Does Anyone in Government Care About Productivity Growth?

Today’s episode is an interview with a colleague of mine at the Institute for Progress. Ben Jones is an economist who focuses on the sources of economic growth in advanced economies, and he’s a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at IFP.

We recorded this conversation at the second #EconTwitterIRL Conference last month in Lancaster, PA, which IFP hosted alongside the Economic Innovation Group). The other interview at that conference was excellent too: Cardiff Garcia interviewing Paul Krugman.

Jones has served in more than one executive branch role, including as the Senior Economist for Macroeconomics for the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), during the first Obama administration. But what we spent most of our time talking about here was a broader question: What role does federal spending on science play in productivity growth?

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(2:03) Shadowing Larry Summers at Treasury

(3:46) Do national leaders actually affect economic growth?

(9:22) Whose job is it in the federal government to think about productivity?

(14:12) What market failure is solved by public R&D funding?

(19:45) What does the rise of team science mean for young scientists?

(32:47) Should we be bearish about the entire scientific enterprise?

(51:50) What levers can we pull to increase productivity growth?

(43:53) Audience questions