Econometric Roots and Innovation in Social Mobility Research

11min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

This chapter dives into the upbringing of a guest's economist father and the guest's early exposure to statistics and programming. It explores their transition from biomedical science to statistics, sharing experiences in high school and graduate school. The guest explains their innovative research approach in economics, using large data sets to study social problems and emphasizing the importance of iterative processes and conceptual advances in achieving impactful insights.

A high school teacher once told Raj Chetty he’d some day serve on the Federal Reserve Board. At the the time Raj thought the comment was silly, since he was busy working in the laboratory on staining techniques for electron microscopy and was set to become a biomedical scientist. About a decade later, however, and Chetty would become one of the youngest tenured economics professors at Harvard and would soon win both a John Bates Clark medal and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. Now at Stanford, he’s one of the most-cited economists in the world.

Raj’s conversation with Tyler spans that well-cited body of work and more, including social mobility, the value-add of kindergarten teachers, why corporations pay dividends, his love of Piano Guys, the most underrated US state, and why okra may have been the secret of his success.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded March 25th, 2017 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.