

Capire l'economia è una serie di 23 dvd coordinata da Odifreddi per Repubblica e L'Espresso, e pubblicata tra il 28 dicembre 2012 e il 31 maggio 2013. Al piano dell'opera hanno partecipato Alberto Alesina, Giuliano Amato (ex presidente del Consiglio), Robert Aumann (premio Nobel 2005), Giorgio Barba Navaretti, Alberto Bisin, Tito Boeri, Valerio Castronovo, Noam Chomsky, Marco Dardi, Alessandro De Nicola, Giorgio Lunghini, Robert Merton (premio Nobel 1997), Robert Mundell (premo Nobel 1999), Alessandro Penati, Romano Prodi (ex presidente del Consiglio e della Comunità Europea), Fabio Ranchetti, Alessandro Roncaglia, Fabiano Schivardi, Amartya Sen (premio Nobel 1998), Michael Spence (premio Nobel 2001), Gianni Toniolo e Luigi Zingales. Oltre allo stesso Odifreddi, che ha effettuato l'intervento di questo episodio. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vito-rodolfo-albano7/message

O convidado é professor de políticas públicas na Universidade de Leiden, Holanda. Especializa-se no estudo das políticas de mercado de trabalho, imigraçao e estado social nos países europeus. Está actualmente a escrever um livro para a Oxford University Press sobre o modo como as politicas de imigração e de Estado Social em cada país interagem entre si. -> Apoie este projecto e faça parte da comunidade de mecenas do 45 Graus em: 45graus.parafuso.net/apoiar Começámos precisamente sobre este tema, um assunto com interesse para compreender a História de cada país, mas também para explicar actualidade política, visto que a coexistência entre o aumento da imigração no passado recente e a existência de Estados Sociais generosos dos países europeus é provavelmente um dos motivos que explicam a ascensão do populismo na última década.  Este tema levou-nos a discutir os partidos da direita radical na Europa e o caso particular do Chega. De seguida, abordámos outra área de investigação do convidado: a análise comparada das instituições do mercado de trabalho entre países europeus. O mercado de trabalho é sempre um tema quente em Portugal, com uns a dizerem que é demasiado liberalizado e outros que é demasiado rígido. O convidado tem sobre isto um ponto de vista que me ajudou a perceber um aspecto que me intrigava há muito...  O Alexandre é filho de portugueses, mas nasceu e viveu sempre fora do país. Vão notar, por isso, que o português não é a sua língua mãe, mas, diria, safa-se muitíssimo bem. Aproveitando esta peculiaridade -- um português que vê e viu sempre o país a partir de fora -- aproveitei também, mesmo no final, para lhe perguntar como é que um cientista político com estas características olha a sociedade e a política portuguesas. A  resposta foi muito interessante.  _______________ Índice da conversa: (2:21) Como é que as políticas de imigração dos países e a dimensão do Estado Social se têm influenciado mutuamente? | Tese de ALberto Alesina sobre os EUA | George Borjas e os “Welfare magnets” | Sondagem a imigrantes sobre ES mais generoso | Tese de Milton Friedman | Limitar o acesso ao Estado social (23:21) Relação com o Populismo. Tese de Yascha Mounk | Experiência de mencionar o Estado Social | Como foi a transferência do eleitorado operário da esquerda para a direita radical? (32:52) A inflexão da agenda dos partidos da direita radical na viragem do século. | Herbert Kitschelt e a antiga direita radical (35:46) O caso do Chega. Paper do convidado. (40:46) O desafio para os partidos da direita radical quando são governo (45:25) A verdadeira rigidez do mercado de trabalho em Portugal -- e porque não basta olhar para a letra da lei | Indicador da OCDE  (52:17) O nível elevado de participação das mulheres no mercado de trabalho em PT. Origens históricas. | Geert Hofstede | Efeito da liberalização do mercado de trabalho sobre desigualdade  (1:01:10) Como olha um cientista político para PT a partir de fora? Confiança interpessoal (capital social). Episódio Pedro Magalhães. Efeitos na política. (1:08:50) Sugestão: Didier https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17895842-returning-to-reims _______________ Obrigado aos mecenas do podcast: Julie Piccini, Ana Raquel Guimarães Miguel van Uden, José LuÍs Malaquias, João Ribeiro, Francisco Hermenegildo, Nuno e Ana, Nuno Costa, Galaró family, Salvador Cunha, JoÃo Baltazar, Miguel Marques, Corto Lemos, Carlos Martins, Tiago Leite Luis, Maria Pimentel, Rui Amorim, RB, Pedro Frois Costa, Gabriel Sousa, Mário Lourenço, Arune Bhuralal, Isabel Oliveira, Ana Teresa Mota, Filipe Bento Caires, Luí­s Costa, Manuel Martins, Diogo Sampaio Viana, Francisco Fonseca, João Nelas, Tiago Queiroz, Ricardo Duarte, António Padilha, Rita Mateus, Daniel Correia, João Saro, Tomás Costa Rui Baldaia, Joana Margarida Alves Martins, Luis Marques, Hugo Correia, Duarte , Francisco Vasconcelos, Telmo , Jose Pedroso, MANNA Porto, José Proença, Carlos Manuel Lopes de Magalhães Lima, Maria Francisca Couto, joana Antunes, Nelson Poças, Francisco López Bermúdez, Carlos Silveira, Diogo Rombo, Bruno Lamas, Fábio Mota, Vítor Araújo, João Pereira, Francisco Valente, Nuno Balsas, Jorge Amorim, Rui Vilão, João Ferreira, Luís Elias, José Losa, Hélder Moreira, Diogo Fonseca, Frederico Apolónia, André Abrantes, Henrique Vieira, João Farinha, Paulo Fernandes, Nuno Lages, João Diamantino, Vasco SÁ Pinto, Rui Carrilho, Luis Quelhas Valente, Tiago Pires, Mafalda Pratas, Renato Vasconcelos, João Raimundo, Francisco Arantes, Francisco dos Santos, Mariana Barosa, Marta Baptista Coelho, João Castanheira, Pedro , rodrigo Brazão, Nuno Gonçalves, Pedro Rebelo, Tomás Félix, Vasco Lima, Joao Pinto, João Moreira, José Oliveira Pratas, João Diogo Silva, Marco Coelho, Joao Diogo, Francisco Aguiar , Tiago Costa da Rocha, João Crispim, Paulo dos Santos, Abílio Mateus, João Pinho , Andrea Grosso, Miguel Lamela, Margarida Gonçalves, Afonso Martins, João Barbosa, Luis Filipe, Renato Mendes, António Albuquerque, Francisco Santos, juu-san, Fernando Sousa, Pedro Correia, MacacoQuitado, Paulo Ferreira, Gabriela, Nuno Almeida, Francisco Manuel Reis, Daniel Almeida, Albino Ramos, Inês Patrão, Patrícia Esquível , Diogo Silva, Miguel Mendes, Luis Gomes, Ana Batista, Alberto Santos Silva, Cesar Correia, Susana Ladeiro, Gil Batista Marinho, Filipe Melo, Cheila Bhuralal, Bruno Machado, Miguel Palhas, isosamep, Robertt , Pedro F. Finisterra, Cristiano Tavares, Pedro Vieira, Jorge Soares, Maria Oliveira, Bruno Amorim Inácio, Nuno , Wedge, Pedro Brito, Manuel Botelho da Silva, Ricardo Leitão, Vítor Filipe, João Bastos, Natália Ribeiro, Bernardo Pimentel, Pedro Gaspar, Hugo Domingues _______________ Esta conversa foi editada por: Hugo Oliveira _______________ Bio: Alexandre Afonso é professor associado de políticas públicas na Universidade de Leiden, Holanda. Especializa-se no estudo do mercado de trabalho, da imigraçao e do estado social na Europa. Antes de ingressar na Universidade de Leiden University,  foi professor assistente no Departamento de Economia Política do King's College de Londres, investigador no Instituto Max Planck para o Estudo das Sociedades em Colônia, no Instituto Universitário Europeu em Florença e na Universidade de Amsterdão. Concluio o seu doutoramento na Universidade de Lausanne (Suíça) em junho de 2010. E lusodescendente e cresceu na Suiça. Fala francês, inglês, português, alemão, italiano e holandês. Alem de publicaçoes em varias revistas cientificas, escreveu para o Washington Post, o Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Daily Telegraph, CNN e Jacobin, entre outros. Actualmente, está a escrever um livro sobre politicas de imigraçao e o estado social para a Oxford University Press.

Cos'è l'austerità? Ne parlano Simone Villani e Matteo Fatale con il professor Carlo Favero, coautore del libro insieme a Francesco Giavazzi e Alberto Alesina. Si parte dalle definizioni principali e dalla storia del debito pubblico italiano, così da comprendere a pieno in che modo siamo arrivati ad un livello di indebitamento insostenibile alle porte della crisi dei debiti sovrani. Si citano poi una serie di casi storici di austerità, con una parte tecnica sui moltiplicatori e sui vari tipi di austerità: basata sul taglio della spesa pubblica o basata sull'aumento delle tasse. In conclusione viene poi trattata la situazione dei conti pubblici italiani e greci durante il periodo più critico della crisi. ----------------------------

GrowthChat is a podcast on the social and cultural journey of humankind, hosted by Marco Lecci and Sascha O. Becker. In this episode we chat with Paola Giuliano about her paper​ "On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough”. Paola and her co-authors, Alberto Alesina and Nathan Nunn, study the historical origins of existing cross-cultural differences in beliefs and values regarding the appropriate role of women in society. They test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labor and the evolution of gender norms. They authors find that the descendants of societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture today have less equal gender norms, measured using reported gender-role attitudes and female participation in the workplace, politics, and entrepreneurial activities.

There is a growing body of empirical evidence that points toward the important, long-term effects that historic events can have on economic development, and today's guest, Dr. Nathan Nunn, is major player in this area of research. Dr. Nunn is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and his research ranges across development economics, political economy, economic history, and other areas, especially focusing on the long-term impact of historical processes on economic development today, often mediated through factors like culture, social structures, norms, and institutions. In this episode, Dr. Nunn shares his views on Canada's response to COVID, his critique of foreign aid tied to the strategic interests of the donor country, and shares the case for unconditional cash transfers or universal basic income instead of foreign aid. He explains the link between food aid and civil conflict, the benefits of industrial policy, and his thoughts on a devolution of authority, as well as urbanization in Africa, the correlation between the slave trade and mistrust in Africa, and the effect of corruption on culture. Dr. Nunn also takes a deep-dive into group level selection and competition, the long-term impacts of mining versus plantation farming in Africa, and why he believes that it's impossible to understand development without history, and he also includes some suggested reading for grad students outside of economics. Tune in today to find out more! Key Points From This Episode: •   The current projects Dr. Nunn is working on, specifically a review called History as Evolution. •   Why Dr. Nunn believes Canada's response to COVID has been better than that of the US. •   Dr. Nunn's critique of foreign aid when it's tied to the strategic interests of the donor country. •   The case for unconditional cash transfers or universal basic income – low overheads, simplicity, it allows people the most choice. •   Some issues and concerns when aid or food aid is tied to politics, like increased civil conflict. •   Thoughts on industrial policy and its benefits, such as alleviating the poverty trap. •   Dr. Nunn shares his take on the benefits of the devolution of authority to a local or city level. •   When smaller units have autonomy, through trial and error, it results in positive externalities. •   Dr. Nunn comments on ruggedness and rapid urbanization versus economic rationale in Africa in response to the slave trade. •   Why Africa isn't seeing the same improvements that accompany urbanization elsewhere. •   Dr. Nunn describes the paper he coauthored with Leonard Wantchekon on the correlation between the slave trade and mistrust in Africa. •   How correlations between trust and urbanization or education have not been proven. •   Dr. Nunn's predictions for trust levels in the US, based on contact hypothesis and immigration. •   How cultural norms are shaped in individuals from countries with higher or lower corruption. •   Dr. Nunn talks about some of his colleagues, like Leonard Wantchekon and Melissa Dell. •   The long-term impacts of mining versus plantation farming in Africa. •   Why Dr. Nunn strongly believes that it's impossible to understand development without history. •   Anthropologists or sociologists that have informed Dr. Nunn's work or been impactful and how. •   Dr. Nunn explains how learning about anthropology and evolutionary anthropology benefitted his research in development economics. •   Some valuable lessons that Dr. Nunn learned from the late, great institutional and political economist, Alberto Alesina. Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: https://twitter.com/drnathannunn?lang=en (Dr. Nathan Support this podcast

Garett Jones is one of the smartest people I have ever talked to - and he is at his usual brilliant best in this conversation. We started by trying to see how his latest book fit into the context of less developed countries with weak rule of law. I have often remarked that Garett is underrated as a development economist. I still think so.You can listen or download to the podcast on any platform of your choice (some links here), and you can also rate us here.TranscriptTobi: WeIcome to Ideas Untrapped and today I am on with economist, Garett Jones. Garett Jones is a professor of economics at George Mason University and he has written two excellent books "Hive Mind" and "10% Less Democracy". Welcome, Garett.Garett: Thanks very much for having me, Tobi.Tobi: Thinking on the margin is something I admire so much which is what you did quite well in your latest book 10% Less Democracy. Are economists just better at this than everybody else, and if yes, why?Garett: You're right. I do try to do that a lot in the book. I agree with you, Economists, I think, are better at this than other social scientists because it's just so much a part of our training. It's so normal for us to think, do you want to buy two more peanut butter sandwiches or two fewer? Should this company hire three more workers or fire two workers? So that kind of marginalist thinking which is where... the Marginal Revolution of the 19th century embodies that. Yeah, that really helps us think about big social questions in a very productive way. When I applied this to democracy what I realised it was quickly, something that a lot of people know, which is that all of the things we call democracies are a blend of democracy with oligarchy of one form or another. So getting the balance right is more important than an all-or-nothing question. All or nothing is off the table, thank goodness, but getting the blend right between insiders and outsiders, between elite and the masses, that's something that can be evaluated and fortunately, my economist friends have evaluated it. For some people, they'll quite naturally assume that democracy means an independent judiciary, the rule of law, impartial, fairly uncorrupt government. And those things are not democracy. They are good things but they are not democracy. - GJTobi: So given all the trade-offs that are involved with social decisions and reforms, how can we be better at thinking on the margins? We live in an era of protest movement where people want sweeping changes and that's not really how society works, so how can people better train themselves to be marginalist thinkers?Garett: Yeah, you're right. There aren't that many questions where we have to go all or nothing. Most policy questions can be a question of incrementalism, so I think whenever possible we should just ask ourselves 'if I can dial this up a little bit or dial this down a little bit, which would be the better way to work? Which would be the better way to move?' Whether that's thinking about whether I want my judges to have a little bit longer terms, whether I want my voters to have a little bit more information before they walk into the voting booth, whether I want a healthcare program to be available for people who are 62 rather than 65? Just thinking about it in terms of small changes helps us better evaluate...it helps the mind better weigh the benefits versus the cost of the decision. Because when we talk about revolutionary change, there are often just too many things going on for our brains to even weigh them, to even weigh the benefits, and weigh the costs. So marginalism, I think, is better suited for human minds and fortunately most, but not all, political decisions are well suited to a little more vs a little less.Tobi: I read your book, great book by the way...Garett: Thank you very much.Tobi: The writing is fantastic, I'm a big fan. In the book, I know you are applied the 10% Less Democracy framework to rich countries...Garett: Yeah.Tobi: But I've been trying to extrapolate and apply it to developing countries, and one thing I noticed (you can shed more light on this) is, sometimes it feels like low-income and middle-income countries are torn in some kind of institutional paradox. You have multilateral institutions like [the] IMF who have these prescriptions that are bureaucratic but have long-term benefits - Central Bank independence, don't manipulate the exchange rate, keep inflation low, be responsible with your budget, and all that. And on the other side of that, you have think tanks, aid agencies and other foundations (who are also interested in development and give it advice) who seem to favour radical democratisation of everything, basically. So what do you think, as a policymaker, as a voter in a low and middle-income country, how best to approach this paradox on a mental level?Garett: I think a message that I bring up early on in the book is that most of the clear benefits of democracy come from a moderate level of democracy. As Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate who showed that if you want to avoid famines, what you need is democracy. In modern times there's never been a famine as he defines it in a functioning democracy. But his measure for functioning democracy is a pretty basic one. It's competitive elections and a free press. And that's not too hard a standard for a lot of countries to meet and more countries are meeting it now than they were meeting it, of course, three decades ago though, perhaps, less than a couple of years ago. So if you're pushing for democratisation, I think we should draw on the best evidence we have for what it is, what kind of democracy we need to get the benefits of democracy, and that seems to be a moderate level. Also, there is a lot of lazy talk about democracy where people stuff all of the good things they like into the word democracy. For some people, they'll quite naturally assume that democracy means an independent judiciary, the rule of law, impartial, fairly uncorrupt government. And those things are not democracy. They are good things but they are not democracy. So I think just clearly speaking about what it is that you want is valuable because we realised quickly that the things we like out of modern so-called democracies are a blend of the rule of the people and the rule of insiders, with a third thing that I don't talk much about in the book directly but the rule of law - the impartial rule of law, a bureaucracy that just operates on its own according to [the] rules that have been around for a long time. That is undemocratic and it seems to be very useful. So simply talking clearly about what it is we want in a reform and is this valuable reform truly about the voice of the people or is it more about something like an independent bureaucracy? That would help us get away from this lazy jargon of calling everything good democratic.Tobi: You also discussed the relationship between democracy and growth in your book and you conclude that the evidence is a bit of a muddle. What I was thinking when I was reading that part, I thought about Chile...Garett: Uh-huhTobi: And one of the famous examples when economists and some other thinkers discuss Chile is to look at GDP growth from the Pinochet years and the democratic years, and then they conclude that, oh, GDP growth is higher after Pinochet and hence democracy is better. But again, if you look at that history a bit, you'll see that there were some things, though they weren't palatable and I'm not saying I prefer autocracies here or anything...there were some hard reforms that Pinochet pushed through that clearly had benefits even during the Chilean democracy. One such rule was the inability of the parliament to hike the budget. You either cut it low or you pass it as it is which introduced a lot of fiscal responsibility in the budgeting process. So what do you think is responsible for this muddle in the evidence in the relationship between democracy and growth? Why can't we get a really clear picture?Garett: A big problem is the real-life fact which is just that a lot of autocrats do a terrible job. They come into power and they make the place worse off. So some autocrats come to power and appear to make the country better off, or at least, it predicts better performance and other autocrats come into power and things get worse. So when we stop looking at individual anecdotes and when we pull them together and do something rigorous and statistical, the evidence that autocrats are more likely to create great reforms looked pretty weak. There are plenty of anecdotes, right? We can call them case studies where autocrats are associated with and may have put into place things that look like good pro-growth reforms. Pinochet gets a lot of credit for this kind of stories but also Park Chung-hee of South Korea. The problem is that (a) we don't have a great counterfactual (b) maybe they just got lucky. And that's why using rigorous cross-country comparisons is more useful than individual case studies and when we do that, it's very hard to find evidence that either democracy causes growth or that an autocrat taking over causes growth. It's too much of a coin flip to recommend any particular policy if our goal in choosing a government is economic growth. So this is why we should stick to the things where we have better evidence and so these big changes - autocrat in charge versus free press multi-party democracy, there there's a muddle. That's the reason why the framing in my book 10% Less Democracy is about smaller changes where we have better identified better causal stories with better testings like independent central banks, independent judges. We have more evidence for the small things than we do for the big things.Thinking in marginalist terms is important but also good public education really can improve policy if we teach true important economic ideas to people - GJTobi: Looking at this really well, is it really about voter control? Because I imagine the issues are different, for example, I think voters care a lot about Central Bank independence than, say, a national minimum wage for example. So isn't the case that in some situations or on some issues, again, sticking with Central Bank independence, politicians adjust ill-informed or ignorant and they're not necessarily responding to voter preference?Garett: That's a great point. It's always a good idea to wonder whether the politicians themselves are poorly informed and they don't have an incentive to be very well-informed on most policy issues. A friend of mine had a conversation with the prominent United States politician who I won't name and this person said...the elected official said 'my job isn't to understand all the details of the policy, that's what my staff job is. My job is to keep track of all of the other members of Congress and find out how to cut deals with them.' So their real specialty is deal-making, deal cutting. They don't know that much about the detail of policy. So you are right that basically part of the problem is that the politicians themselves don't know that much, but they need to know enough to be able to pick someone who's good to run some of these things. So running [knowing] someone who is competent to run an independent central bank, it's kind of a hard job but you can outsource that to some staff; and if you're worried about things working pretty well for a long time, then you'll task your staff with picking somebody who seems like a pretty good candidate who won't cause much trouble and who will make the economy look pretty good before the electorate. So this idea that elected officials don't know that much themselves but they do have an incentive to get some things right when they know they're going to be held accountable by the voters.Tobi: But again, wouldn't less democracy, at least, in some cases lead to populist backlash? I mean, we're seeing that with Brexit...Garett: Oh, yes.Tobi: Some part of the American polity is also in that mode. The EU is a very good example where some British voters say 'oh, we are not going to be subjected to Brussels' rule'. There's a case of Africa, also, where people respond quite negatively to what they perceive as external technocratic interventions. So wouldn't less democracy run a risk of populism in the long-term?Garett: Actually, that's a great point and it's the one that I literally never discussed in the book - it's the idea of a populist backlash. Because it's one of these things that is important and too hard to quantify. The risk of a populist backlash to 10% Less Democracy is a little bit like the risk of a doctor being reluctant to give someone tough advice about diet and exercise because the person just might not come to the doctor anymore. So this is an important question - when should informed people, when should people who are relative experts just not push that hard for the best solution because they are afraid the patient won't take the medicine? In a way that's part of the reason I stick to 10% Less Democracy. I just want people to think about a little bit longer term, a little bit more independent Central Bank because I think these things are less likely to provoke that kind of backlash. But, you're right. But know this, to the extent you're right, this should tell us something about the cost of democracy - if one of the costs of democracy is that voters don't want things that are actually good for the voters, this should be part of our understanding [of] what democracy really is. If the problem is that the voters don't want to take advice that's just some person's opinion, 'ok, well, who cares?' Voters shouldn't have to listen to some person's random opinion. But if voters don't want to take [a] medicine that's actually good for the voters themselves, that should be part of our understanding of one of the weaknesses of democracy and something we should try to find a solution to. Maybe it's the solutions I present in my book, maybe it should be something else, but understanding the weaknesses of modern democracy is important to improving it.Tobi: A good illustration of that point is trade policy. I was just reading Matthew Klein and Michael Pettis's book where they basically say that trade wars are class wars.Garett: Uh-huh.Tobi: It's a reaction. And also it's a tactic for politicians to whip up voter sentiments and possibly win votes. How can people, again, I'm quite interested especially on the key issues that matters like central banking, like trade policy... things that affect the welfare and long-term prosperity, how can voters be a lot more informed to know that taking the choices out of my hands does not really mean I'm being oppressed?Garett: Yeah. This is really an important question. Part of it is that there is some evidence that just education in schools really changes people's minds. So when my colleague Bryan Caplan - he wrote a great book Myth of the Rational Voter, and he wrote a follow-up article where he looked at whether education or IQ scores were better predictors of pro-market attitudes. And he found that particularly on free trade, there was evidence that education itself, years of education was a better predictor of pro-trade attitudes than IQ. This is a signal and it's a reminder of something that made a lot of us believe which is that one of the things you learn in school is that people in other countries are good and, sometimes, they are great people and you should care about them. Also, you might learn some complicated ideas like the benefits of free trade. So education that is focused on teaching true and important facts about public policy, I think, can be a big part of this. But there is another element, another solution is just that we should think like a marginalist and go up the marginal cost curve. Push for a little less populism on topics where the voters aren't going to resist as much. Voters around the world have been pretty cool comparatively speaking with independent central banks - letting neutral banks lend out money and respond to financial crisis, (and) I think people can kind of understand why that's better than having one political party trying to lend to its buddies all the time. So, yeah, thinking in marginalist terms is important but also good public education really can improve policy if we teach true important economic ideas to people.Tobi: Let's let's go of the cuff a bit. Why did East Asia converge faster than the rest of the developing world?Garett: This is a great question. I mean part of it you could say that they actually had pretty high levels of productivity before say about 1800. This is part of what the deep roots literature shows, of Putterman and Weil and Bill Easterly at NYU - that, like, before 1500, before the great age of exploration, East Asia was pretty close to the technological frontier for the planet as a whole and so what's happened in the last 50 years in a way is a return to trend. That's not an answer. That's just more of a reminder that sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. But when I look for the proximate cause, something more like a proximate cause, then I turned back to my first book, Hive Mind, which is that as far back as we have data on test scores, East Asia with particular countries we had good tests on in the ’60s and early 70s - Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and soon after that Singapore - these countries were doing pretty well on standardised tests no matter how we measure it. And I think that good cognitive skills are [a] really important ingredient of being able to jump to the technological frontier, and I think that good cognitive skills are an important part of running a good competent government. Those aren't the whole story, fortunately, China's decision to turn away from communism was one of the best decisions in all of human history; that mattered a lot for well over a billion people. But the fact that as far as we can tell, test scores, human capital as currently measured was pretty high in East Asia in the sixties and early seventies, that gave them a good solid launching pad for modern prosperity.Tobi: You've hinted I think on your Twitter feed, I'm not sure anymore, that economists know the causes of long-run prosperity. What's your explanation for that?Garett: We're really good at the proximate causes, the very nearest causes. These are simple things that come from the Solow growth model. Robert Solow, [the] Nobel Laureate, just helped us think about where do GDP come from and having a lot of machines per worker, having a way for people to use them productively is really crucial. Machines aren't your enemy, they are your friend. A lot of technology isn't your enemy, it's your friend. But when we try to look one step behind that, say, why do some nations wind up with a lot more productivity and lot more capital per worker than others, then there's more debate but a lot of people would jump just straight to something like institutions. Some places have great institutions, good competent governance, neutral rule of law, and that means the capital is willing to flow from around the world to good places. I would also add on human capital however measured - whether it's years of education or test scores are both very quite robust predictors. So economists know what works and the simplest version is one I said years ago which is, have pretty high test scores and don't be communist, and you're probably going to be rich. So if a country can find a way to raise its test scores through better run schools, through better public health, and it can avoid the massive mistake of totalitarian communism, then it's got a pretty good future ahead of it.Tobi: In your view why did you choose test scores, I mean, what's the best case for cognitive ability in human capital and long-run prosperity ahead of all these other proximate causes you mentioned like institutions or geography or industrial policy and all these other factors?Garett: The simplest version is just that it's what shows up in the data when I and others have run very serious horse races. So Eric Hanushek, professor at Stanford, leading education researcher, he's found that test scores whether you call them IQ or math and science scores are very astonishingly robust predictors of national prosperity and they really beat out years of education. There's a lot of emphasis on trying to raise measured use of education but the problem is that we know that there is schooling and then there's schooling. So if you just get a diploma but nobody ever taught you anything, the schooling didn't really make you more productive. Another reason though is because of the well-known finding from psychology research which is that skills predict kills. People who are above average in math tend to be above average in verbal stuff. People who are above average at vocabulary test tend to be better at solving three-dimensional puzzles, and so for reasons that are still poorly understood there is what I call a DaVinci effect and what others call a g-factor across mental skills. So running a modern economy at a high-level involves kind of a little bit of everything. It's a little bit of a smorgasbord, it's a little bit of a casserole. It's probably unlikely to be the case that there is going to be this one simple thing that solves all the problems. What you really want is something that is equivalent of a Swiss army knife, something that's a mediocre tool for everything rather than one tool for just one thing. And cognitive skills whether you called them IQ or g or whatever seem to be this version of sort of Swiss army knife where there's a little bit of everything. So people who do better on standardised tests tend to be a little bit more patient. Groups of folks who do better on standardised tests tend to be more cooperative, they're more likely to see the invincible hand and support market-friendly policies, they are more likely to be tolerant of others who are unlike them and these are all great things for a nation. So like I said, running a modern economy near the frontier of productivity involves a lot of little things - low corruption, competent governance, foresight, voters who understand the benefits of trade; the one thing that I can get us a lot of all those little things is higher cognitive skills.Tobi: You wrote a paper a few years ago which I like very much...Garett: Thank you.Tobi: O-ring sectors and Foolproof sectors. And if I understand your model correctly (and you're welcome to set me straight here)... so thinking about this paper and this model, if I am a high-skilled worker in Nigeria, for example, overall you're saying the returns to skill for my education and my skill level is marginal compared to a low-skilled worker. But if I move to the United States of America where obviously there are a lot more high-skilled workers than in Nigeria, the returns to my skill will still be marginal but then there's this huge gains at the national level between both countries that are pretty large, can you explain how that works?Garett: Yeah, so I'm building here on the work of Michael Kremer who just won the Nobel prize last year. He wrote a great paper about the O-ring theory of economic development. He said that a lot of economic tasks in modern economies, especially the richest economies, are kind of like building a space shuttle where if you make one mistake, even in a very complex process of launching a space shuttle, the space shuttle tend to blow up killing everyone on board. This is actually why the space shuttle challenger was destroyed because of the failure of an O-ring (basically a big piece of big rubber band) that was an important part of keeping the rocket safe. So one small failure can destroy the value of an entire product, of course, that's true with a lot of things that we value like smartphones, automobile transmissions, one broken link can destroy the whole thing. Thing is that economists without even realising it, we use another model, routinely, that's not O-ring often without thinking about it - we kind of assumed that workers of different skill levels can get to be mushed together and it's nice to have skilled workers, but maybe you can throw maybe two high-skilled workers and three low-skilled workers, maybe they are perfect substitutes for each other. You know, just throw more bodies at it and eventually the job will get done, there are certainly jobs like that. So part of what I did and really my contribution in this paper, the O-ring sector and the Foolproof sector, was to say 'what if some parts of the economy work like Michael Kremer's world where things like building a space shuttle or smartphone? Not if other things are like the way economists normally think about the world, the Foolproof sector - where if you throw enough people at it eventually the job will get done.' And I said 'what if workers have to decide which of these two sectors they are going to work in?' So let me think about you as an example... high-skilled worker, and you're trying to decide what sector you're going to work in. Well, one of the great ideas in economics is that you're going to go to where the pay is highest, ignoring all the other complications for your life, and so really the net message is that there's always going to be some combination of workers balancing between the two sectors. So if low-skilled workers are superabundant and high-skilled workers are scarce, just about all of us are going to be taking on these foolproof tasks where perfection, exact precision is not crucial. And if high-skilled workers are really abundant, most of us will be working on O-ring type tasks but there will always be some of us, sort of, in-between. This helps explain why the capital goods, hi-tech goods are made in just a few places in the world and in particular, they're usually made in places where the workers are really really expensive. You would think that firms will try to find the cheapest workers possible for any task but instead hi-tech manufacturing, especially cutting-edge hi-tech manufacturing, tends to happen in countries that are pretty high wage. The only thing that can explain this, if people are rational, is that it must be critical, it must be crucial to have high-skilled workers working on those tasks. So one of the lessons of this is that lower-skilled workers can find something really useful to do in a high wage country because if they come to a high wage country, they are competing against a lot of other high-skill workers, so all they have to do is be an okay substitute for that high-skilled worker in some tasks, maybe it's mowing lawns, maybe it's doing routine legal work and all of a sudden those workers can earn a lot more than they would in their home country. So the O-ring-Foolproof paper is in a way an important message for the value of low-skilled workers in high wage countries, but it also helps explain why cutting edge, frontier technology innovation only happens in the highest skilled countries where workers are super expensive.Tobi: The national returns to skill, how does it work with these two sectors?Garett: Well, there is an element of, sometimes, the real world is more complicated than the model, and that's, of course, true here. I have to say that I suspect there is a critical mass element to high-skilled workers. For instance, if I can bring a million of Japan's best engineers to a lower-skilled country, a million of them could run a lot of fantastic factories, be great workers and end up giving a lot of great employment opportunities to lower-skilled folks, so there is this element of...outside the model of... a critical mass element. But the O-ring-Foolproof story is a reminder that high-skilled workers who are in relatively low-skilled countries are often going to be, like, unable to make use of their full potential. Being able to have an O-ring sector of your own to go work in is really where the magic happens of economic prosperity. The greatest things that are happening and the way that economic frontiers are being built is in these O-ring sectors, and, to me, it's a reminder that this is a case for the brain drain. A case that the brain drain actually helps the world as a whole. Brain drain issues are complicated and there are lots of forces pushing both ways but I want to emphasise that there is this positive element to the brain drain which is getting high-skilled workers into countries that can make great use of high-skilled workers really helps the whole world. Has Michael Clemens has pointed out, one benefit of that is that migrants who go from low-skilled to high-skilled countries send back a lot of remittances and those remittances are super valuable. I'd like to emphasise another point, which is getting those high-skilled workers from low average-skilled countries to higher average-skilled countries means that they can contribute to the growth of ideas which makes the global pie bigger.Tobi: You sort of preempted where I was going with that. There was also this essay by Michael Clemens and I think Justin Sandefur about this brain drain issue where they sort of asserted that another element to the brain drain issue that the incentive to migrate and earn more in high wage countries leads to more production of high-skilled workers even in low-wage countries. So Nigeria exports a lot of doctors to the UK, it means a lot more students would want to be doctors so that they can migrate to the UK or wherever where they can earn a lot more than they would in their home countries. Now, here is my question: isn't there a sort of negative effect to this in that their home countries get stuck in the poverty trap... a lot of these high-growth sectors never gets built and some of these countries just depend on remittances which can be pretty tricky?Garett: Yeah. This is a hard problem. Another problem with the brain drain is that it means that the government which really needs a lot of high-skilled workers to basically run competent bureaucracies and manage difficult technical questions, a lot of those folks are gone. They've gone to move to other countries where they can earn a lot more. So I don't want to pretend that the brain drain issues are simple to resolve. But I think that the point you're making, I tend to think of it as less of a problem because people are very reluctant to move. There's a lot of evidence that people are reluctant to move from their home country and they need a really big wage premium. So if things were even sort of mediocre, if there were some moderately hi-tech positions in the home country, you would have very high rates of retention. I think that's pretty clear from the evidence from the fact that people are very reluctant to move. If they can find any excuse to stay, they stay. That's speaking a little informally but I think the data backs that up. Also though, there is this element of where the threat of exit does make home countries behave a little better. The fact that some people might leave does make a home country government say: well, we want to make ourselves more inviting. If we think about what's happened in China (to give an extreme example) over the last few decades, there's been a lot of brain drain from China as Chinese graduates, high-skilled workers often, have moved to many different countries across Asia and across Europe and North America, and one of the reasons that the Chinese government wants to be somewhat open, somewhat...wants to be unlike its totalitarian past and more like [its] authoritarian present is because they want to feel like they can come back. So the threat of exit does discipline national governments in an important way that we shouldn't forget. Brain drain means it's harder to build these hi-tech sectors that you're pointing out, but a brain drain also gives those home country governments a better incentive to behave well. I think of this as a sort of Tiebout voting with your feet story which economies should always be open to, that people voting with their feet sends a very powerful message to governments and informal and formal evidence, I think, backs up that. Tobi: Can national IQ be deliberately raised on a scale that matters? I know you talked about nutrition in hive mind. Also, I look at things like assortative mating and other things but can it really happen on a scale that moves the needle on national prosperity?Garett: This is a great question. I feel like one reason I wrote Hive Mind was to get more people thinking about the very question you asked. Like, my comparative advantage is what does IQ cause rather than what causes IQ? But I believe the Flynn Effect is real. I believe [it is], at least, substantially real. The Flynn Effect is as you know, but your listeners may not, is the longtime rise intelligence scores that's been documented around the world. Public health interventions, people getting healthier and living longer lives, I think that obviously is increasing people's cognitive skills (like, the public health element has just got to be real). I'm less confident but I'm still fairly confident that good education raises cognitive skills big enough to move the needle. And the third one is this broadly cultural story which is really Flynn, I want to attribute this to Flynn himself. My colleague Tyler Cowen and I talked about this in our podcast back in January when I was on Conversations with Tyler - IQs in East Germany rose at least five points, maybe much more, in the decade or so after the end of communism. I think there are these cultural influences on intelligence that are not just teaching to the tests, there is something about a modern open society that I think challenges the mind and makes it work better in a wide variety of settings. So I want to stick with those three right now that public health interventions are first order, good broad-based education is suggestively very important but I can't say conclusively, and then third; there is more evidence I have to say for this big cultural effect - that when your country becomes more like Popperian open society, more [a] mixture of capitalist and loosely democratic, people seem to use their brains in different ways on a regular basis that shows up on the IQ tests. Tobi: Why and I'm sure you must have experienced this maybe in discussing your work or maybe on social media and in other ways. Why is intelligence still a taboo subject so to speak? When I sit with my friends and we talk about development and I bring up Hive Mind...and people bellyache about 'oh, we can't do this or that' and you mildly suggest that 'hey guys, have you considered that our national IQ is pretty low and maybe, maybe that's why we can't get some of these things done.' There's a natural push back that you get. Why is intelligent still such a taboo subject?Garett: I think part of it is because people assume that when you're talking about intelligence you're talking about something that is supposedly a hundred percent or nearly a hundred percent genetic and something that is essential to a person in some very deep way. So I think it's very essentialist as an explanation. I think that's a mistake, I think the evidence does not support that position. And here's a test of it, because instead of using the word "intelligence", use the word "national test scores" and you talk about how education can raise test scores in an important way, then people get much less defensive about it. People are much more open to these very same ideas, the very same channels. So I think a big part of it is that intelligence sounds like something that is intrinsic to a person, unchangeable, nearly immutable and so any ascription of causation to that is personal. So I think discussing it in a Flynnian way, the way that James Flynn has, which is very evidence-based (and) where we think of intelligence as being something like an intermediate outcome... it's not the deep root cause of everything, it's an intermediate outcome that in turn is caused by other stuff. I think that opens people up to thinking about how people's minds create the economy we live in. I'd much rather talk about how our minds create the world around us than talk about what some deep, supposedly essential thing called an IQ score. Of course, the history of the misuse of IQ test is important. The mistakes and evils that have occurred in the name of intelligence research are important. But there are many other things that have been used in evil ways in the past and we cut them slack, and democracy will be, of course, one of those. But I think something about intelligence makes people think it's intrinsic, it's basically immutable and so you're telling people to despair. And if there's one thing to think about when thinking about human cognitive skills is we shouldn't think about despair, we should think about trying to find ways to improve all of the nations in the world not just the lucky few.Tobi: That's interesting. Tell us about what you're working on right now what's your next big project.Garett: I'm on sabbatical and finishing up right now and I'm writing my third book in what I call my Singapore trilogy. And that's going to be a book really about the deep roots literature which I'd mentioned earlier. I'm interested in why the past is prologue. Hive Mind is a book, in a way, about the short-run. About almost proximate causes. 10% Less Democracy is a book about the rich countries. My third book is going to be a book about the whole world and a book about persistence. A book about why the more things change, the more they stay the same. So, again, this is going to draw on the deep roots literature, it's going to draw on the late Alberto Alesina's work on cultural persistence - how migrants carry their attitudes from their home country to the country they move to to a large degree. It's been a lot of fun to write this book because it's so data-driven and it's based on a lot of research that is very influential within economics and not influential at all outside economics and my job is to change that.Tobi: You've been an advocate so speak of high-skilled migration.Garett: Uh-huh.Tobi: How does your argument square with people like Bryan Caplan and who call for open borders, I mean, just let them come?Garett: So Caplan's comic book where I make an appearance on open borders, that's a great fun read I think people should look at that and give his ideas careful attention. I like to remind people that institutions do not just create themselves ex nihilo. That they are actually created by people and I just really want people to think about that a lot. High-skilled immigration means bringing in more informed voters and low-skilled immigration means, 'well, we really need to put a lot of effort into educating those folks' and hope that they support great institutions that will keep the country rich for a very long time. Fortunately, there is a lot of evidence that even the most optimistic supporters of open borders tend to emphasise that high-skilled immigrants have a lot of positive externalities, it's easy to make that case, and less skilled immigrants have... they are more like a wash, there is probably a plus in the short to medium run but closer to a wash than with high-skilled immigration. So I want people to think hard about where good institutions come from and if people coming to your country are going to support better institutions, that should be great news. And if people [who] come to your country are likely to tear it down, you have a little bit more concern. Caplan addresses this in his book in a number of ways with his keyhole solutions. But I think the next 20 to 30 years of both academic research and historical experience will let us know which way low-skilled immigration is going to shape the government of rich countries. Tobi: Charter Cities. Are you optimistic, are you a fan? How best to think about it from a skill and immigration perspective?Garett: Yes, so, Charter Cities which is an idea that's often associated with the Nobel Laureate Paul Romer. The idea that countries should create small little areas within there that are governed by another country's rules. A country that's well-governed, frontier. So say a poor country could say 'hey, we're going to let Singapore run a small part of our country or let Singaporean legislation or Singaporean case law hold sway in this part of our country. I tend to think that the biggest barrier to charter cities as the revenge of democracy. It's very hard to avoid what voters want. I would like to believe that countries with great institutions could franchise their institutions to other poor countries, but the problem is that institutions are created by people and we need to figure out why the institutions are weak in the first country (the country that's starting the charter city). There's a pretty good chance you're going to get a revenge of democracy there and a reversion to the old ways. Some of my GMU colleagues and I have joked that Singapore should franchise it's government to a lot of countries the way McDonald's franchises it's operating model. It would be great if we could do this but it's hard to avoid the norms of democracy especially when, as I note in 10% Less Democracy, some degree of democracy is really important to have. So Charter Cities being in tension with democracy, that's the real problem we have in making Charter Cities durable. I think the solution is to have moderate Charter Cities. Countries where, say, Singaporean law or Japanese law or South Korean law is the default but the local voters can overrule it with a two-thirds vote. Something like that might be much more durable than a full charter city solution. Starting with the default of some rich country's rules but let the local voters overturn it piece by piece and build that change into the original set of rules so that people don't feel like this is out of their control. Tobi: I'm going to ask you a very specific question. So, say, I win the election in Nigeria and I ask you 'hey, Garett, my country is going to be 300 million people in 2050, what are the policies that we can embark upon right now that can get us to a middle-income country over that time period', what would be your advice?Garett: I think my biggest piece of advice would be: find a way to become a credible, attractive place for massive amounts of high-skill immigration. How do I get five million people from China, a million and [a] half people from South Korea, two million people from America to move to Nigeria? Some of those folks will, perhaps, be people of Nigerian descent, people whose ancestors are Nigerian and who want to come back. Some of those folks will be folks who just saw that there is going to be some great tax deals, some great tax incentives to move back. I think people are policy and becoming an attractive place for high-skilled immigration like Singapore is a great way to make your country richer.Tobi: Thank you very much. I've been speaking with Economist Garett Jones and it's wonderful to have you Garett.Garett: It's been great talking with you, Tobi. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.ideasuntrapped.com/subscribe

Joana Naritomi é economista da London School of Economics, na Inglaterra. A Joana é uma economista formada na UFRJ, com mestrado pela PUC-Rio e fez seu doutorado em Economia Política e Economia na Escola de Governo de Harvard, onde trabalhou com nomes como Raj Chetty, Alberto Alesina e o prêmio nobel Michael Kremer. Sua pesquisa foi publicada nos importantes periódicos de economia, como o American Economic Review e o Journal of Economic History. Joana é uma das jovens estrelas da pesquisa acadêmica em Economia Pública e Economia do Desenvolvimento. Principais artigos citados:* Consumers as Tax Auditors (2019), AER* Institutional Development and Colonial Heritage within Brazil (2012). Journal of Economic History (com R. Soares e J. Assunção)* Welfare Programs and Formal Labor Markets in Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from Conditional Cash Transfer in Brazil (2020). Working Paper. (com F. Gerard e J. Silva)De outros autores:* Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation (2020). QJE. (A. Bell, R. Chetty, X. Jaravel, N. Petkova, J. van Reenen)* Efeitos econômicos do Programa Bolsa Família: uma análise comparativa das transferências sociais (2013). Capítulo de livro. (M. Neri, F. Vaz e P. Souza)* Power and Prosperity (1999) (Mancur Olson)

The conventional view is for governments to spend to pump prime the economy. Alberto Alesina, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, thinks otherwise and says governments should reduce their influence.

With monetary policy, conducted by central banks, nearly exhausted in the major economies and low interest rates globally, whether fiscal policy, conducted by governments, should play a greater role from here is Top of Mind. In this episode, Goldman Sachs Research’s Allison Nathan interviews former IMF Chief Economist, Olivier Blanchard, Harvard professor, Alberto Alesina, and Goldman Sachs’ Chief Economist, Jan Hatzius. They discuss whether increased fiscal stimulus today would do more good than harm, and, even if it would, whether the economies that need it the most will pursue it. Our key takeaways: Germany should embrace a large fiscal expansion, but likely won’t; investors should expect some more fiscal stimulus in China, but only enough to avoid a sharp slowdown. Audio of former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is courtesy of the European Central Bank YouTube channel via the Creative Commons Attribution license https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjIaLD4I8go).

Fiscal restraint is going out of fashion. In his new book “Austerity”, Harvard professor Alberto Alesina sets out to explain when it's needed. He tells Breakingviews of the hidden long-term risks of U.S. President Donald Trump's policies and why Italy's debt risks are not over. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Vor gar nicht so langer Zeit galt die Türkei als Eldorado für Leute, die Geld verdienen wollen. Seitdem ist viel passiert. Zuletzt ist die Lira dramatisch abgestürzt, dem Land droht der wirtschaftliche Kollaps. Was bedeutet das für Europa und die Welt? Nach den jüngsten Twitter-Eskapaden Elon Musks müssen sich unsere Diskutanten natürlich auch in dieser Folge mit dem irrlichternden Tesla-Chef befassen. Und man glaubt es kaum: Deffner kritisiert erstmals sein Idol. Zschäpitz hat derweil eine faszinierende neue Studie des italienischen Harvard-Ökonomen Alberto Alesina aufgetan. Sie zeigt sehr anschaulich, wie verzerrt unser Bild von Migranten oft ist.

Alberto Alesina of Harvard University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how people in the US and five European countries perceive the population and characteristics of legal immigrants. Reporting on research with Armando Miano and Stefanie Stantcheva, Alesina finds that individuals systematically overestimate the number of immigrants while underestimating their standard of living. His research also finds that support for welfare payments to the poor is related to the perception people have of the size of the immigrant population and their economic status. The conversation concludes with a discussion of why people's perceptions are so inaccurate and the implications of perception for public policy.

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from February 14, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk & John. At least 16 people are dead after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, law enforcement officials told CNN. The suspect, a former student, was taken into custody "after he committed this horrific, homicidal, detestable act," Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. Law enforcement sources told CNN that the suspect has been identified as Nicolas Cruz. Hour 2:  Aspiration live read. Hiring management for Trump properties only hired 1 American out of 144 openings. A new study by Alberto Alesina, Stefanie Stantcheva and Edoardo Teso of Harvard University compares perceptions of social mobility in five countries—America, Britain, France, Italy and Sweden—against actual levels. It finds that Americans tend to be optimistic, while Europeans tend to be too pessimistic. An American born to a household in the bottom 20% of earnings, for instance, only has a 7.8% chance of reaching the top 20% when they grow up. Americans surveyed thought the probability was 11.7%. A West Virginia city has agreed to pay a former police officer $175,000 to settle a wrongful-termination lawsuit after he was fired following his decision not to shoot a distraught suspect who was holding a gun. The lawsuit accused the Weirton Police Department of wrongfully terminating officer Stephen Mader after he chose not to shoot a 23-year-old man while responding to a domestic disturbance in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alberto Alesina of Harvard University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his research on fiscal policy and austerity. Alesina's research shows that spending cuts to reduce budget deficits are less harmful than tax increases. Alesina discusses the intuition behind this empirical finding and discusses other issues such as Greece's financial situation.

To better understand the historical origins of current differences in norms and beliefs about the appropriate role of women in society, Professor Alesina tests the hypothesis that traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labor and the evolution and persistence of gender norms. Finding that, consistent with existing hypotheses, the descendants of societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture, today have lower rates of female participation in the workplace, in politics, and in entrepreneurial activities, as well as a greater prevalence of attitudes favoring gender inequality. They identify the causal impact of traditional plough use by exploiting variation in the historical geo-climatic suitability of the environment for growing crops that differentially benefited from the adoption of the plough. To isolate the importance of cultural transmission as a mechanism, they examine female labor force participation of second-generation immigrants living within the US. Speaker: Alberto Alesina, Nathaniel Ropes Professor  of Political Economy, Harvard University