S3E6: Bruce Hansen, Econometrician, Univ of Wisconsin

Welcome to the Mixtape with Scott! A podcast devoted to the personal stories of living economists and relaying an oral history of the profession (or at least a selected oral history of a selected part of the profession). Still working on an easy to say phrase that combines those two ideas of the micro and the macro. Anyway, today is part of the longer series on econometricians, and I am pleased to have on the show Bruce Hansen, the Mary Claire Aschenbrener Phipps Distinguished Chair and the Trygve Haavelmo Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin. Bruce has been a prolific and highly impactful econometrician for decades now, as well as the author of two new books. The first is an econometrics textbook that all of you should check out, especially if you’re teaching econometrics and especially if you’re taking econometrics, and especially if you’re wanting to learn more econometrics. So I guess that’s to say, especially if you are interested in what I do on this substack. The second book is a book on probability and statistics and I would say that book also is for those three groups of people, but also add to it people who teach probability and statistics and want to have a stronger background in this subjects. For years, Bruce provided both books for free on his website, and it was a real inspiration for me to do the same with my book. Bruce and I discussed a lot about his career, including the large changes that happened in econometrics starting in the 1990s and early 2000s, which he suggested was monumental in a lot of ways. I won’t spoil it. So thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoy today’s interview as much as I did!

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