Is the Global Economy a Malthusian?

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In the book you see much more a malthusian that the problem over the very long run is simply the ebbs and flows of population. You'd expect living standards to increase on average by just enough to support the 30% per century population growth rate, rather than the 10%. But still life expectancy is still a mALTHUSian economy. The interesting question is what happens between 1770 and 1870 when we get our global rate of technological progress up to almost half a percent per year. That could kind of eat all that up in terms of smaller farm sizes offsetting better technology but you do have an upper class whose living standards are being transformed by new inventions.

Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkley, OG econ blogger, and Tyler’s Harvard classmate, joins the show to discuss Slouching Towards Utopia, an economic history of the 20th century that’s been nearly thirty years in the making.

Tyler and Brad discuss what can really be gleaned from the fragmentary economics statistics of the late 19th century, the remarkable changes that occurred from 1870-1920, the astonishing flourishing of German universities in the 19th century, why investment banking allowed America and Germany to pull ahead of Britain economically, what enabled the Royal Society to become a force for progress, what Keynes got wrong, what Hayek got right, whether the middle-income trap persists, his favorite movie and novel, blogging vs. Substack, the Slouching Towards Utopia director’s cut, and much more.

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Recorded November 11th, 2022

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