Brad DeLong on Intellectual and Technical Progress
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkley, OG econ blogger, and Tyler’s Harvard classmate, joins the show to discuss Slouching Towards Utopia, an economic history of the 20th century that’s been nearly thirty years in the making.
Tyler and Brad discuss what can really be gleaned from the fragmentary economics statistics of the late 19th century, the remarkable changes that occurred from 1870-1920, the astonishing flourishing of German universities in the 19th century, why investment banking allowed America and Germany to pull ahead of Britain economically, what enabled the Royal Society to become a force for progress, what Keynes got wrong, what Hayek got right, whether the middle-income trap persists, his favorite movie and novel, blogging vs. Substack, the Slouching Towards Utopia director’s cut, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
Recorded November 11th, 2022
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:09.4 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. |
| 0:13.5 | Learn more at mercatis.org. |
| 0:16.2 | For full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit |
| 0:21.0 | ConversationsWithT Tyler.com |
| 0:27.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations With Tyler. |
| 0:30.6 | Today I am speaking with Brad DeLong on his book, known as J. Bradford DeLong, |
| 0:36.2 | on scholar.google, known as J. Bradford DeLong. |
| 0:39.5 | But to most of us known as Brad DeLong, he is professor of economics at UC Berkeley. |
| 0:44.9 | He and I went to grad school together at Harvard. |
| 0:48.0 | He was one of the very first, if not the first, economics blogger. |
| 0:51.8 | And he this year has out a long awaited New York Times best selling book, Slouching Towards Utopia, |
| 0:57.9 | an economic history of the 20th century. |
| 1:00.4 | Brad, welcome. |
| 1:02.1 | Thank you. Thank you very much for having me and giving me an opportunity to sell books, |
| 1:06.7 | as well as to talk to one of the most smart people and wide-ranging people I know, |
| 1:11.9 | about the Eglidical Economy and similar things. |
| 1:14.4 | Thank you for that. Now if I look at the productivity and growth statistics for the late 19th century, |
| 1:20.1 | they're highly fragmentary, they're imperfect. They are. |
| 1:22.7 | What do you think the numbers are showing us? Because they don't look that good. |
| 1:26.7 | Is it that we don't trust the numbers or is it the numbers like that? |
| 1:29.7 | Are what big progress meant back then? |
... |
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