Economic Growth - Is There a Consensus?

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In graduate school, i studied economic growth. One of the things i learned is that there's not unconditional convergence. Some models break poor countries would catch up to rich countries. But over all, poor countries don't catch up. This isn't just a matter of indiaand china. And so i think one thing that we economists should be thinking about more is what are the institutions to increase the rate of technological change and to try to direct it to human needs. Think we've got a set of tions, primarily intellectual property institutions, but also research funding institutions which could help us improve our economy....

Michael Kremer is best known for his academic work researching global poverty, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2019 along with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee. Less known is that he is also the founder of five non-profits and in the process of creating a sixth. And Kremer doesn’t see anything unusual about embodying the dual archetypes of economist and founder. “I think there's a lot of relationship between the experimental method and the things that are needed to help found organizations,” he explains.

Michael joined Tyler to discuss the intellectual challenge of founding organizations, applying methods from behavioral economics to design better programs, how advanced market commitments could lower pharmaceutical costs for consumers while still incentivizing R&D, the ongoing cycle of experimentation every innovator understands, the political economy of public health initiatives, the importance of designing institutions to increase technological change, the production function of new technologies, incentivizing educational achievement, The Odyssey as a tale of comparative development, why he recently transitioned to University of Chicago, what researchers can learn from venture capitalists, his current work addressing COVID-19, and more.

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Recorded September 9th, 2020 Other ways to connect

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