Prof. Mike Munger

Prof. Mike Munger (Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis) is the director of the interdisciplinary Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University. He has authored seven books, in addition to 200 articles and papers. His newest book, Tomorrow 3.0 (Cambridge University Press, 2018), addresses the sharing economy.




What's the biggest or most interesting mistake you have ever made as an economist, and was there a way to fix it?

I did an interview with a major newspaper about the costs of trade barriers. My work was a little out of date, and I said so (6 years out of date). But the newspaper person asked me what CURRENT costs were. So I just updated for inflation. I said I had only updated for inflation, but the reporter didn't really get it. This was in the early 1980s, when inflation was high. So the newspaper headline was "Costs of trade barriers has risen 22% in just six years!" But of course I had no evidence of that, that was all just the adjustment for constant dollars. The only way to fix that is to have better economic education.

In your opinion, what is the most important economic idea that most people have never heard of?

Opportunity cost. People don't understand it, even if they have heard of it.

Prof. Abigail Hall Blanco

Abigail Hall Blanco (Ph.D., George Mason University) is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa. She is the author, with C. Coyne, of Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U. S. Militarism (Stanford University Press, 2018).

 

What’s the best (or worst) advice you ever received when it comes to being an economist?

The best advice I ever received as a graduate student was to write liberally and often, and to focus on the topics I found the most interesting. Had I not been given this advice, I would have never found my current research program--and I couldn't imagine doing anything else! The worst advice I ever received was to just do "standard" economics (by this they meant standard econometrics). This would have ended poorly! 

What economic concept do you students have the most difficulty understanding?

Students are often really tripped up by the concept of cost as opportunity cost. We spend so much time thinking of cost as the equivalent of price. I spend a lot of time in micro principles trying to divorce these two ideas.

What is the most unexpected lesson you learned from you previous career as a dancer?

Comparative advantage! Some dancers are really superb at turn sequences, others at leaps, others . . . well . . . they have a comparative advantage in things other than dancing. When doing choreography--who you use for what relates directly to their comparative advantage.

Prof. James Heckman

James Heckman (Ph.D., Princeton University) is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2000.

You majored in math as a college student. Did math lead to economics because you were interested in applying math, or were you interested in economics and saw that math was the way to understand economics better?

I was a math major who discovered economics. Actually, I was a physics major who took a lot of math. Hated physics labs and majored in math. Then I discovered economics. The math was useful. The economics was fascinating.

What's the most common mistake you see students and even fellow economists make?

Ignoring the budget constraint. Fellow behavioral economists especially. They fail to see fundamental irrationality of the modeled agents with budget constraints. Economics is all about it. They ignore it.

Prof. Steve Horwitz

Prof. Steve Horwitz (Ph.D., George Mason University) is Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He is the author of Hayek's Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).




What textbook did you use when you first studied economics, and would you still use it today as a professor?

To be honest, I cannot for the life of me remember what book I was assigned when I first took intro! My guess is that whatever it was, I wouldn't use it today because there are so many new approaches, and developments of old ones, over the last 37 years that hte book would be out of date.

For long-term happiness, how important (or unimportant) is it that one has the same perspecive on economic matters as one's spouse?

I don’t think one has to have the same political views as one’s spouse to be happy. I think it can help, but I know plenty of happy couples who either disagree or where one spouse just isn’t especially political. I do think that mutual respect is important, of course. And I do think that if you’re going to be the spouse of an economist, you should at least understand the economic way of thinking because it’s likely to be invoked in a lot of household decision making.

Lotta Moberg

Lotta Moberg (Ph.D., George Mason University) is a macroeconomic analyst at William Blair & Co. in Chicago and the author of The Political Economy of Special Economic Zones: Concentrating Economic Development (Routledge, 2017). Previously she served in the Swedish Defense Forces and with the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

 
If you could mandate that every student read one book in the field of economics, what would it be?

I had to think about whether it would be good for everyone to read one book. On net, I think it is, if it is short and simple enough to explain some of the most destructive fallacies people hold. Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson may be the best. Alternatively, and much shorter, James Gwartney's little book on economic principles, Common Sense Economics. It is probably the best. I would make people read it to become less destructive citizens, not to educate those who already know some economics.

What is the best (or worst) advice you ever got on becoming an economist?

Probably not the best but memorable: When taking a class, be selfish. Look for how you can use things from the class for your research and spend minimal time on the rest.

The worst was probably to stay away from a place like George Manson University because people will find you weird and so it will be hard to get a job.

Prof. Vincent Geloso

Vincent Geloso (Ph.D., London School of Economics) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at the Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. His research interests include North American ecnomic history, public economics, and population economics. His most recent book is Rethinking Canadian Economic Growth and Development since 1900 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 

 

Everything involves trade-offs. Economics is much more data-driven than it was a few decades ago. What are the most important or least discussed trade-offs in the increased emphasis on math in the study and teaching of economics?

I would state that there are two trade-offs that we need to be aware. First, mathematics allow us to make axiomatic statements. A demand function merely expresses mathematically the axiom that, all else being equal, we demand less of something if the price increases. All axioms are inherently true. The problem is that while true, an axiom can be irrelevant in a particular context or setting. Relevance is asserted only through the use of data and econometrics. A good economist is one who does both as they are complements to the production of valuable research and teaching. It is for this reason that I specialize in economic history as I am forced to dive in theory and use applied methods to assess the relevance of economic theories to explain the past (i.e. our database of observations). Second, economists forget that data matters. I have very often seen economists simply "chuck" the data in Stata and not ask any questions about their construction. Are they suited for the question being asked? How were they built? What is the most modest but valid case I can make with this data? I think that the work of Morten Jerven on African economies is a good example here. He used different databases of GDP per capita for African countries and found that, for the same year, they had dramatic differences in the ranking of these economies. Why such differences? How much does it affect the results just to use another source?  These are basic questions which economists tend to ignore. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find an explanation that convinces me as to why economists sometime act in such a careless way with regards to data (especially given the technocratic tendency taken by the profession in the last forty years). 

Is being really interested in economics a good enough reason to major in economics?

Hell yes! For the last ten years of my life, I have been going and leaving bed thinking about economics (and social sciences more broadly). During my undergraduate days, I spent all my days reading about economics. When unsatisfied with my learned tools, I would simply go online and seek every resource possible to help me learn more. This was only heightened when I discovered that economic history was a subfield of economics.   Passion about a field and dedication to its study is necessary and sufficient even if you are not a stellar student. I often point out that I was an ordinary student at the University of Montreal where I did my undergraduate degree.  However, when I became a graduate student, the passion allowed me to surge ahead, write and read every day. If you are able to muddle through the classes while being passionate and hard-working, you can be a great economist! Obviously, being smart just makes the whole thing easier (but I will caution against the arrogance that sometimes comes with that). 

Prof. Will Luther

William J. Luther (Ph.D., George Mason University) is assistant professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University, and director of the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project. He has written extensively on Bitcoin.


 
What single book should every economics major be required to read, and why?

I think the history of ideas is important, so I hope that every economics major would read Larry White’s The Clash of Economic Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

In your opinion, who is the most important economist that most people have never heard of?

I think more people should be familiar with George Selgin’s work. His monograph, Less than Zero (Institute of Economic Affairs, 1997) was recently republished and contains an excellent defense of nominal income targeting. His newest book, Floored! (Cato, 2018) is the single best book on the Fed’s new operating regime. Highly recommend.

Prof. Marie Mora

Marie T. Mora (Ph.D., Texas A&M) is Professor of Economics at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her books include Population, Migration, and Socioeconomic Outcomes of Island and Mainland Puerto Ricans (Lexington, 2017), co-authored with A. Dávila and  H. Rodríguez, and the award-winning Hispanic Entrepreneurs in the 2000s (Stanford University Press, 2013), co-authored with A. Dávila.

 









What’s the best (or worst) advice you ever received when it comes to being an economist?

Some of the best advice was given to me when I was in my Ph.D. Program at Texas A&M University. My major professor, Dr. Finis Welch, encouraged me to take more graduate-level statistics courses, not only more econometrics but also statistics courses taught by faculty in the Department of Statistics. (Note that Professor Welch, one of the founders of Stata, is known for saying he has probably run more regressions than anyone else who’s ever lived.) He also encouraged me to take other classes and read studies that were technically in fields outside of economics if I thought they would be interesting and helpful for my own research. In fact, I took some Ph.D. courses in Sociology, including an excellent Sociology of Education class that resulted in my first scholarly publication—a book chapter in an edited volume by Gail Thomas (the professor who taught the class).

Another piece of excellent advice was also given to me when I was in my Ph.D. Program by Dr. Alberto Dávila. While some of the classes were technical and uninspiring, I was reminded that once I finished my coursework and passed all the prelims (comprehensive exams), I would be able to delve into the most interesting part of the Program – doing research on topics of my own choice. That was an incentive that helped me get through that part of my program. I think almost everyone goes through a period of doubt in a Ph.D. Program; it was very much worthwhile for me to hang in there.

What’s the biggest misconception your students have about economics and economists?

I would say it has to do with not having a basic understanding of what economics is before they take college-level Econ classes. (I certainly didn’t when I started as an undergraduate.) Some think it is only about business, and others think it is only about math…but it is so much broader. I tell my students that economics is a very broad umbrella, and there is something in it for everyone.

On a related point, many people (not just students) are unaware that economics is considered to be part of STEM. It is a social science (which the “S” includes). In fact, the National Science Foundation has an Econ Directorate and funds research in economics.

Prof. Stephen Wright

Stephen H. Wright teaches in the Department of Economics at Birkbeck College, University of London. Previously he has taught at Cambridge and has served as staff economist for the Bank of England. He is the author, with Andrew Smithers, of Valuing Wall Street (McGraw-Hill, 2000).



If you were king for a day and could require all students to read one book in the field of economics, what would it be and why?

If I were King? What a strange hypothetical, especially for a US citizen! I’ll interpret your question as being “If I were a benign dictator” (the correlation between Kingship and Benign Dictatorship is I think pretty close to zero empirically). But my answer is straightforward, if highly biased: obviously students should read The Economy, the e-book produced by, and available from, www.core-econ.org. It is brand new and takes a very different approach to introducing economics. This recommendation is highly biased because I was involved in producing it; but I still think it is about the best thing you can read these days to get you started in economics.

What textbook did you use when you first studied economics, and would you still use it today as a professor?
I think I started with Samuelson, supplemented by Lipsey. I’ve never looked at Samuelson since but I suspect it is still pretty good – he was one of the greatest minds ever in economics.

Arnold Kling

Arnold Kling (Ph.D., M.I.T.) blogs at askblog. He previously blogged at EconLog, worked as an economist for the Federal Reserve System, and was a senior economist for Freddie Mac. He is the author of many books, including Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care (Cato Institute, 2006)

What's the biggest or most interesting mistake you have ever made as an economist (that you'd care to share), and was there a way to fix it?

I have changed my mind on some important issues. Whether I was mistaken before or now, or both, is to be determined. In graduate school, I believed sticky-price Keynesian economics. Now, I do not believe that any aggregate view of the economy is right. Industries expand and contract all the time, and every once in a while not enough industries are expanding to make up for the contracting ones. The probability that instead I was right before to be a Keynesian is certainly greater than zero.
 
I also once doubted that real trade took place among ancient people. I speculated instead that goods changed location because of marauding. But most archaeologists believe that there really was trade, so I was probably wrong on that.
 
In your opinion, who is the most important economist that most people have never heard of?

My first thought is Fischer Black. You absolutely must read Perry Mehrling's biography of him. If nothing else, you get a sense of what the 1970s felt like, both in the culture at large and in the economics profession. I have learned a surprising amount from biographies of economists. Skidelsky's three-volume biography of Keynes (not the abridged version) helped me to see Keynes as rebelling against Victorianism. That explains why Keynes came to see saving as pathological. David Warsh's Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations (Norton, 2006) is insightful on Romer and Krugman.  

Most people have not heard of James Buchanan, even though he won a Nobel. And even most economists think of him as a one-trick pony, namely Public Choice theory. But his book Cost and Choice (University of Chicago Press, 1969) demonstrates that he thought very deeply about economics. That is a tough book, to put on your list to read someday, but probably not soon.

Charles Kindleberger is important, in my opinion. In Manias, Panics, and Crashes (Basic Books, 1978) he does two important things. One is he explains Minsky, who was too confused to explain himself. Second, he extends Minsky in an important way, by emphasizing "displacement" as a trigger for movements in the Minsky cycle.

Have enough people heard of Hal Varian? He explained more about the economics of the Internet, from its communications architecture (lots of switches, economizing on lines) to the nature of information goods, than anyone else.

Prof. Josh Angrist

Prof. Joshua Angrist (Ph.D., Princeton University) is the Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a director of MIT's School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He taught at Harvard and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before coming to MIT in 1996. He is the author (with Steve Pischke) of Mostly Harmless Economics: An Empiricist's Companion (Princeton University Press, 2009) and Mastering 'Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect (Princeton University Press, 2015).

 

Your CV contains a number of publications on the role of data in policy debates. Do you tend to be hopeful or despairing when it comes to policy makers paying attention to empirical/statistical studies produced by economists?    

Hope springs eternal in my empirical breast.

Do your students have more trouble with the mathematical side of generating data or with the process of writing up their results and communicating them clearly and effectively? 

My graduate students know a lot of math, probably so much that it inhibits thought. But yes indeed they struggle to write a coherent paragraph. Too bad, since scholars like those they aspire to be write for a living.

Prof. David Cleeton

Prof. David Cleeton (Ph.D., Washington University at St. Louis) is Professor of Economics at Illinois State University. He is coauthor (with Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie) of the textbook Financial Economics. He previously taught at Oberlin College, Christopher Newport University, and Ohio State University.



Everything involves trade-offs. What are the trade-offs of letting older economics textbooks go out of print and publishing newer ones?

A textbook is to college academics as the catechism is to Christian religion. The analogy is that both are instructive methods to summarize and contextualize the principles of the discipline or religion in question. However, the world is dynamic and evolving so the relevancy for practice must be updated to incorporate contemporary concerns and issues. Obviously, the Catholic Church is ponderous in its response while academics are innovative and entrepreneurial. There may also be important differences related to where you would place academics and church authorities along the organizational spectrum from competition to monopoly.
 
What course that is not normally required for an undergraduate economics major do you think all students should take before they finish their degree?

That is a tough question because the answer might be more efficiently crafted to reflect the interests, abilities, and career plans of a given economics student. For those interested in pursuing graduate studies in economics or a related field they should familiarize themselves with the basic tools used in crafting formal economic models. That means taking a course in mathematical economics, which itself may have some important prerequisites. For the student interested in a more broadly based liberal education I would suggest an economic history or history of economic thought course. Personally, I hedged my bet and took both.

Prof. David Autor

Prof. David Autor (Ph.D., Harvard University) is the Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has published widely on labor availability, and specializes in human capital research. From 2009-2014, he was editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

You were recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article on the increasing length of economic papers. Were there any quotes that you wish had made it into the article that got cut?

Yes! I made the point that part of the reason that articles are so long is that their length necessitates even more length! It sounds paradoxical, but it’s true. If you’re going to write 50 pages of body text, you need a 10 page intro to summarize it all — since almost no one will read your 50 page paper. But then, if the body of the paper is so long, you’d better add in signposts, summaries, and previews along the way. The end result is that the extra length of your paper demands even more text.

By analogy: If you engineer an overweight automobile, you’ll need a bigger engine, and a heftier suspension, and larger brakes, and a larger fuel tank for that larger engine, etc. All of these additions compound the original error. If you’d simply start out with a lean vehicle design, you need to add fewer weighty components to compensate for its excess mass.  

Are there any resources you’d recommend for aspiring economists—particularly but not only undergraduates—who want to write well? Or are there any economists who you think are especially good writers?

Paul Krugman’s Development, Geography, and Economic Theory is one of my favorite parables. It illuminates the role that economic theory serves in our profession.

Joshua Angrist is a terrific expository writer, and an admire both of his econometrics textbooks and his other popular and technical writings.

Prof. Javier Silvestre

Prof. Javier Silvestre (Ph.D., University of Zaragoza) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Applied Economics and Economic History at the University of Zaragoza. He has written extensively on the economics of workplace safety and migration and has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, University College Dublin, Princeton University, and the University of British Columbia.




What are the differences between how economics is taught in Spain or Europe more broadly and the United States? 

This is difficult to answer. In fact, there are many differences between European countries. Perhaps a difference between the US and, say, Spain is that the first academic years tend to have more theoretical content here. Students are already choosing economics as a unique field of study from the start. These courses might make the first years more difficult. But the situation reverses regarding the last academic years, by far. The last academic years are much harder in the US.

Is it customary in Spain for students to learn anything about economics before they enter university? If so, at what age?

Typically, one of the two economics courses included in "bachillerato" (upper secondary school, from 16 to 18 years) is compulsory, and the other one is voluntary.

Prof. Sarah Estelle

Sarah Estelle (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is Associate Professor of Economics and Ruch Faculty Fellow at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. She is interested in public policy, especially criminal justice reform, education choices, risky health behaviors and parents' investments in children. In her research she extends the theories and empirical techniques of microeconomics to questions located along what some might consider the "imperialist" frontier of economic research made famous by Gary Becker. She also serves on the Board of Scholars at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.



If you were queen for a day and could require all students to read one book in the field of economics, what would it be and why?

As queen for a day, I would rather give everyone some advice on how to locate one economics book they might enjoy. My goal for them would be to find an aspect of economics that really lights their fire or, as a mentor of mine, Dr. Ken Elzinga at UVa likes to say, “stirs their cocoa.”
One type of book I often recommend to young economists and other economic novices is those that nurture economic intuition. These include books for a general audience that use economics to understand otherwise strange or paradoxical realities including volumes by Steven Landsburg and Daniel Hamermesh, any of the four fictional works featuring an economist-sleuth who solves murders, written under the pseudonym Marshall Jevons, and other novels that, sometimes rather subtly, impart economic perspective like Russ Roberts’ The Invisible Heart.

These books teach basic economics in a fun way which is a great for finding some traction with the economic way of thinking. To others, perhaps those who are interested in political economy, philosophy, history, or policy--those students of the liberal arts, say--I would recommend some of the classics. Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson and Bastiat’s The Law make clear that unintended consequences are pervasive. Such a lesson is key to economic literacy. Adam Smith is still extremely relevant and insightful. Too few professonial economists, even, have read The Wealth of Nations and even fewer The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Authors like Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek are a good read for those who grapple with big ideas related to economic systems, the role of the state, the importance of institutions, the wonder of the price system, etc. In fact, for those who are broadly curious about these sorts of things, even classic works of fiction--I’m thinking of Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or Orwell’s 1984--can spur some helpful economic thinking. 

Finally, if there is a particular human issue or policy that someone is interested in, I might recommend they locate an economics journal and peruse its offerings on the topic. If someone is interested in education, for example, just skimming the titles and abstracts of the last few volumes of the Economics of Education Review would be enlightening about the variety of things that economists do within that broad topic area. If someone is interested in law (and maybe especially if they don’t think they’re interested in economics), I’d love to see them read a few articles that pique their interest in the Journal of Law and Economics. If s/he is interested in marriage and fertility behaviors or concerned about criminal behavior, addiction, or discrimination, s/he should read some Gary Becker. You can skip all the mathematical theory and econometrics for now, if you’d like.

I know I’ve missed many similarly useful texts, including many by the other economists you’ve interviewed, so I encourage your readers to look at what each of them have written as well. Still, I hope this typology is helpful to any individual who wants to think carefully about where he might his initial enthusiasm for economics.
Was there a particular person—a professor or someone outside of academia—who played an important role in your decision to become an economist?

I went into college thinking I'd like to be a politician. I quickly realized that compromise and telling people what they want to hear, well, neither was my cup-of-tea, so holding elected office mightn't be my best plan. Better yet, I love exploring big ideas, and there is another discipline (something that didn't even resemble what it looked like in high school) that did suit me: economics. I would say now, in hindsight, that it helped me understand better how God made my particular mind to work. The first person who influenced my decision to become an economist was someone I never met, Ludwig von Mises. In reading his book Liberalism I felt I had found a kindred spirit, and I realized I was an economist. (Not that I wanted to be an economist, rather I was made to be an economist.) After that, my undergraduate economics professors, especially my advisor Dr. Lee Coppock (now at UVa), played important roles in my decision to become a professional economist by nurturing my passion for economics as well as my economic intuition.

Realizing a passion for the subject matter and methodology of economics is crucial, of course, but just having an awareness that becoming a professional economist is possible is important as well. The first time I recall thinking about graduate school, a necessary step for becoming a professional economist, was my sophomore year at Hillsdale College, when the lecturer of my business statistics course, Mrs. Jacquelyn Blackstock, suggested to my parents that I should consider it. It is kind of a funny story, because Hillsdale, at least at that time, had something like parent-teacher conferences during Parents Weekend and my parents, always supportive and ever dutiful, took the opportunity to meet my professors. It is interesting that they're part of the story, because it was they who asked Mrs. Blackstock thinking outloud,"But how will she pay for it?" No one in my family had ever pursued a Ph.D. before, and as with many families of undergraduate students, we were all still worrying about how to pay for college. Mrs. Blackstock replied kindly, "She won't have to pay for it. They'll pay her." What a fantastic realization that grad school could be affordable (in reality, for some it can be almost lucrative at points) and that I could continue to pursue my passion without that particular challenge! I often reflect on this story, frequently sharing it with my most-promising students. First, this story provides me an opportunity to help current undergraduates refocus their efforts and energies on what is really crucial for getting into grad school and persisting on to becoming a full-fledged economist. Lacking high-level mathematical reasoning and skills, solid economic intuition, or intellectual curiosity are deal breakers. It should be a relief that, for those who possess these skills, affordability is much less of a concern. And second, this story reminds me not to assume that a good student is going to understand what he or she is capable of or what opportunities could lie ahead of them. I shouldn’t be subtle in my encouragement.

Prof. Joyce Burnette

Prof. Joyce Burnette (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is Lawrence E. Devorre Professor of Economics at Wabash College. She is an economic historian who focuses on the role of women in the labor market.  Her 2008 book, Gender, Work, and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain (Cambridge University Press), argues that, since strength was important in many occupations, lower wages do not necessarily imply discrimination.

 


Which book that isn't typically on course syllabi should all economics students read?

The book I would suggest is Joel Mokyr's Lever of Riches.

Do you have any good economics jokes you can share?

A physicist, chemist, and economist are stranded on a desert island.  They have canned food but no can openner.  The physicist says: "If we climb up a tree and drop the can, the force of the fall will open it." The chemist says: "If we heat the can, the contents will expand and force open the can." The economist says: "Assume we have a can opener..."

Prof. Claudia Rei

Prof. Claudia Rei (Ph.D., Boston University) is Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick. She has published several reviews and articles on European economic history.

 













If you were queen for a day and could require all students to read one book in the field of economics, what would it be and why?

Power and Plenty by Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke
The book provides a concise economic history of the world since the year 1000 and shows how international trade, at various stages, allowed for economic prosperity. The authors focus on the technological and political developments that prompted the various waves of trade and at the crucial importance of war and peace in the process that shaped the world economy we see today. If I were queen for a day I would make it a required reading for all students, and also to politicians whom I would rightfully appoint into office!

If you were not an economist, what would you be?

I never wished to fill any particular occupation unlike many children that aspire to doctors, firemen, or astronauts. I'm very squeamish so I knew early on I could not be a doctor, but I liked math and computers which does not narrow choices much. I grew up in Portugal so there was a non-negligible chance that I wouldn't be accepted into college due to the complicated application system. My Plan B at 17, was to shave my head and join the army. Not sure it would have been a great alternative career, so I am glad I got into college.

Prof. Gavin Wright

Prof. Gavin Wright (Ph.D., Yale University) is William Robertson Coe Professor of American Economic History, Emeritus at Stanford University. He has taught at the University of Michigan, and at both Cambridge and Oxford. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an National Science Foundation Grant, among many others. He has authored or coauthored many books, including Reckoning With Slavery (Oxford University Press, 1976) and Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013).

 

Was there a particular person—a professor or someone outside of academia—who played an important role in your decision to become an economist?
 
The most influential economist for me was Joseph Conard, who taught the economic theory seminar at Swarthmore College.  From Joe Conard I learned that it is possible to maintain Quaker values while pursuing economics as rigorously and truthfully as possible.  Sad to say, Joe Conard died of leukemia during my senior year, so I did not have the chance to share thoughts with him as I pursued my own career.  In terms of economic history, the influential person was William N. Parker at Yale, who hired me to work on the Parker-Gallman sample from the 1860 census at the end of my first year of graduate school. It was all downhill after that.

If you were not an economist, what would you be?

The appeal of economics for me was that you could be an academic while also having expertise and engagement with real-world issues.  As it turned out, I became an economic historian, a relatively academic specialty.  My best guess is that if I were not an economist, I would still be in some type of intellectual career. 

Prof. Michael Haines

Prof. Michael Haines (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Banfi Vintners Distinguished Professor of Economics at Colgate and also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research with the Development of the American Economy Program. He is the author of three books and co-editor of A Population History of North America (Cambridge University Press, 2000). He has received several grants from the National Institutes of Health and subcontracts from the National Science Foundation, and served as a consultant to the World Bank.

Do you have any good economics jokes you can share?

An economist is a person who is good with number, but doesn't have the personality to be an accountant.

[Editor's Note: There aren't as many good economist jokes as there are lawyer jokes, but here is a sampling that I found:

Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third econometrician didn't fire, but shouted in triumph, "We got it! We got it!"

What happens when you put two economists in a room together? You get three opinions.

Economists are people who are too smart for their own good and not smart enough for anyone else's.

Did you know economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions?]

Prof. Mary Hansen

Mary Eschelbach Hansen (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is an expert in U.S. social policy. She is widely published in the fields of child policy, bankruptcy, and economic history. Her work addresses key issues in race, gender, and economic inequality. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking.



Was there a particular person—a professor or someone outside of academia—who played an important role in your decision to become an economist?
 
For me, undergraduate professors made all the difference. My interest in economics was kindled by my prof for intro micro at Saint Louis University (LeRoy Grossman). He was enthusiastic in class, but, more importantly, we talked a lot outside of class. My decision to pursue life as an academic economist was guided by Rick Cheney. Again, Rick and I talked a lot outside of class. He knew me well, so he guided me well. All of my career, I have worked to emulate my experience at SLU and to train new PhDs to do the same.

Prof. Robert Whaples

Prof. Robert Whaples (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University. He is the co-editor of Historical Perspectives on the American Economy (Cambridge University Press, 1995)  and The Routledge Hndbook of Major Events in Economic History (Routledge, 2012), and is the author of the widely-cited "Do Economists Agree on Anything?" He has taught a Great Courses course on Modern Economic Issues.




What’s the best or worst advice you ever received when you were thinking about becoming an economist?

The best advice to a budding economist (although I didn't read it until many years after I became an economist) comes from Friedrich Hayek: "nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist – and … the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.”

The worst advice I heard may have been that economics is important to study because it's all about money and you can earn a lot if you study it. Economics is about a lot more than just money and you can earn a very good living doing it. Money is important, but if that's your only motivation, you won't be happy as an economist or as a human being. 

Who’s the most important economist most people—including economists—have never heard of?

Most people have not heard of one of the most important economists of the twentieth century, Simon Kuznets, who did more than anyone else to conceptualize our national income and product accounts and to push estimates of GDP well back into the 19th century.

Less well known are two other economic historians who deserve to be read: Robert Higgs, whose research on the expansion of the U.S. government, especially Crisis and Leviathan, is essential and Price Fishback, whose research has rewritten our understanding of the Great Depression era.