4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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0:00.0 | NPR. |
0:03.0 | The World of Economics lost a major force this week. Robert Lucas died on Monday aged 85. |
0:19.0 | We called his one time colleague, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, John Cochran. |
0:24.0 | He was a giant in the field. He's not well-known outside economics, but a lot of us would put him as the most influential economist of the 20th century. |
0:36.0 | When you look at what economists do now, it's Lucas Lucas Lucas. |
0:42.0 | A lot of what economists do is build models of the world. These mathematical representations of how people or companies might respond to change. |
0:51.0 | So if you cut taxes, what might happen to inflation? Or economic growth? |
0:57.0 | These models are super important. Just think about the debate today over how much the Federal Reserve should be raising interest rates to try and control inflation. |
1:07.0 | Like how high is too high before you cause a recession? |
1:11.0 | But in the 1970s, Robert Lucas argued the economic models trying to answer those kinds of questions were too simplistic. |
1:18.0 | He challenged economists to think harder, and that changed the discipline forever. |
1:25.0 | This is the indicator from planet money. I'm Darian Woods. |
1:28.0 | And I'm Adrian Mah. |
1:29.0 | While many economists see Robert Lucas as one of the most influential in their field, he's not exactly a household name. |
1:37.0 | So today on the show, we try to change that. |
1:44.0 | Robert Lucas was one of the most important economists over the last 50 years. Born in Yakima, Washington, he went on scholarship to the University of Chicago. |
1:54.0 | He later won a Nobel Prize. He made economic forecasts better. And according to John Cochran, he was also a great colleague. |
2:03.0 | I showed up as a assistant professor in the University of Chicago fresh out of Berkeley. |
2:10.0 | Didn't know much about anything. And Bob treated me a brass-yong assistant professor who didn't know much of anything like a full colleague. |
2:19.0 | He gave me all sorts of comments on my papers and expected me to comment on his papers. |
2:24.0 | A truly great guy. |
2:26.0 | Also, he could be grumpy. |
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