People I (Mostly) Admire Ninety-Eight Years of Economic Wisdom (Replay)
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Dec 13, 2025 Robert Solow, a Nobel Prize–winning economist with a remarkable career at MIT, shares fascinating insights into economic growth and inequality. He reflects on his childhood during the Great Depression and how it shaped his beliefs. Solow questions the value of GDP as a measure of well-being and critiques current economic models for overlooking real-world complexities. He also discusses his experiences as a codebreaker during WWII and shares reflections on aging, loneliness, and the role of luck in life.
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Growth Is Not An Unavoidable Imperative
- Economic growth need not be an unquestioned social goal; a stationary economy can be viable.
- The challenge is preserving social mobility and preventing a hereditary oligarchy in a non-growing society.
Productivity Gains And Missing Environmental Costs
- Much historical productivity growth reflects true higher productivity rather than pure mismeasurement.
- Still, GDP accounting omits environmental depletion and should be supplemented by richer natural-capital accounts.
Duplicate Accounts: Old Numbers And New Ones
- Keep historical national accounts while creating improved environmental-inclusive accounts in parallel.
- Preserve long time series for research but add a second set that captures environmental impacts.
