Adam Ozimek on the Power of Econometrics and Data

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2016

⏱️ 62 minutes

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Summary

Adam Ozimek of Moody's Analytics and blogger at Forbes talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about why economists change their minds or don't. Ozimek argues that economists make erratic but steady progress using econometrics and other forms of evidence to understand the impact of public policies such as the minimum wage or government stimulus. Roberts pushes back and discusses the role of ideology, the complexity of where our views come from and the potential for confirmation bias.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.2	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.1	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:18.1	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done
0:25.2	going back to 2006.
0:27.5	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.8	We'd love to hear from you.
0:34.5	Today is January 26, 2016, and my guest is Adam Ozemick.
0:39.8	He is an economist at Moody's Analytics, and he blogs at Forbes at Modeled Behavior.
0:45.0	Adam welcome to Econ Talk.
0:47.0	Thanks for having me, Russ.
0:49.0	Our conversation today is something of a follow-up to the recent Econ Talk episode with Noah
0:53.2	Smith.
0:54.8	In the aftermath of that conversation, you wrote a piece, and the title was, Can Economics
0:59.9	Change Your Mind, which was one of the topics that Noah and I had talked about, and I found
1:04.8	your take to be very provocative, and it helped me think more clearly about some of the
1:10.5	issues that were raised in the Smith episode that I was either confused about or confused
1:15.6	you with the listeners about.
1:16.6	So I wanted to follow up and go a little deeper.
1:19.5	So summarize the argument that you made in your piece, and you asked for some responses
1:23.6	from readers, and you got some interesting responses.
	...

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