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Conversations with Tyler

Nicholas Bloom on Management, Productivity, and Scientific Progress

Conversations with Tyler

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2020

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What might the electrification of factories teach us about how quickly we'll adapt to remote work? What gives American companies an edge over their competitors on the international stage? What value do management consultants really provide? Stanford professor Nick Bloom's research studies how management practices, productivity techniques, and uncertainty shape outcomes across companies and countries.

He joined Tyler for a conversation about which areas of science are making progress, the factors that have made research more expensive, why government should invest more in R&D, how lean management transformed manufacturing, how India's congested legal system inhibits economic development, the effects of technology on Scottish football hooliganism, why firms thrive in China, how weak legal systems incentivize nepotism, why he's not worried about the effects of remote work on American productivity (in the short-term), the drawbacks of elite graduate programs, how his first "academic love" shapes his work today, the benefits of working with co-authors, why he prefers periodicals and podcasts to reading books, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded July 13th, 2020

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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,

0:08.4

bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.

0:12.5

Learn more at mercatis.org.

0:15.2

And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit

0:20.4

ConversationsWithT Tyler.com.

0:28.1

Hello, everyone. Today, I am honored to be chatting with Nick Bloom, who is professor of economics

0:33.1

at Stanford. I sometimes put it this way, if I read a new and interesting article, whether

0:38.7

it be on productivity in science, the productivity of firms, how effective it is to work from

0:45.3

home, the effect of uncertainty on economic output. And then I think, well, who's the most

0:50.0

likely economist to be a co-author or author of this article? That one person is Nick Bloom.

0:56.2

Nick, welcome.

0:57.2

Thanks very much for having me on Tyler. It's great to be here.

1:00.4

Let's start with your piece with co-authors on whether progress in science has slowed down.

1:06.7

And you argue that it has. I would ask which are the areas where progress in science has

1:11.4

not slowed down?

1:13.2

Oh, that's a good question. Why? That's not what I'm normally asked about. Where has it

1:19.7

not slowed down? I mean, I guess, in some senses, I mean, I'm not drawing in any deep personal

1:24.8

insight here, but just looking at the valuations of firms and exciting areas. But it's going

1:29.3

to be things like AI, I mean, I guess social media, genetic medicine. I think of what's

1:34.4

going on at Stanford. I know there's a huge explosion of work in Stanford, several of my

1:39.0

friends and colleagues on campus are working on genetic medicine. I mean, all kinds of

1:42.2

amazing things there, actually, wearables. So one of my friends here is actually working

...

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