What Is It That Makes Growth So Hard to Forecast?

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Social outcomes are hard, hard to predict. Cultures don't change that quickly. There's nothing that comes off with people that odds better than three out of five even in big groups. I think there is actually a growing number of economists who are thinking about culture as is it the label for describing some of these more subtle effects which operate in our beliefs and preferences.

Throughout his career, Paul Romer has enjoyed sampling and sifting through an ever-growing body of knowledge. He sometimes jokingly refers to himself as a random idea generator, relying on others to filter out the bad ones so his contributions are good. Not a bad strategy, as it turns out, for starting a successful business and winning a Nobel Prize.

Just before accepting that Prize, he joined Tyler for a conversation spanning one filtered set of those ideas, including the best policies for growth and innovation, his new thinking on the trilemma facing migration, how to rework higher education, general-purpose technologies, unlocking the power of reading for all kids, fixes for the English language, what economics misses about the ‘inside of the head,’ whether he’s a Jane Jacobs or Gouverneur Morris type, what Kanban taught him about management, his recent sampling of Pierce’s semiotics, Clarence White vs. Gram Parsons, his favorite Hot Tuna song, and more.

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Recorded November 14th, 2018 Other ways to connect

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