The Importance of Understanding Your Objective Function

This week’s episode of the Mixtape with Scott is with a man I have gotten to become friends somewhat unexpectedly: Miles Kimball (Wikipedia). Miles is currently the Eugene D. Eaton Jr. professor in the economics department University of Colorado Boulder. And we got to know each other through a mutual friend, and discovered that we had many of the same somewhat eccentric interests around mental health, self improvement and a desire to serve the profession in our own personal ways.

This is a long interview, but I found it fascinating. I wanted to talk to Miles about his growing up because he grew up in a famous family — his grandfather was named Spencer Kimball, the twelfth President of the Church of Latter Days Saints. Not being Mormon myself, it took me some research to understand the significance, but here’s a wikipedia article about who the President is in the Church of Latter Day Saints. It was an office originally held by the Church’s founder, Joseph Smith, and is their highest governing body. Members of the church consider the President to be also a revelatory person — a prophet and seer — and so I was fascinated both by that background, but also Miles’s own personal story as he left the Mormon church over 20 years ago, an act that I had to imagine was consequential for his life, and very difficult to summarize what it meant for him.

Miles research productivity and interests are diverse. It ranges from the furthest parts of our tradition with topics in macroeconomics, the zero lower bound, theoretical elements of human decision making, subjective measures of well being and happiness, measurement, and more. But this is exactly the kind of person I have come to associate with Miles — his passions (and they are passions) range a very broad topic area. He is one of these renaissance types who goes broad and deep — not either/or; rather both/and. He is also, like me under what can only be described as a sense of calling to something bigger than himself to help economists with improving mental health by providing free life coaching “pods” — small groups who meet regularly over zoom going through life coaching curriculum, led by trained life coaches. Given the high rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness documented among our students, I am grateful for him.

So let me now introduce you to Miles on this journey through his life. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks again for all your support of the podcast and me. Remember to like, share, follow — all that stuff — if you find these interviews about our economists and the profession interesting.

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