Rob Johnson: The Future of Economics, Social Design, and Radical Uncertainty
This is the second half of Tiger’s interview with Rob Johnson, President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).
In the first half, Rob interviewed Tiger on podcasting and social discourse, and in this second half, Tiger interviewed Rob on the future of economics and his work at INET.
Tiger interviewed Rob about a variety of topics:
whether economics academia is too detached from real-world impacts; e.g. why some criticize the poverty-reduction research by 2020 Nobel Laureates Banerjee, Duflo, & Kremer to have ZERO impact on actual economic policy in India…
academia is its own irreality where things become more petty and political when the prize is so small; citing a recent Twitter thread that blew up accusing Nobel Laureates for abusing their power and tons of other horror stories of backstabbing; Rob calls this “the smaller the stakes, the bigger the fight”…
today’s discourse is more destructive than generative in this “post-modern” society; i.e. pre-modernism was about creating more blocks on top of each other; post-modern is more melting away all the blocks…
whether truths are indeed attainable or even desirable; many, from our guest Rob Henderson to intellectuals like Yuval Noah Harari, have said that truths never really mattered in human society as people operate more on common beliefs and narratives; perhaps it’s pointless to try to “discover truths” when we just need better narratives to guide ourselves, e.g. after WWII the dominant narratives were patriotism while today we have nationalism…
how to predict the next bubble bursting when markets seem to be more detached from fundamentals, but also when “returning to the normal days” of higher interest rate, lower financialization & inequality seems impossible in the near term…
whether the majority of the “innovations” out of Silicon Valley are still meaningful when most capital is thrown at SaaS companies that don’t seek to address the most urgent needs of our society…
when markets and capitalism are embedded in a functioning democracy, it could do a lot of good, but if the political system and democracy are broken, markets can do a lot of harm…
and more…
Rob truly brought up so many fascinating insights. Many of his answers will surprise you as he really frame things in models & perspectives tha only the most thoughtful PhD economists and polymaths can do.
Rob also brings up many fun anecdotes, like when he was a graduate student, he went fishing with former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who convinced him to go finish his dissertation at the Fed and eventually guided him to work on economic policy on the Capitol Hill.
Tiger learned a tremendous amount from this conversation and we really recommend you give it a listen!
Rob Johnson