Lydia Davis on Language and Literature

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. Long before Abhijit Banerjee won the 2019 economics Nobel with Michael Kremer and Esther Duflo, he was a fellow graduate student at Harvard with Tyler. For Tyler, Abhijit is one of the brightest economic minds he's ever met, and "a brilliant theorist who decided the future was with empirical work." But according to Abhijit, theory and practice go hand in hand: the real benefit of a randomized control trial isn't getting unbiased estimates, he says, but in testing hypotheses borne out of theory. Abhijit joined Tyler to discuss his unique approach to economics, including thoughts on premature deindustrialization, the intrinsic weakness of any charter city, where the best classical Indian music is being made today, why he prefers making Indian sweets to French sweets, the influence of English intellectual life in India, the history behind Bengali leftism, the best Indian regional cuisine, why experimental economics is underrated, the reforms he'd make to traditional graduate economics training, how his mother's passion inspires his research, how many consumer loyalty programs he's joined, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded December 2nd, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

30 Joulu 20191h 2min

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. For this special retrospective episode, producer Jeff Holmes sat down with Tyler to discuss the past year in conversations and more, including who was most challenging guest to prep for, the most popular—and the most underrated—conversation, a test of Tyler's knowledge called "Name That Production Function," listener questions from Twitter, how Tyler has boosted his productivity in the past year, and whether his book and movie picks from 2009 still hold up.  Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded December 11th, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

23 Joulu 201952min

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. Esther Duflo's advice to students? Spend time in the field. "It's only through this exposure that you can learn how wrong most of your intuitions are and preconceptions are," she explains. For Duflo, it was time spent in the Soviet Union on the brink of collapse. While there she saw how Jeff Sachs used the tools of economics to advise policymakers on matters of crucial importance. To her it seemed like the best job in the world—and she began to pursue it in earnest. Now it is she who is advising governments on how best to reduce poverty, having co-founded one of the leading policy research centers in the world. That work, together with that of frequent collaborators Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer, has now been honored with the Nobel Prize. She joined Tyler to discuss that work, including how coaching increases the effectiveness of cash transfers, why she cautions against falling in love with growth rates, what France gets right about child-rearing, the management philosophy behind her success building J-PAL, how she briefly became the face of an anti-Soviet revolution, the under-looked reasons behind the decline of geographic mobility in the United States, what rock climbing can teach us about being a good empirical economist, her daily musical move from Bach to Bob Dylan, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded November 12th, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

18 Joulu 20191h 1min

What determines the economic, social, and political trajectories of nations? Why were settlers in colonies like Jamestown and Australia able to escape the extractive systems desired by their British masters, while colonial subjects in Barbados and Jamaica were not? In his latest book, Daron Acemoglu elevates the power of institutions over theories centering on human capital, culture, or geography. Institutions help strike the balance of power in the constant struggle between state and society, creating a 'narrow corridor' through which liberty and prosperity is achieved. Daron joined Tyler for a conversation about drivers of economic growth, the economic causes and effects of democratization, how Germanic tribes introduced "bottom-up politics" to the Roman empire, the institutional reasons that China's state capacity and control has increased with its wealth, his predictions for the future of liberty in his birth country of Turkey, the biggest challenges currently facing the Middle East, what we can learn from the example of Lagos, why publishing in the "top five" is overrated, tips on motivating graduate students, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded October 25th, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Daron on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

4 Joulu 201955min

Over the past year Mark Zuckerberg has held a series of interviews themed around technology and society. This conversation with Tyler and Patrick is the last in that series, and covers why they think the study of progress is so important, including how it could affect biomedical research, the founding of new universities and foundations, building things fast, housing and healthcare affordability, the next four years of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded November 22nd, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Patrick on Twitter Follow Mark on Facebook Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

27 Marras 20191h 8min

How do you survive seven years in solitary confinement? The gift of literacy is what saved Shaka Senghor. Reading, journaling, academic study, and writing books was a way to structure and survive an inhumane, mentally toxic environment. And after 19 years in total behind bars, he was finally able to apply that gift and create employment for himself as a writer and organizational leader upon rejoining society. Shaka joined Tyler to discuss his book Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison, what it was like to return to society not knowing the difference between the internet and a Word document, entrepreneurialism and humor in prison, the unexpected challenges formerly incarcerated people face upon release, his ideas for helping Detroit, what he connects with in Eastern philosophy, how he's celebrating the upcoming anniversary of his tenth year of freedom, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded October 31st, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Shaka on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

20 Marras 20191h

Three years after her first appearance, Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop joins Tyler to celebrate the release of her latest cookbook and talk all things food and China. This time the conversation was held over a special homestyle meal at Mama Chang, the newest restaurant from Chef Peter and Lisa Chang. Together with their daughter Lydia Chang, Fuchsia selected a menu to share with Tyler and a group of friends from the DC food scene. Each dish inspired new avenues for discussion, including the trendiness of 'Chinese' cauliflower, why hot pot is overrated, what Western food China has recently perfected, first experiences with Sichuan peppercorns, whether ma la will take over the world, why Michelin inspectors underrate Chinese cuisine, what to serve a Westerner for a Chinese dessert, and much more. Joining Tyler, Fuchsia, and Lydia around the table were Chef Pichet Ong, Chef Seng Luangrath, David Hagedorn, Stefanie Gans, Rivka Friedman, Natasha Cowen, and Yana Chernyak. Special thanks to Peter, Lisa, Lydia and all the staff at Mama Chang for the wonderful meal. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded October 27th, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Fuchsia on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

13 Marras 20191h 16min

To Ted Gioia, music is a form of cloud storage for preserving human culture. And the real cultural conflict, he insists, is not between "high brow" and "low brow" music, but between the innovative and the formulaic. Imitation and repetition deaden musical culture—and he should know, since he listens to 3 hours of new music per day and over 1,000 newly released recordings in a year. His latest book covers the evolution of music from its origins in hunter-gatherer societies, to ancient Greece, to jazz, to its role in modern-day political protests such as those in Hong Kong. He joined Tyler to discuss the history and industry of music, including the reasons AI will never create the perfect songs, the strange relationship between outbreaks of disease and innovation, how the shift from record companies to Silicon Valley transformed incentive structures within the industry–and why that's cause for concern, the vocal polyphony of Pygmy music, Bob Dylan's Nobel prize, why input is underrated, his advice to aspiring music writers, the unsung female innovators of music history, how the Blues anticipated the sexual revolution, what Rene Girard's mimetic theory can tell us about noisy restaurants, the reason he calls Sinatra the "Derrida of pop singing," how to cultivate an excellent music taste, and why he loves Side B of Abbey Road. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Recorded October 23rd, 2019 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Ted on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

6 Marras 20191h 3min