Daron Acemoglu and Jon Hartley discuss Daron’s career and main contributions to economics, including the study of institutions as a fundamental contributor to economic growth. Jon raises the question of how regulation holds back growth, and by how much, and whether liberal vs. illiberal economic institutions might be a better taxonomy than inclusive versus extractive institutions. Other economic growth components such as culture and geography are discussed as well. They conclude by talking about artificial intelligence and the future of work.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor at MIT and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy of Sciences, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty. He is the author of six books, including the New York Times best seller Why Nations Fail: Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (with James A. Robinson), as well as Introduction to Modern Economic Growth, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (with James A. Robinson), and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity (with Simon Johnson). His academic work covers a wide range of areas, including political economy, economic development, economic growth, technological change, inequality, labor economics, and economics of networks. He received the inaugural T. W. Shultz Prize from the University of Chicago in 2004; the inaugural Sherwin Rosen Award for outstanding contribution to labor economics in 2004; the Distinguished Science Award from the Turkish Sciences Association in 2006; the John von Neumann Award, Rajk College, Budapest, in 2007; the Carnegie Fellowship in 2017; the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize in 2018; the Global Economy Prize in 2019; and the CME Mathematical and Statistical Research Institute Prize in 2021. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in 2012, and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2016.

Jon Hartley is a Research Assistant at the Hoover Institution and an PhD candidate in economics at Stanford University, where he specializes in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is also currently a research fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jon is also a member of the Canadian Group of Economists and serves as chair of the Economic Club of Miami.

Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as well as in various policy roles at the World Bank,the International Monetaty Fund, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, the US Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.

Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and the Huffington Post and has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 under 30 Law & Policy list and the 2017 Wharton 40 under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

ABOUT THE SERIES:

Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.

© 2024 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.

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