Showing posts with label yale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yale. Show all posts
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Brooks -- The Unexamined Society
Op-Ed Columnist
The Unexamined Society
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: July 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08brooks.html
Over the past 50 years, we’ve seen a number of gigantic policies produce disappointing results — policies to reduce poverty, homelessness, dropout rates, single-parenting and drug addiction. Many of these policies failed because they were based on an overly simplistic view of human nature. They assumed that people responded in straightforward ways to incentives. Often, they assumed that money could cure behavior problems.
The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.
Fortunately, today we are in the middle of a golden age of behavioral research. Thousands of researchers are studying the way actual behavior differs from the way we assume people behave. They are coming up with more accurate theories of who we are, and scores of real-world applications. Here’s one simple example:
When you renew your driver’s license, you have a chance to enroll in an organ donation program. In countries like Germany and the U.S., you have to check a box if you want to opt in. Roughly 14 percent of people do. But behavioral scientists have discovered that how you set the defaults is really important. So in other countries, like Poland or France, you have to check a box if you want to opt out. In these countries, more than 90 percent of people participate.
This is a gigantic behavior difference cued by one tiny and costless change in procedure.
Yet in the middle of this golden age of behavioral research, there is a bill working through Congress that would eliminate the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. This is exactly how budgets should not be balanced — by cutting cheap things that produce enormous future benefits.
Let’s say you want to reduce poverty. We have two traditional understandings of poverty. The first presumes people are rational. They are pursuing their goals effectively and don’t need much help in changing their behavior. The second presumes that the poor are afflicted by cultural or psychological dysfunctions that sometimes lead them to behave in shortsighted ways. Neither of these theories has produced much in the way of effective policies.
Eldar Shafir of Princeton and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard have recently, with federal help, been exploring a third theory, that scarcity produces its own cognitive traits.
A quick question: What is the starting taxi fare in your city? If you are like most upper-middle-class people, you don’t know. If you are like many struggling people, you do know. Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t. They have to make complicated trade-offs when buying a carton of milk: If I buy milk, I can’t afford orange juice. They have to decide which utility not to pay.
These questions impose enormous cognitive demands. The brain has limited capacities. If you increase demands on one sort of question, it performs less well on other sorts of questions.
Shafir and Mullainathan gave batteries of tests to Indian sugar farmers. After they sell their harvest, they live in relative prosperity. During this season, the farmers do well on the I.Q. and other tests. But before the harvest, they live amid scarcity and have to think hard about a thousand daily decisions. During these seasons, these same farmers do much worse on the tests. They appear to have lower I.Q.’s. They have more trouble controlling their attention. They are more shortsighted. Scarcity creates its own psychology.
Princeton students don’t usually face extreme financial scarcity, but they do face time scarcity. In one game, they had to answer questions in a series of timed rounds, but they could borrow time from future rounds. When they were scrambling amid time scarcity, they were quick to borrow time, and they were nearly oblivious to the usurious interest rates the game organizers were charging. These brilliant Princeton kids were rushing to the equivalent of payday lenders, to their own long-term detriment.
Shafir and Mullainathan have a book coming out next year, exploring how scarcity — whether of time, money or calories (while dieting) — affects your psychology. They are also studying how poor people’s self-perceptions shape behavior. Many people don’t sign up for the welfare benefits because they are intimidated by the forms. Shafir and Mullainathan asked some people at a Trenton soup kitchen to relive a moment when they felt competent and others to recount a neutral experience. Nearly half of the self-affirming group picked up an available benefits package afterward. Only 16 percent of the neutral group did.
People are complicated. We each have multiple selves, which emerge or don’t depending on context. If we’re going to address problems, we need to understand the contexts and how these tendencies emerge or don’t emerge. We need to design policies around that knowledge. Cutting off financing for this sort of research now is like cutting off navigation financing just as Christopher Columbus hit the shoreline of the New World.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 8, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Unexamined Society.
Comment 119:
Thank you David Brooks. In the spirit of this wonderful Op Ed piece, I submit this and hope this works: Read "The Beggar" submitted by Lisa B. Youngclaus for the Yale 50th Reunion Book "1000 Voices" a month ago. This written by her husband Bill Youngclaus III, class of '61, whose career was in advertising, a month before his death in 2006.
A black man tugged at my sleeve,
asking for some change
I was startled to be so close to him, a man
I had rejected many time before, but
from a distance.
I had always shrugged no, implying
that I had no change
Which of course we both knew was a lie.
But this time this close, I could see he
was not so old,
And his smell, while not fresh was clean.
His eyes caught mine while I fumbled
In my own crumpled pocket.
My eyes stuck to his, seeing a time
when he was cared for by another's
caution:
don't do that my love, watch out my
darling.
And he would laugh oh so hard know-
ing he was loved,
Attended to, and he would slap his
mamma's face
In mock discord, waiting for the hug
that would
Surely come. And then, and then...I
don't know.
Something painful probably happened
followed
By worse, and then worse even still,
until he arrived
Here to tread on other's mercy, his only
hope
That I, and others, change their minds.
Recommended by 4 Readers
The Unexamined Society
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: July 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08brooks.html
Over the past 50 years, we’ve seen a number of gigantic policies produce disappointing results — policies to reduce poverty, homelessness, dropout rates, single-parenting and drug addiction. Many of these policies failed because they were based on an overly simplistic view of human nature. They assumed that people responded in straightforward ways to incentives. Often, they assumed that money could cure behavior problems.
The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.
Fortunately, today we are in the middle of a golden age of behavioral research. Thousands of researchers are studying the way actual behavior differs from the way we assume people behave. They are coming up with more accurate theories of who we are, and scores of real-world applications. Here’s one simple example:
When you renew your driver’s license, you have a chance to enroll in an organ donation program. In countries like Germany and the U.S., you have to check a box if you want to opt in. Roughly 14 percent of people do. But behavioral scientists have discovered that how you set the defaults is really important. So in other countries, like Poland or France, you have to check a box if you want to opt out. In these countries, more than 90 percent of people participate.
This is a gigantic behavior difference cued by one tiny and costless change in procedure.
Yet in the middle of this golden age of behavioral research, there is a bill working through Congress that would eliminate the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. This is exactly how budgets should not be balanced — by cutting cheap things that produce enormous future benefits.
Let’s say you want to reduce poverty. We have two traditional understandings of poverty. The first presumes people are rational. They are pursuing their goals effectively and don’t need much help in changing their behavior. The second presumes that the poor are afflicted by cultural or psychological dysfunctions that sometimes lead them to behave in shortsighted ways. Neither of these theories has produced much in the way of effective policies.
Eldar Shafir of Princeton and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard have recently, with federal help, been exploring a third theory, that scarcity produces its own cognitive traits.
A quick question: What is the starting taxi fare in your city? If you are like most upper-middle-class people, you don’t know. If you are like many struggling people, you do know. Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t. They have to make complicated trade-offs when buying a carton of milk: If I buy milk, I can’t afford orange juice. They have to decide which utility not to pay.
These questions impose enormous cognitive demands. The brain has limited capacities. If you increase demands on one sort of question, it performs less well on other sorts of questions.
Shafir and Mullainathan gave batteries of tests to Indian sugar farmers. After they sell their harvest, they live in relative prosperity. During this season, the farmers do well on the I.Q. and other tests. But before the harvest, they live amid scarcity and have to think hard about a thousand daily decisions. During these seasons, these same farmers do much worse on the tests. They appear to have lower I.Q.’s. They have more trouble controlling their attention. They are more shortsighted. Scarcity creates its own psychology.
Princeton students don’t usually face extreme financial scarcity, but they do face time scarcity. In one game, they had to answer questions in a series of timed rounds, but they could borrow time from future rounds. When they were scrambling amid time scarcity, they were quick to borrow time, and they were nearly oblivious to the usurious interest rates the game organizers were charging. These brilliant Princeton kids were rushing to the equivalent of payday lenders, to their own long-term detriment.
Shafir and Mullainathan have a book coming out next year, exploring how scarcity — whether of time, money or calories (while dieting) — affects your psychology. They are also studying how poor people’s self-perceptions shape behavior. Many people don’t sign up for the welfare benefits because they are intimidated by the forms. Shafir and Mullainathan asked some people at a Trenton soup kitchen to relive a moment when they felt competent and others to recount a neutral experience. Nearly half of the self-affirming group picked up an available benefits package afterward. Only 16 percent of the neutral group did.
People are complicated. We each have multiple selves, which emerge or don’t depending on context. If we’re going to address problems, we need to understand the contexts and how these tendencies emerge or don’t emerge. We need to design policies around that knowledge. Cutting off financing for this sort of research now is like cutting off navigation financing just as Christopher Columbus hit the shoreline of the New World.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 8, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Unexamined Society.
Comment 119:
Thank you David Brooks. In the spirit of this wonderful Op Ed piece, I submit this and hope this works: Read "The Beggar" submitted by Lisa B. Youngclaus for the Yale 50th Reunion Book "1000 Voices" a month ago. This written by her husband Bill Youngclaus III, class of '61, whose career was in advertising, a month before his death in 2006.
A black man tugged at my sleeve,
asking for some change
I was startled to be so close to him, a man
I had rejected many time before, but
from a distance.
I had always shrugged no, implying
that I had no change
Which of course we both knew was a lie.
But this time this close, I could see he
was not so old,
And his smell, while not fresh was clean.
His eyes caught mine while I fumbled
In my own crumpled pocket.
My eyes stuck to his, seeing a time
when he was cared for by another's
caution:
don't do that my love, watch out my
darling.
And he would laugh oh so hard know-
ing he was loved,
Attended to, and he would slap his
mamma's face
In mock discord, waiting for the hug
that would
Surely come. And then, and then...I
don't know.
Something painful probably happened
followed
By worse, and then worse even still,
until he arrived
Here to tread on other's mercy, his only
hope
That I, and others, change their minds.
Recommended by 4 Readers
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Gravel by Alice Munroe in This Week's New Yorker -- I
[ed note: Page 66 that is missing here is added at end of third posting above.]
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Jimmy Rogers Interviewed by Dylan Ratigan!
http://jimrogers-investments.blogspot.com/2011/06/video-greece-is-bankrupt-protect.html
[from Wikipedia] Rogers was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Demopolis, Alabama.[1][3] He started in business at the age of five by selling peanuts and by picking up empty bottles that fans left behind at baseball games. He got his first job on Wall Street, at Dominick & Dominick, after graduating with a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1964. Rogers then acquired a second BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford University in 1966.
In 1970, Rogers joined Arnhold and S. Bleichroder. In 1973, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. During the following 10 years, the portfolio gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%.[4] The Quantum Fund was one of the first truly international funds.
[from Wikipedia] Rogers was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Demopolis, Alabama.[1][3] He started in business at the age of five by selling peanuts and by picking up empty bottles that fans left behind at baseball games. He got his first job on Wall Street, at Dominick & Dominick, after graduating with a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1964. Rogers then acquired a second BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford University in 1966.
In 1970, Rogers joined Arnhold and S. Bleichroder. In 1973, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. During the following 10 years, the portfolio gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%.[4] The Quantum Fund was one of the first truly international funds.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Saturday, February 13, 2010
More Goolsbee '91
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
See my comments at the very end re why I have veered off to research Goolsbee.
Alum to advise Obama
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By Ilana Seager
Contributing Reporter
Published Monday, December 1, 2008
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It took Austan Goolsbee ’91 GRD ’91 17 years to go from being an aide to Yale’s economics faculty to being an aide for the President of the United States.
On Nov. 26 President-elect Barack Obama appointed Goolsbee, now a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member body charged with developing much of the White House’s economic policy. The 39-year-old Goolsbee will also serve on the White House’s newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which the Office of the President-elect claims will provide “independent, non-partisan” advice to Obama as he implements a policy response to the current financial crisis. Goolsbee’s colleagues at the University of Chicago said it is likely that Goolsbee, an expert on tax policy, will serve as the administration’s economic point man on taxation issues.
“Austan is one of America’s most promising economic minds, known for his path-breaking work on tax policy and industrial organization,” Obama said in a Nov. 26 speech. “He’s one of the economic thinkers who has most shaped my own thinking on economic matters.”
Goolsbee deferred comment for this story to spokesmen for the Obama transition team, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment last week.
Since Obama’s 2004 run for U.S. Senate, Goolsbee has been one of the President-elect’s closest advisers on economic policy. He was particularly influential in Obama’s advocacy of income tax breaks for workers.
In his new role, Goolsbee will serve as chief economist and staff director of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. There, Obama said, Goolsbee will be the “primary liaison between the board and the administration.”
His appointment comes as little surprise to University faculty who worked with Goolsbee when he was a summa cum laude undergraduate standout in economics. University President Richard Levin, once a professor of economics and management at the Yale School of Management, served on the faculty committee that reviewed Goolsbee’s work for his master’s degree in economics, a degree Goolsbee received concurrently with his B.A. in 1991.
“I, for one, never doubted that he would make a substantial mark on the field,” said President Levin in an e-mail. “And I am not at all surprised that he has been so influential as an adviser to President-elect Obama.”
Deputy Provost for Faculty Development and economics professor Judith Chevalier ’89 said that Goolsbee’s expertise derives from his specialty in tax policy and public finance along with his contacts in the field. Although no one economist can be eminent in all the field’s disciplines, Chevalier said, Goolsbee knows “all of the leading experts in the areas that are not his.” Chevalier, who has co-authored three academic papers with Goolsbee, said that she is not surprised by his appointment.
“I don’t think there was ever a question that he would in some way join Obama’s team if Obama asked,” she said. “And I don’t think, given the extent that he has been a trusted advisor, that there was ever a question that Obama would ask.”
One of Goolsbee’s colleagues at the University of Chicago suggested that Obama’s administration will turn to Goolsbee on matters of tax policy.
“He knows a lot about taxation and about how people react to different tax policies,” said University of Chicago professor Chad Syverson. “I think that anything that comes out of the administration about taxes will have had a good look over by Austan.”
As an undergraduate, Goolsbee and debate partner David Gray ’92 won the 1991 Team of the Year award given by the American Parliamentary Debate Association. Goolsbee was also a member of improvisational comedy group Just Add Water, the Yale Political Union and secret society Skull and Bones.
Gray said Goolsbee was a dedicated economist, teaching his University of Chicago microeconomics lecture even on his wedding day.
“This just shows his commitment to the field of economics,” Gray said. “And this is how you get to being on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board at the age of 39.”
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var boxwidth = 183;
displayjobbox(boxwidth);
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
OK, I'll admit it. David Gray, Goolsbee's debate partner at Yale, is the son of a good high school and Yale friend of mine, Edman Gray, of Dayton.
Analyst, Site OptimizationProvide Commerce Inc.
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See my comments at the very end re why I have veered off to research Goolsbee.
Alum to advise Obama
Write Editor
Share
By Ilana Seager
Contributing Reporter
Published Monday, December 1, 2008
Your Email
Friend's Email
Message
Submit Close
It took Austan Goolsbee ’91 GRD ’91 17 years to go from being an aide to Yale’s economics faculty to being an aide for the President of the United States.
On Nov. 26 President-elect Barack Obama appointed Goolsbee, now a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member body charged with developing much of the White House’s economic policy. The 39-year-old Goolsbee will also serve on the White House’s newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which the Office of the President-elect claims will provide “independent, non-partisan” advice to Obama as he implements a policy response to the current financial crisis. Goolsbee’s colleagues at the University of Chicago said it is likely that Goolsbee, an expert on tax policy, will serve as the administration’s economic point man on taxation issues.
“Austan is one of America’s most promising economic minds, known for his path-breaking work on tax policy and industrial organization,” Obama said in a Nov. 26 speech. “He’s one of the economic thinkers who has most shaped my own thinking on economic matters.”
Goolsbee deferred comment for this story to spokesmen for the Obama transition team, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment last week.
Since Obama’s 2004 run for U.S. Senate, Goolsbee has been one of the President-elect’s closest advisers on economic policy. He was particularly influential in Obama’s advocacy of income tax breaks for workers.
In his new role, Goolsbee will serve as chief economist and staff director of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. There, Obama said, Goolsbee will be the “primary liaison between the board and the administration.”
His appointment comes as little surprise to University faculty who worked with Goolsbee when he was a summa cum laude undergraduate standout in economics. University President Richard Levin, once a professor of economics and management at the Yale School of Management, served on the faculty committee that reviewed Goolsbee’s work for his master’s degree in economics, a degree Goolsbee received concurrently with his B.A. in 1991.
“I, for one, never doubted that he would make a substantial mark on the field,” said President Levin in an e-mail. “And I am not at all surprised that he has been so influential as an adviser to President-elect Obama.”
Deputy Provost for Faculty Development and economics professor Judith Chevalier ’89 said that Goolsbee’s expertise derives from his specialty in tax policy and public finance along with his contacts in the field. Although no one economist can be eminent in all the field’s disciplines, Chevalier said, Goolsbee knows “all of the leading experts in the areas that are not his.” Chevalier, who has co-authored three academic papers with Goolsbee, said that she is not surprised by his appointment.
“I don’t think there was ever a question that he would in some way join Obama’s team if Obama asked,” she said. “And I don’t think, given the extent that he has been a trusted advisor, that there was ever a question that Obama would ask.”
One of Goolsbee’s colleagues at the University of Chicago suggested that Obama’s administration will turn to Goolsbee on matters of tax policy.
“He knows a lot about taxation and about how people react to different tax policies,” said University of Chicago professor Chad Syverson. “I think that anything that comes out of the administration about taxes will have had a good look over by Austan.”
As an undergraduate, Goolsbee and debate partner David Gray ’92 won the 1991 Team of the Year award given by the American Parliamentary Debate Association. Goolsbee was also a member of improvisational comedy group Just Add Water, the Yale Political Union and secret society Skull and Bones.
Gray said Goolsbee was a dedicated economist, teaching his University of Chicago microeconomics lecture even on his wedding day.
“This just shows his commitment to the field of economics,” Gray said. “And this is how you get to being on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board at the age of 39.”
Post a Comment
Read more from Ilana Seager
Subscribe to the Daily Headlines E-mail
Most Popular
Viewed
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Yalies, under the covers
Google to run Yale e-mail
One in four, maybe six
Toad's raided
Narcisse '12 died of drugs, autopsy shows
Drugs caused sophomore’s death
For faithful few, a balancing act
In Branford, a book club — or cult
Emailed
Google to run Yale e-mail
Yalies, under the covers
For faithful few, a balancing act
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
One in four, maybe six
A performance to end the world?
Reverend reconciles sex and religion
Elis say going steady can be rocky
Beyond just basketball
Commented
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Yalies, under the covers
Ivy Muslims hold conference
One in four, maybe six
Google to run Yale e-mail
Olivarius: A pregnant pause
Narcisse '12 died of drugs, autopsy shows
In Branford, a book club — or cult
Reverend reconciles sex and religion
var boxwidth = 183;
displayjobbox(boxwidth);
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
OK, I'll admit it. David Gray, Goolsbee's debate partner at Yale, is the son of a good high school and Yale friend of mine, Edman Gray, of Dayton.
Analyst, Site OptimizationProvide Commerce Inc.
UNIX/Linux System Engineer Confidential
WindChill Solution ArchitectConfidential
Head of Marketing Strategy and Retention, RedEnvelopeProvide Commerce Inc.
Marketing Analyst, RedEnvelopeProvide Commerce Inc.
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Goolsbee '91
Goolsbee ’91 puts economics degree to use for Obama
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By Aaron Bray
Staff Reporter
Published Friday, October 12, 2007
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During a 2004 campaign debate with Alan Keyes, his Republican opponent for an Illinois Senate seat, Democrat Barack Obama repeatedly cited the opinions of a “Professor Goolsbee.”
After spending a night hearing his advice referenced on television while sitting beside the candidate’s wife Michelle, Austan Goolsbee ’91, who had recently been appointed Obama’s economic adviser, finally decided to meet the candidate in person backstage.
He knocked on the dressing room door and found himself face to face with Obama.
“Who are you?” the candidate asked.
“Professor Goolsbee,” Goolsbee replied.
“What? You are Professor Goolsbee?” Obama exclaimed. “You don’t look anything like a professor, and you don’t look anything like a Goolsbee!”
Three years later, Goolsbee holds a position on Obama’s staff he never anticipated: chief economic policy adviser for a leading presidential candidate. In an interview with the News, Goolsbee painted a picture of himself as bound for academia ever since his days at Yale — where he graduated summa cum laude, finishing top in his major with a joint bachelor’s and master’s degree in economics.
But while his friends, classmates and former professors agree that his love of theoretical economics has always been apparent, they say Goolsbee was clearly destined for a more public role.
Illiam Carrillo ’91, who dated Goolsbee during their sophomore year at Yale, vividly recalls one conversation in particular in which Goolsbee expressed his political aspirations.
“I remember him saying, ‘I may not want to be the guy in the White House, but I would love to be an adviser to a president,’ ” she said.
Other classmates said Goolsbee’s current position as adviser to a presidential candidate is no surprise. They pointed to his academic excellence and sincere concern for the fate of those Americans left behind by economic growth — a trait some credited to his “humble beginnings” in Waco, Tex. — as signs that Goolsbee was headed for politics. Economics professor and Nobel laureate James Heckman, for whom Goolsbee did research as an undergraduate, said his former assistant always seemed destined for public policy even as an undergraduate.
Still, Goolsbee said even if he had considered working on the campaign trail, he never would have expected it to be for Obama.
Goolsbee said he remembers former classmate Greg Jacobs ’91 — an early fan of Obama’s — speaking glowingly of the future presidential candidate, then a law professor at the University of Chicago.
“Greg told me, ‘He’s going to the president,’ ” Goolsbee said.
After Obama lost his 2000 bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, Goolsbee recalled mocking Jacobs for supporting “this guy” who couldn’t even get elected to Congress.
But now Goolsbee — who said his boss thinks of him as “another skinny guy with an even funnier name” — is an Obama convert as well.
Goolsbee’s outlook on America’s economic future reflects Obama’s idealism and emphasis on bridging the two-party divide. Goolsbee said the policies he recommends address both the short- and long-term rejuvenation of the economy, in the hopes of providing a safety net while the country’s economy rebuilds.
“If this income structure remains in place for 20 years, it implies a very different America and a very different American dream,” he said.
For the first time in almost 100 years, Goolsbee said, productivity growth is not translating into wage increases for the majority of Americans.
“The top income levels have blown off the chart, but that’s not the issue,” he said. “The bottom 95 to 98 percent of income have been stagnant for the last six years. … That is extremely disturbing.”
The solution to this problem will ultimately be a new education plan that sends more Americans to college, he said. While the United States used to lead the world in the number of young adults with college degrees, Goolsbee said, it now ranks 33rd, between Bulgaria and Costa Rica. As a result, income levels will fall to the equivalent of the levels in those countries unless the United States reverses the current trend, he said.
“Education is the human growth hormone of the masses,” he said. “But education reform is still a process that will take decades.”
In the meantime, he said, gasoline, health care and college are all getting more expensive, and people are feeling the financial squeeze. He said the nation will need comprehensive health care and tax relief for the lower and middle classes to offset economic struggles until wages begin to rise again.
But while his policy prescriptions may sound stereotypically Democratic, Goolsbee’s conservative friends and colleagues said his centrist economic proposals set Obama’s campaign apart from those of other Democratic candidates.
Doug Webster ’91, a friend and fellow economics major from Trumbull College, said while his own politics are consistently conservative, he thinks even voters who usually lean Republican should take a second look at Obama because of Goolsbee’s advising.
“It’s putting conservatives in an interesting position,” Webster said. “Obama is changing the dynamic of the two-party system … he’s a Democrat with a strong fiscal policy. Other candidates would be hard-pressed to find anyone like Austan.”
Although some of his centrist economic prescriptions may disenchant liberals who distrust the benefits of globalization, Goolsbee said economic data indicate that free trade leads to higher wages.
“The issue of globalization is overblown as the cause of income inequality,” Goolsbee said. “The principal causes are increasing technology and demand for skilled labor.”
While Goolsbee said he is committed to applying his research to the real world, economics professors interviewed for this article said they disagree on how difficult it is to advise candidates without letting it interfere with academic work.
Barry Nalebuff, a Yale professor who taught economics while Goolsbee was an undergraduate but did not know him personally, said there is no conflict of interest.
“It’s good for the country to have great people contributing ideas,” he said. “Either Obama gets elected and uses his ideas, or Clinton gets elected and borrows them.”
But Heckman said Goolsbee’s role is “something of a compromise,” since the theoretical economic conclusions might prescribe a politically unpalatable solution. In that case, he said he expects Goolsbee will tell Obama the truth, and Obama will have to decide how best to proceed.
Goolsbee said Obama will not seek advice from him alone.
“He likes to bring in three or four people who disagree with each other,” he said. “Then he’ll have them debate while he quizzes them.”
Goolsbee has never been one to avoid controversy. In the spring of 1991, Goolsbee and his 14 fellow members of Skull and Bones tapped women for the first time. The campus buzzed with excitement, incredulity and exasperation as former Bonesmen locked the tomb and sought to reverse the decision.
Friends and classmates said they remembered Goolsbee vigorously defending the decision. They said he believed it was ultimately an issue of fairness; Carillo said Goolsbee considered those who were resisting the change to be “living in the Dark Ages.”
“He was militantly pro-tapping women,” said Andrew McLaughlin ’91, who was a member of the improvisational comedy group Just Add Water with Goolsbee. “He was generally willing to blow things up to make a stand for principle.”
Several other classmates interviewed said Goolsbee stood out for his combination of intensity and easygoing nature.
Robert Meinhardt ’91, also a Trumbull economics major, said he remembers sitting in the back row of an economics lecture in freshman or sophomore year while Goolsbee dominated discussion from the front.
“He was always the guy who sat in the front row and asked questions,” he said. “We would sit in the back and roll our eyes. We couldn’t understand the questions, let alone the answers.”
Still, Meinhardt said, Goolsbee was easy to get along with.
“He was never condescending,” Meinhardt said. “He was incredibly fun to hang out with.”
Goolsbee was known for his incessant economics jokes, his friends said, but most preferred watching his performances with Just Add Water.
Well, not everyone, Goolsbee admits.
Nobel Prize laureate James Tobin — for whom Goolsbee did economics research — had heard his assistant was a member of Just Add Water and asked Goolsbee repeatedly whether he and his wife could attend a performance. Goolsbee reluctantly agreed, and one night Tobin and his wife entered the dank interior of the Ezra Stiles Little Theater.
“The guys [in Just Add Water] got up and said there was a Nobel laureate in the audience,” Goolsbee recalled. “No one believed them. Then they were laughing at him for being a Nobel laureate, and everyone thought he was just someone’s grandfather.”
In class the next Monday, Tobin did not even mention it.
“He never spoke of it again,” Goolsbee said.
Goolsbee should have known, even then, that improvisation and economics do not mix.
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By Aaron Bray
Staff Reporter
Published Friday, October 12, 2007
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During a 2004 campaign debate with Alan Keyes, his Republican opponent for an Illinois Senate seat, Democrat Barack Obama repeatedly cited the opinions of a “Professor Goolsbee.”
After spending a night hearing his advice referenced on television while sitting beside the candidate’s wife Michelle, Austan Goolsbee ’91, who had recently been appointed Obama’s economic adviser, finally decided to meet the candidate in person backstage.
He knocked on the dressing room door and found himself face to face with Obama.
“Who are you?” the candidate asked.
“Professor Goolsbee,” Goolsbee replied.
“What? You are Professor Goolsbee?” Obama exclaimed. “You don’t look anything like a professor, and you don’t look anything like a Goolsbee!”
Three years later, Goolsbee holds a position on Obama’s staff he never anticipated: chief economic policy adviser for a leading presidential candidate. In an interview with the News, Goolsbee painted a picture of himself as bound for academia ever since his days at Yale — where he graduated summa cum laude, finishing top in his major with a joint bachelor’s and master’s degree in economics.
But while his friends, classmates and former professors agree that his love of theoretical economics has always been apparent, they say Goolsbee was clearly destined for a more public role.
Illiam Carrillo ’91, who dated Goolsbee during their sophomore year at Yale, vividly recalls one conversation in particular in which Goolsbee expressed his political aspirations.
“I remember him saying, ‘I may not want to be the guy in the White House, but I would love to be an adviser to a president,’ ” she said.
Other classmates said Goolsbee’s current position as adviser to a presidential candidate is no surprise. They pointed to his academic excellence and sincere concern for the fate of those Americans left behind by economic growth — a trait some credited to his “humble beginnings” in Waco, Tex. — as signs that Goolsbee was headed for politics. Economics professor and Nobel laureate James Heckman, for whom Goolsbee did research as an undergraduate, said his former assistant always seemed destined for public policy even as an undergraduate.
Still, Goolsbee said even if he had considered working on the campaign trail, he never would have expected it to be for Obama.
Goolsbee said he remembers former classmate Greg Jacobs ’91 — an early fan of Obama’s — speaking glowingly of the future presidential candidate, then a law professor at the University of Chicago.
“Greg told me, ‘He’s going to the president,’ ” Goolsbee said.
After Obama lost his 2000 bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, Goolsbee recalled mocking Jacobs for supporting “this guy” who couldn’t even get elected to Congress.
But now Goolsbee — who said his boss thinks of him as “another skinny guy with an even funnier name” — is an Obama convert as well.
Goolsbee’s outlook on America’s economic future reflects Obama’s idealism and emphasis on bridging the two-party divide. Goolsbee said the policies he recommends address both the short- and long-term rejuvenation of the economy, in the hopes of providing a safety net while the country’s economy rebuilds.
“If this income structure remains in place for 20 years, it implies a very different America and a very different American dream,” he said.
For the first time in almost 100 years, Goolsbee said, productivity growth is not translating into wage increases for the majority of Americans.
“The top income levels have blown off the chart, but that’s not the issue,” he said. “The bottom 95 to 98 percent of income have been stagnant for the last six years. … That is extremely disturbing.”
The solution to this problem will ultimately be a new education plan that sends more Americans to college, he said. While the United States used to lead the world in the number of young adults with college degrees, Goolsbee said, it now ranks 33rd, between Bulgaria and Costa Rica. As a result, income levels will fall to the equivalent of the levels in those countries unless the United States reverses the current trend, he said.
“Education is the human growth hormone of the masses,” he said. “But education reform is still a process that will take decades.”
In the meantime, he said, gasoline, health care and college are all getting more expensive, and people are feeling the financial squeeze. He said the nation will need comprehensive health care and tax relief for the lower and middle classes to offset economic struggles until wages begin to rise again.
But while his policy prescriptions may sound stereotypically Democratic, Goolsbee’s conservative friends and colleagues said his centrist economic proposals set Obama’s campaign apart from those of other Democratic candidates.
Doug Webster ’91, a friend and fellow economics major from Trumbull College, said while his own politics are consistently conservative, he thinks even voters who usually lean Republican should take a second look at Obama because of Goolsbee’s advising.
“It’s putting conservatives in an interesting position,” Webster said. “Obama is changing the dynamic of the two-party system … he’s a Democrat with a strong fiscal policy. Other candidates would be hard-pressed to find anyone like Austan.”
Although some of his centrist economic prescriptions may disenchant liberals who distrust the benefits of globalization, Goolsbee said economic data indicate that free trade leads to higher wages.
“The issue of globalization is overblown as the cause of income inequality,” Goolsbee said. “The principal causes are increasing technology and demand for skilled labor.”
While Goolsbee said he is committed to applying his research to the real world, economics professors interviewed for this article said they disagree on how difficult it is to advise candidates without letting it interfere with academic work.
Barry Nalebuff, a Yale professor who taught economics while Goolsbee was an undergraduate but did not know him personally, said there is no conflict of interest.
“It’s good for the country to have great people contributing ideas,” he said. “Either Obama gets elected and uses his ideas, or Clinton gets elected and borrows them.”
But Heckman said Goolsbee’s role is “something of a compromise,” since the theoretical economic conclusions might prescribe a politically unpalatable solution. In that case, he said he expects Goolsbee will tell Obama the truth, and Obama will have to decide how best to proceed.
Goolsbee said Obama will not seek advice from him alone.
“He likes to bring in three or four people who disagree with each other,” he said. “Then he’ll have them debate while he quizzes them.”
Goolsbee has never been one to avoid controversy. In the spring of 1991, Goolsbee and his 14 fellow members of Skull and Bones tapped women for the first time. The campus buzzed with excitement, incredulity and exasperation as former Bonesmen locked the tomb and sought to reverse the decision.
Friends and classmates said they remembered Goolsbee vigorously defending the decision. They said he believed it was ultimately an issue of fairness; Carillo said Goolsbee considered those who were resisting the change to be “living in the Dark Ages.”
“He was militantly pro-tapping women,” said Andrew McLaughlin ’91, who was a member of the improvisational comedy group Just Add Water with Goolsbee. “He was generally willing to blow things up to make a stand for principle.”
Several other classmates interviewed said Goolsbee stood out for his combination of intensity and easygoing nature.
Robert Meinhardt ’91, also a Trumbull economics major, said he remembers sitting in the back row of an economics lecture in freshman or sophomore year while Goolsbee dominated discussion from the front.
“He was always the guy who sat in the front row and asked questions,” he said. “We would sit in the back and roll our eyes. We couldn’t understand the questions, let alone the answers.”
Still, Meinhardt said, Goolsbee was easy to get along with.
“He was never condescending,” Meinhardt said. “He was incredibly fun to hang out with.”
Goolsbee was known for his incessant economics jokes, his friends said, but most preferred watching his performances with Just Add Water.
Well, not everyone, Goolsbee admits.
Nobel Prize laureate James Tobin — for whom Goolsbee did economics research — had heard his assistant was a member of Just Add Water and asked Goolsbee repeatedly whether he and his wife could attend a performance. Goolsbee reluctantly agreed, and one night Tobin and his wife entered the dank interior of the Ezra Stiles Little Theater.
“The guys [in Just Add Water] got up and said there was a Nobel laureate in the audience,” Goolsbee recalled. “No one believed them. Then they were laughing at him for being a Nobel laureate, and everyone thought he was just someone’s grandfather.”
In class the next Monday, Tobin did not even mention it.
“He never spoke of it again,” Goolsbee said.
Goolsbee should have known, even then, that improvisation and economics do not mix.
Post a Comment
Read more from Aaron Bray
Subscribe to the Daily Headlines E-mail
Most Popular
Viewed
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Yalies, under the covers
Google to run Yale e-mail
One in four, maybe six
Toad's raided
Narcisse '12 died of drugs, autopsy shows
Drugs caused sophomore’s death
For faithful few, a balancing act
In Branford, a book club — or cult
Emailed
Google to run Yale e-mail
Yalies, under the covers
For faithful few, a balancing act
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
One in four, maybe six
A performance to end the world?
Reverend reconciles sex and religion
Elis say going steady can be rocky
Beyond just basketball
Commented
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Robinson: Palin’s bigger blunder
Yalies, under the covers
Ivy Muslims hold conference
One in four, maybe six
Google to run Yale e-mail
Olivarius: A pregnant pause
Narcisse '12 died of drugs, autopsy shows
In Branford, a book club — or cult
Reverend reconciles sex and religion
Analyst, Site OptimizationProvide Commerce Inc.
UNIX/Linux System Engineer Confidential
WindChill Solution ArchitectConfidential
Head of Marketing Strategy and Retention, RedEnvelopeProvide Commerce Inc.
Marketing Analyst, RedEnvelopeProvide Commerce Inc.
See all jobs Post a job
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