If you want to be an economics professor at a top university like Harvard or MIT,

there's essentially one path.

You major in economics at an elite university and then you go directly to get a

PhD from a top five school, maybe pausing for a year or two to do research with a big name

economist. Almost every top economist I know followed that formula. And then there's

MIT economist David Otter. I call him the accidental economist.

I may sound like a happy go lucky it all goes well just put myself at the right place at the right time and boom there I am but it was really challenging.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Leavitt.

David Otter is one of my favorite economists.

He has an incredible knack for seeing things other people can't see, but as soon as he points him out,

you kick yourself because it seems so obvious once he explains it to you.

If I have a question about the labor market, David Otter is who I turn to. He seems to know the answer to every important question in that area.

David, it's a sign of how much you've accomplished as an academic economist, that the

popular press has bestowed monikers or nicknames upon you and that's a level of

notoriety that's rare in our field. The Economist magazine christened you the

academic voice of the American worker and John

Oliver he called you quote a Torpy economist do you wear those two monikers with

equal pride oh yeah torpy MIT economist is my favorite of all.

My kids always tease me about the first one.

They go, there goes the academic voice of the American worker shopping for shoes online.

That's awesome.

It's not completely by chance that you became the academic voice of the American worker

...