Note: This conversation was recorded in January 2020.
Tyler credits Jason Furman’s intellectual breadth, real-world experience, and emphasis on policy for making him the best economist in the world. Furman, despite not initially being interested in public policy, ultimately served as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama thanks to a call from Joe Stiglitz while still in grad school. His perspective is as idiosyncratic as his career trajectory, seeing the world of economic policy as a series of complex tradeoffs rather than something reducible to oversimplified political slogans.
Jason joined Tyler for a wide-ranging conversation on how monopolies affect investment patterns, his top three recommendations to improve American productivity, why he’s skeptical of place-based development policies, what some pro-immigration arguments get wrong, why he’s more concerned about companies like Facebook and Google than he is Walmart and Amazon, the merits of a human rights approach to privacy, whether the EU treats tech companies fairly, having Matt Damon as a college roommate, the future of fintech, his highest objective when teaching economics, what he learned from coauthoring a paper with someone who disagrees with him, why he’s a prolific Goodreads reviewer, and more.
Follow us on Twitter and IG: @cowenconvos
Email: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Follow Jason on Twitter
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Newsletter
Jacob Mikanowski on Eastern Europe
Re-release: Claudia Goldin on the Economics of Inequality
Ada Palmer on Viking Metaphysics, Contingent Moments, and Censorship
Lazarus Lake on Endurance, Uncertainty, and Reaching One’s Potential
Jerusalem Demsas on The Dispossessed, Gulliver's Travels, and Of Boys and Men
Vishy Anand on Staying in the Game
Celebrating Marginal Revolution's 20th Anniversary
Paul Graham on Ambition, Art, and Evaluating Talent
Noam Dworman on Stand-Up Comedy and Staying Open-Minded
David Bentley Hart on Reason, Faith, and Diversity in Religious Thought
Reid Hoffman on the Possibilities of AI
Noam Chomsky on Language, Left Libertarianism, and Progress
Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas
Seth Godin on Marketing, Meaning, and the Bibs We Wear
Simon Johnson on Banking, Technology, and Prosperity
Kevin Kelly on Advice, Travel, and Tech
Anna Keay on Historic Architecture, Monarchy, and 17th Century Britain
Jessica Wade on Chiral Materials, Open Knowledge, and Representation in STEM
Jonathan GPT Swift on Jonathan Swift
Tom Holland on History, Christianity, and the Value of the Countryside
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Navigating Life After 40
Teaching Learning Leading K-12
Regenerative Skills
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast