Bridging the Gap Between Economics and Politics: The 2023 Moynihan Prize Event

good afternoon and thank you very much for attending the 2023 moan lecture I'm marenda president of the American Academy of political and social science today we assemble to recognize Dr Alan Blinder as the winner of the 2023 Daniel Patrick moam prize each year the aapss awards the moam prize to a scholar or a public servant whose work carries forward the considerable Legacy of the late Senator boan an accomplished social scientist and skilled public servant who insisted on empirical evidence and informed judgment to advance the public good without question this year's moam Prize winner instantiates those qualities Allen's teach teaching writing and public service has been a gift to our nation and indeed to the world for decades and in a moment I will invite Jerome pow to the podium to formally introduce you to Dr Alan Blinder following chairman blind uh Powell's introduction Alan will deliver remarks about Bridging the Gap between economics and politics then for the remaining time Alan will join a panel discussion on the timely and important theme of today's program before before I invite chairman Powell to the podium I want to thank four organizations that generously co-sponsored the lecture and this evening's reception Sage Publications which is the publisher of the annals our society's interdisciplinary social science journal and a longtime champion of the social sciences and regular sponsor of this event JP Morgan Chase Institute and policy Center dedicated to the advancing expert insights and sustainable evidence-based Solutions in the service of inclusive growth worldwide third the Peterson uh uh Peter J Peterson Foundation which is committed to increasing public awareness about the fiscal challenges our nation faces and to promote sensible long-term Solutions and the Russell Sage Foundation established to improve us living conditions by strengthening social science research enhancing understanding of societal problems and developing informed Solutions it's now my pleasure pleasure to invite Jerome Powell chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to the podium to introduce the winner of this year's Patrick uh Daniel Patrick moam price Mr Powell served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve starting in 2012 and was appointed chair of the for of the board in February 2018 he was reappointed for a second term in May 2022 a lawyer by training chairman Paul's career has included the practice of Law and investment banking and Public Service as assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President H W bush before he was called to service on the Federal Reserve board he was a visiting scholar at the bipartisan policy Center here in Washington where he focused on federal and state and local issues fed uh chairman Paul it is a tribute to alen that you've made time in your very busy schedule to join us today and on behalf of the board of directors of the American Academy of political and social science let me thank you for participating in this event the podium is yours thank you so much um Alan meline and and William it's so great to to see you and to meet you William and I have to say I am so delighted and deeply honored to be able to introduce Professor Allen Blinder as this year's winner of the Daniel Patrick mouran prize uh the moan prize honors those who Champion the use of informed judgment for the public good and in the field of Economics I can think of no better example of such a champion than Alan Blinder the very heart of his distinguished career has been advancing the use of informed judgment in economic policymaking so as Allen has so often observed in our political economy there exist two neighboring tribes sharing common interests but separ ated by cultural and language barriers on one side of the Border there is the academy particularly social scientists who work to assess the costs and benefits of public policies actual and possible on the other side are the policy makers including elected officials as well as those of us who work at various government agencies folks on the academy side generally feel that policy makers would make better policy if they paid more attention to academic work and of course policy makers often look across that divide Desiring that academic work would pay more attention to the Practical realities of policym like Daniel Patrick Mahan himself Allan Blinder is that rare person who both transcends this barrier and also recognizes its significance as he made clear to the Senate during his 1994 confirmation hearing to become Vice chair of the Federal Reserve quoting academic economists are often aloof from practic policy debates but I have not been he's also regularly called on his academic colleagues to and quoting again train their powerful tools on real world issues instead of chasing intellectual will of the Wisps away with words Allen's academic work is a testimony to these principles he's used the powerful tools of Economics to address the critical policy issues of our time from his pathbreaking War work on the great stagflation of the 1970s through his analysis of Central Bank structure Independence and Communications his research on financial crisis and most recently his masterful summary of the past 60 60 years of monetary and fiscal policy Allen's work is always policy relevant always rigorous always Crystal Clear of course Al Allen's also been a top monetary policy maker in addition to advising presidents fed chairs numerous other officials both on an informal and formal basis but his work goes beyond his his excellence and his membership in in both the academic and policy makers tribes he um his his life's work has featured a continuous effort to Foster greater understanding and communication across that divide and to illustrate this I'm going to close with two broad categories of Engagement that have been Hallmarks of Allen's career the first is his work addressing the AC Academy policy divis divide itself two of Allen's books published 30 years apart show his career-long focus on answering this question how can social science and particularly economics support good public policies first in hard heads soft Hearts he articulates the problems these groups have in communicating and working with each other he provides guidance and examples of success and failure while advocating an economic philosophy that combines quoting profound respect for the virtues of free markets with profound concern for those the market leaves behind he restated that philosophy more recently in advice and descent in which he catalogues his own experience trying to bridge that Gap outlines what that experience has taught him and gives additional Direction toward more useful economic advice met by less political dissent the second uh category I would point out is Allen's Long Engagement with the broader American public he is that rare public figure who speaks fluently in both English and economics and both audience audiences rightly consider him a native speaker a natural teacher Allen has communicated clearly and accessibly over the years with a wide range of audiences bringing to Bear facts insights and lessons from history and and from policymaking his countless newspaper columns broadcast interviews and books do more than clearly explain the economic issues of the day through them he has managed what what to some may seem impossible which is to make economics both fascinating and essential to an extraordinarily wide audience now that is doubtless due in part to his habit of serving up the substance with a healthy dose of humor whether it's an academic article on the economics of brushing teeth a a dinner talk outlining critical issues for for Central Bankers with the help of Gilbert and Sullivan or just the general wit on display in any of his regular columns Allen style enlivens even the most technical and dry topics Mo a hand surely would have approved a personal note um over the span of four decades and Counting for many policy makers from different sectors of the political forest forest and very much for me personally Alan Blinder has been a friend a source of good advice a supporter an insightful critic a role model and a wise soul in short a mench his published writings as an academic Economist are essential to our work at the fed and the same is true of the many friendships he's forged he embodies so much of what many policy makers aspire to in his commitment to hard-headed analysis tempered by a soft heart that supports good public policy that benefits all Americans and I include myself wholeheartedly in that group so with that I am delighted and honored to introduce Professor Alan Blinder Princeton University this year's winner of the Daniel Patrick moan prize stay here for a quick phot okay [Applause] some water you think we're doing a picture a photo you should be in the middle you should be in the middle okay whatever come on I do I was told to wear it you don't always do what you're told I know he knows me yes you do this one's yours thank you so much that one's yours this one's mine watch out we almost had a slip in monetary policy there but no he's he's way too agile for that I want to stop by thanking all of you for coming on this summer day in October when you could be outdoors throwing a frisbee or whatever you like to do outdoors uh I'd like to thank the academy for this tremendous honor especially Tom and Mara who have been the main uh contacts for this the process by which I was selected is a mystery to me and I think will remain a mystery to me um that's fine I got it so thank you very very much uh I'd like to thank my wife meline who's been with me through all of these years all of these ups and downs and not incidentally to this award has on many occasions pushed me in the direction of the public Arena rather than sit back in the academy as Jay was just uh saying and also the rest of the family that is here my son my sister-in-law and her daughter uh and the four expert panelists who will follow me up on the stage giving of their time and their expertise on this occasion and then especially to Jay Powell who could be raising or lowering interest rates at this time and has very much on his plate but instead has come here to introduce me with uh over-the-top words that I don't believe I deserve but thank it's but they're very nice to hear anyway everybody likes to be overpraised so so thank you uh Jay being here on this Podium today is a double honor for me first AR prizes named after pat moam who I actually knew personally not that he was my big buddy but I knew him a little bit back in the day but much more more importantly who was the US Senate's house intellectual for many years I've long thought that the US Senate needs a house intellectual and it hasn't had one since uh Pat moan left that unofficial post so I'm really thrilled to um win this prize and deliver this lecture in his memory secondly I am deeply honored to join the impressive list of past recipients I don't know how many of you may have looked at that list which includes my earliest Mentor in the ways of Washington Alice rivlin three former co-authors Becky blank who sadly passed away this year Alan Krueger and Joe stiglets and several true Legends like Paul vulker Marian Wright Edelman and Bob Greenstein who I consider you know this is like Babe Ruth Lou garri and uh I almost said taob but he was a nasty I'm not we'll leave taob out of that uh to flip the script on Groucho marks I am honored to join any club that has Paul vuler and those others as a member so thank you very much for the honor the Academy's website says that the moan prize was designed to quote recognize social scientists public officials and Civic leaders who Champion the use of informed judgment to advance the public good unquote so that made me think it was appropriate today to revisit a theme I've written about before as you heard in J Powell's introduction The Chronic clash between sound economics and good politics doing that normally leads people into hand ringing very quickly into hand ringing because it can be aggravating and the chasm is wide uh but I don't want to I'm not going to do much of that today instead I want to talk in my brief time up here on the podium about some things we might do we as a Society might do to shrink that big Chasm not eliminate it I'm not completely crazy we are not going to eliminate it but I'd like to Harbor the thought and maybe I can convince some of you that it might be possible to shrink it a bit and that's really what I'm going to talk about but I'd like to stop by dispelling a myth perhaps because economists are frequently trotted out to support or oppose policies perhaps because we have a Council of economic advisors right in the White House perhaps because the powerful Federal Reserve so ay represented here today is dominated by economic thinking many people seem to believe that economists have enormous influence on public policy I'll let you in in a little secret that if you're an economist in the room you already know it's not true outside of monetary policy where of course economists do have an enormous uh influence it was almost a half century ago that George Stigler later a Nobel Prize winner from the University of Chicago wrote that quote economists exert a minor and scarcely detectable influence on the Societies in which they live unquote now Stigler who was a pretty good Turner of phrases was no doubt exaggerating to make his point but he had a point and that point still stands things have not changed that much since in a book I published five years ago which J Powell was kind enough to mention a few minutes ago I argued that economic policym often follows the lampost theory what's the lampost theory that politicians use economics for support not for illumination and that's part of the illusion that uh makes a lot of people think economists are so influential in this uh policy in the policy Arena um as Jay also mentioned referring to my previous work uh these two civilizations I've called them uh view the world differently they speak different languages they define success differently they have dramatically different time Horizons which I'm going to come back to and they even employ different forms of logic which seems strange uh I once thought as many economists I I think still do that political logic was one of those oxymorons there was no logic to politics it was crazy land you know that sounds more true now than it did a few weeks ago when I wrote those words uh but I've learned that uh there isn't only one Logic the one handed down from Aristotle the one that economists use all the time exclusively there's there also is a logic in politics political logic and I want to illustrate that by a simple example a really trivial example one you can just keep in your head so imagine a policy think for example of a tax break but it doesn't have to be a tax break that would reap a million dollars in gains for each of 10 people in society but cost 20 million people a dollar each now you don't have to do complicated math applying the logic that economists apply to label that as a very bad policy a loser to pursue it there would have to be some powerful non-economic reason to do something like that but political logic sees the same policy starkly differently the 20 million Losers of a dollar a piece will not notice those puny losses and even if they did the loss is not close to enough to bring them to political action to try to do something about that the 10 million winners by contrast will certainly notice their no new found laress and be grateful to the politicians who created it for them so the gains to the politicians in terms of support campaign contributions and the like dwarf any political losses from the 20 million people that won't notice it anyway uh and only the most highly principled politicians are going to find that uh a deal that they can uh say no to there are some blissfully but it takes a lot now that example is numerically trivial designed that way but it illustrates a deep and ubiquitous I think problem it helps explain why so many policy decisions seem wrong to economists not just in tax policy but also in trade policy regulatory policy antitrust policy and most of other areas it wouldn't help much by the way although we might wish for it if the politicals understood economics better than they do it's simply a harsh fact of life that economic logic and political logic often point an opposite direction so if I could get them all to sit in my economics 101 class I don't think it would do any good so politicals and economists will never look think and speak alike if you want to understand why I suggest you con uh consult Charles Darwin and he will explain uh why but can we at least shrink the Gap as I me said five minutes ago can we get political to put a bit more weight on the economic merits of policy issues can we get economists to understand the political world a bit better than they do which is not very well I think or maybe it's that I hope that we can and that's the spirit in which I'm delivering this lecture now I'm not naive about this I've been around the block a few you can see how old I am I've been around the block a few times or you can estimate how old I am I've been around old enough to have been around the block a few times I realized this was going to be hard and that the economists are going to have to do a lot more changing than the PO political because the political are in charge they make the big decisions so I'd like to offer in my remaining time one suggested change for political and two suggested changes for economists there are many more but you don't want to be listening to me for three hours so it's a common place that politicians have excruciatingly short time Horizons I would wager that at least half the people in this audience have said that more than once in their uh life it's often said they can't pass see past the next election but the truth is far worse than that the political Pros who advise politicians often can't see past the next public opinion poll maybe not even past the next tweet their natural time Horizon extends only until that evening's news broadcast if indeed that long but getting politicians to think a bit longer term may not be as hopeless as it seems and as commonly believed so I'd like to ask you to suspend disbelief just for a moment excuse me and suppose behaving as if there's an election every Tuesday is not as smart politically as many political seem to believe or at least to act in that case sound economic policy at least has a chance after all politicians are among the most adaptable of God's creatures if they can be persuaded that current political habits are counterproductive they might change their ways not due to a sudden burst of uh idealism but because they want to win elections so to be concrete let's focus on a newly elected president who regardless of what the framers thought way back then generally takes the lead when it comes to proposing and promoting policies one fortunate fact is that the constitution gives the new president the 4-year term which is long enough for the major effects of most not all but most economic policy to have been felt within four years so sound economic policies enacted during say the president's first year or two are likely to have shown major benefits if they're good policies before the next presidential election within that window and it's narrow but not that narrow good economics can also be good politics now some of you are already thinking that that salutary coincidence in Time start shrinking as the president's term progresses one year goes by two years go by and the next election's getting closer but that's where America's completely wacko electoral calendar comes to the rescue once we passed the 18month mark of a new presidency attention terms to the midterm elections and after the midterms Congressional losses which there usually are for the incumbent president typically make it hard for his party to push anything of substance through Congress and besides at that point all political Minds turn away from policy into the next presidential election we're in that period in the calendar now as you all know so if you put all that together what you see is that the policy phase of any new presidential term says four years in the Constitution but it's really only about 18 months however that's the bad news the good news is within that brief period economic and political time Horizons are not that far apart they're reasonably coterminous with one another President Biden's economic policies illustrate this timing quite well he managed as you all know to get a raft of major policy initiatives through Congress in 2021 and 2022 but not since now with his polling num still low he's banking on the positive results of these policies to Aid in his re-election and by the way he certainly viewed these policies as good policies as well as uh uh good politics so let me now turn to the minority of economists and it is a minority who wish to get engaged in the policy I've got two suggestions to offer here and many more elsewhere in for example in that book that Jay was kind enough to uh mention both suggestions cut gly cut deeply Excuse Me Against the Grain they are not what we teach students in graduate school not the first comes back to those time Horizons again I have just emphasized that political time Horizons are too short for sound Economic Policy but it's also true that economic time Horizons are too long for politics specifically we economists typically focus on the equilibrium as we like to call it or steady state effects of a policy change for example what will happen eventually after a change in the tax code or a trade agreement eventually now don't get me wrong these questions are important and they're highly pertinent to sound policymaking we shouldn't forget about them but they are close to Irrelevant in the political world because people don't live in equilibrium States and the politicians understand that even if the economists do not rather they spend most of their lives almost all of their lives in one sort of transition or another yet economists habitually brush off quote transition costs as unimportant details it's almost like an insult like that's just the transition cost you know eight years from now who will remember that uh we shouldn't do that it's a very big mistake trade agreements are a very good example of that with some exceptions trade Theory Compares One full employment equilibrium with another David Ricardo taught us over 200 years ago that the free trade equilibrium is better for society as a whole though not for every single person in society than the equilibrium with trade protection and he was right and that's why almost all econom of free Traders at heart make an exception here and there but basically believe and promote free trade but wait the process of adjustment from the inferior equilibrium to the superior equilibrium may be lengthy and painful involving job losses reduced incomes for some decimated communities that are left behind and more economists know all this but they just don't pay it sufficient heat politicians by contrast live in the real world of everpresent transition costs this is the reality that they see transition costs not equilibrium uh States uh and they have a point now having said that I'm not suggesting that economists Embrace protectionism far from it if you wanted to hear from no never mind I was going to name somebody but I won't uh I use the trade example to argue a general Point not that goes me on trade which is that Economist should spend a lot more time and effort thinking about possibly painful transition costs and how to mitigate them rather than focusing hyperopic on steady state effects which seem like fantasies to many other uh people my second suggestion I said I had two for economists is that economists pay far more attention to issues of fairness rather than doting almost exclusively on efficiency as we are want to do in politics perceive fairness almost always trumps efficiency and politicians understand that nobody has to tell them that they know that deeply and viscerally and that's one reason why economic policy is often so manif estly inefficient it's dominated by con perceived or actual fairness rather than by efficiency now in saying this The Economist in the room will know I risk losing my Economist license because we do after all worship at the altar of efficiency and there's a reason we do that it's not just craziness uh greater efficiency enlarges the economic pie and in principle it means every body can be made better off in principle not in practice it doesn't work that way but so I hope the economist in the audience will hear me out I am not recommending abandoning efficiency as a guidepost only that we temper our enthusiasm for efficiency which is great with a bit more respect for political feasibility which often hinges on perceived fairness the adjective is as important as the noun Perce received fairness think for example about debates over the tax code which are almost annual events in Congress just about every year there's a congression just about every year they have a functioning Congress there's a congressional debate about the uh tax code I stand I correct myself uh economists actually and The Economist in the audience will know this have a beautiful theory of optimal taxation it's a gem really bu built around the concept of maximal efficiency even though taxes cause taxes cause inefficiencies you want to make them as small as you can but that theory plays absolutely no role in Congressional debates zero all caps discussions of fairness on the end on the other hand dominate the debates always and we get the inefficient tax mess that we have climate change offers another somewhat different example I have often said that 101 out of every hundred economists think the best approach to limiting CO2 emissions is a carbon tax or some variant on that policy uh on efficiency grounds it beats the other remedies hands down noo contendere but many politicians recoil against taxes and many citizens see it as unfair there's that word again unfair to Levy high taxes on people who quote must use a lot of energy now economists Wonder must isn't the idea to change Behavior but that's the economist and most people see a subset of the population as basically locked into being heavy energy users and penalized therefore by a carbon tax virtually every Economist will tell you that subsidies tax breaks and direct government spending to limit CO2 emissions are grossly inefficient compared to a carbon tax but unhappily for us voters and therefore politicians hate the idea in the United States at least taxes there's the t-word taxes on carbon emissions have negligible political support so what are we economists to do withdraw as a matter of principle from what is probably the existential economic problem facing the human race Bay at the Moon even though nobody is listening no I think there's a better way and the misnamed inflation reduction Act is an example while it does little to reduce inflation it does promise quite sizable reductions in America's CO2 emissions it's happening already Society is almost certainly better off with it than without it even though it has no carbon tax in the bill you don't can't find that in the law and it accomplishes the reduction in carbon emissions quite inefficiently compared to a carbon tax most important of all however President Biden was able to push it through Congress when a carbon tax would surely have failed had zero chance of getting through Congress so here's my advice to economists who are interested in actual as opposed to theoretical policymaking don't forget about efficiency it matters we're right about that but we may have to content ourselves with nibbling around the edges below the political headline level to make the details of a complex policy package less inefficient than it would otherwise be call it the theory of the third or fourth best certainly it's not the second best well there is much more I could say pardon me about moving political and economists closer together without resorting to Pie in the Sky thinking but I think I've already overstay my time admittedly this is a long shot these things are long shots and movement if it comes will be slow and grudging but the potential rewards for Success even minor success are great having opened with Groucho marks let me close with yogi Barett a natural pairing you'll all agree who once observed that quote in theory there is no difference between theory in practice in practice there is thank you for [Applause] listening glass sorry am I to sit here now yes thank you very very much Ellen uh entertaining as well as informative uh we want to spend as much time as possible with our panel today so if you could come up the panel please um I'm going to forgo lengthy introductions um and call them to the podium to join for a discussion uh our moderator Katherine rampel an opinion columnist at the Washington Post was previously an economics reporter for the New York Times she is written extensively on economic issues immigration and social policy and politics Katherine and Allen are joined by three distinguished panelists Dr Jacob hacker is a political scientist at uh Yale University who has written widely on American politics and policy with particular attention to how politics affects Americans Prosperity as well as the institutions that sustain American democracy Sylvia Burwell president of the American University has vast experience in government service and in philanthropy she served as Secretary of Health and Human Services and director of The Office of Management and uh budget under the Obama Administration in philanthropy she served as Chief Operating Officer and president of the global development program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as president of the Walmart foundation and Dr Roger Ferguson an economist and distinguished fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations Roger is the immediate past president and chief executive officer of TIAA and a former Vice chairman of the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve System Roger is also a former former chairman of Swiss re America holding Corporation and a former associate and partner at McKenzie and company thank you so much for joining today's panel we will have a few minutes for Q&A at uh to close out our our discussion and if you and the audience have a a question for Dr Blinder or our panel members please write it down and on the note card uh that was on your seat when you arrived and pass it to our staff member walking up and down the center aisle and I'll turn things over to our moderator Katherine thanks so much is yours um I'm delighted to be here with this wonderful panel especially since we have so much to talk about thank you to uh to Professor blender's remarks just now and I think we'll just Begin by having each of our panelists give a a sort of brief response to many of the issues that Professor Blinder brought up so Professor Hecker great um well first it's a real honor to be here um congratulations Alan um you're a great scholar and great public servant and um I really appreciate um both the work you're doing to um shape policy but also to think about how to close this Gap um I do think I would say that as a political scientist right um and I would say that if uh Stigler said that it was a what a barely scarce uh minor and scarcely detectable I would say political sciences influence on public policy is uh infantes and undetectable so um so I so we're getting somewhere but I will say I I will say first that I do and I think your career suggests is that economists probably have a bit more effect than than you think I think it's more um as you suggest um obviously macroeconomics but also more in in the general way of thinking about policy I think that's there has been effects um there and and I think one one thing I'll say at the end is that I I wouldn't say this is a really Economist fault but I do think that we need to open up this conversation about how other social sciences can contribute to the conversation about how to create both uh feasible and sustainable policy um so I will also say that uh and maybe Paul Samson was being tongue-in-cheek when he famously said this but uh he said I don't care who writes a nation's laws if I can write its textbooks um which I thought is a good you know good statement of the general influence and I just wanted to say that uh your textbook uh was the one that I read in my introductory economics course and it had a big influence on me okay so I have I like your three ideas and the ones that are in the book as well um so I wanted to give two additional thoughts on this um the first is that I think that it would be helpful if we could move a bit beyond questions of political feasibility right so how do we sort of bridge this Gap in terms of uh making politicos be find uh reasonable economic ideas more attractive and to focus a bit more on on on the additional ways in which policy um might affect society and politics uh down the line and so I've written in in a special issue of the annals on on this General topic which I'm really grateful we were able to do um that there are sort of three ease of policy uh policy success enactment entrenchment and expansion and there's actually a lot of research and thinking in a variety of fields um not uh not only political science on this and I think it's use it would be useful for for economists giving economic advice uh to think more about the not just the enactment side but the entrenchment and expansion given how hard it is in our current politics and that's leads to my second uh Point um and it really is about our current Politics the elephant in the room or rather I guess I should say to give a hint the elephant not in the room or at least not in charge of the house until today is the is the Republican party um the G the Republican Party a significant chunk of it has retreated from problemsolving governance and um and maybe from democracy and to point this out is to sound rankly partisan um and I apologize for doing so but it's a huge problem for our governance and I think it raises the stakes of economic advice for those who who might uh be listened to uh to extend your metaphor um it's not just a problem that politicians are uh leaning on the lamp poost for support rather than illumination it's that um a significant number of politicians simply want to rip the lamp poost out um and I think we need more attention to how to deal with this fundamental problem in the context of providing um wise policy advice I can one up you on the textbook Point not only did I use Professor blender's textbook but he actually taught me econ 10 one so any mistakes in any of my columns blame him fortunately there aren't many thank you uh president Burwell thank you and honored to be here and Alan honored to be a a part of honoring you for this great award I too knew um the senator and so many of these award these I consider Alan a mentor I consider Alice aor you know all of the many of these awardees and so honored to be here and be a part of the conversation um Alan will not be surprised because we've worked together um actually many many years in this particular setting where you're trying to do what we're actually talking about that I might suggest um I want to expand a little on uh maybe your approach and it's so interesting to me because when I think about this the the way this works actually works I think about outcomes I that's what I think why do we have policy in the first place is for outcomes we're all seeking outcomes and as I think about it I actually think you said in the book you describe an Unholy Trinity and I'd like to create a a Holy Trinity um and a Holy Trinity that is that would include economists as well as political scientists that are the rigor and the analytics and the theory often uh that root Us in math science and uh all of that piece together actually with I actually think policy makers and politicians are actually different and I consider the three of them that you need all three parts to get to the place where you can have something that is implemented and has impact that has the outcome that we're all seeking to have and so I add a piece uh uh to what I would call you know a more a triangle versus a diad uh in terms of it because the theory as aspect interestingly actually I believe economists you know this issue of theory versus practice I actually believe politicians very much are of theory versus practice but it is in the policymaking and that joining and often policy makers I consider those people helping bridge to get to the place where you can have outcome and I would say the only other thing that I would say to add um uh to the that part of the conversation is I actually believe we all need to think about this a little differently and I would think about it more not as uh versus because I actually think that falls into the Trap uh that is a very bad place that our nation is uh in many many ways but I think of it as a team and I think of it this way when Steph Curry takes a shot the rest of the team he misses oh gosh it doesn't happen often but Steph Curry misses the shot the rest of the team isn't busy thinking gosh I have to go play defense now uh you know you think as a team you think we are all working together we each have things that we do and that we are better at than the other but we think about how do we maximize for the different pieces to get policy and get policy outcome so a slightly I I would say uh Allan to quote our old boss there's a Third Way um and um that that would be my third way excellent Dr Ferguson great thank you very much and obviously let me join others in commending congratulating Allan for this award well deserved um and the speech of course uh was the essence of what we've all come to know about Alan Blinder was both insightful it was witty uh self-deprecating and at the same time shows that he is uh comfortably in both camps um which is sort of an unusual place so Alan well done uh let me also say that I um have the great advantage of having known some of these Award winners but Allan I share in common something we're in one of the least exclusive clubs in Washington which is former Vice chairs of the Federal Reserve so I learned a great deal about that role from Allan from Alice and also learned a bit from Paul vuler about other things in the Fed so it's a pleasure for me to be here let me um first say I agree with much of what Allan had to say in fact all of what Allan to say um you know politicians and economists are in fact different breeds I share uh some with Sylvia just said having been um uh in Washington a bit as a policy maker there's room for both and the ability to understand how the other side thinks is I think a critical skill Allan is one of those few people that had it sovia has it others as well now as the um as another Economist here though let me add a couple of things that I think should give us maybe a little bit more hope but before I do that let me quote the first person who had to deal with the Council of economic advisor was of course Harry Truman and Harry Truman famously said I need a one-handed Economist because all of my economists come in and say on the one hand and then they say on the other hand so I say that partially because it's humorous but also because it reflects um a question that I think we in the Academy have to think about which is our ability to communicate clearly to these policy makers who even they may have read Allen's book They're not Professionals in that space and so as I think about some of the things that social scientists politicians economists uh have to do to move closer as Alan says I do observe that you know some of this has to do not with the analytical skill with the ability to communicate your your outcomes and to think through how that is going to be heard on the other side so in economics this is now famously known as framing you know I came from a place where you know Jeff Brown who is not in the room but is a economist who studies retirement taught us all that the way one talks about a problem and the way economists in particular talk about a problem can influence the way it's received so the first question I'd raise for social scientists in the room picking up on some Allen's points what are the things that we can learn one is we have to learn a bit about Framing and how we position our answers so that they're well received the second thing that comes in mind being you know an economist and listening what Allan had to say is I also think about some of the things that some of the progress that the discipline has made in terms of the problems and the approaches that we think about so we talked about Alan Krueger and others who are thinking about real world problems IE trying to use experimental approaches in economics not just theoretical to think through things such as a minimum wage we still don't have the answer but we at least have changed the way we're approaching the research agenda in the economics profession to focus in on you know resolving some of these very very gnarly real world problems uh and the third point I'd make is the nature of economic research itself has evolved when I was going to school and I was going to school very much being driven by mathematics um uh not and assumptions and driving models now when I look at what PhD students are studying you see experimental economics you see obviously behavioral economics you see a variety of comparative economics Etc and fortunately in the profession those are now being recognized with the Nobel Prize so you know I come to this saying I agree with everything that Allan had to say but also add a voice of optimism that you know the profession as The Economist I cannot speak to the political scientist and others are learning how to one frame and communicate and two the profess itself is evolving in a way that I hope creates some room to close that Chasm that that Allan was talking about um I don't necessarily expect politicians to become better economists but at the end I think economists and other social scientists have to become better politicians so thank you thanks so much so Professor hacker you sort of alluded to this in your remarks just now we are speaking at a time when for years decades even distrust in expertise has been grow growing I mean not just not just expertise but institutions r large I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that should inform this discussion about how social scientists engage with the public given that in both parties although I will take your point that in in one party more so than the other there has been a growing disinterest in listening to what the experts have to say yeah it's a great question and I would I'd be interested to hear what Allen's answer is I think part of it is actually what he exactly what he said which is that you have to think seriously about how policies are going to affect people in the short to medium term not just the long term equilibrium I think we've the the degree to which that you know that awareness uh uh has to be at the heart of our thinking about policy Solutions because there's like profound effects on people's sense of that they're represented in Washington um you know one of the things I would say about tax policy for example example is that um you know over and over Americans say that their number one priority is that the rich and corporations should pay more taxes they I mean it's very consistent and I I understand it involves some uh some some underlying views that are more complex um and again and again we see these very large tax cuts for the rich in corporations and you know my sense is these are driven less by you know uh pop economic theory and much more by the power of of powerful you know the power of particular interest and and and the power of ideological conviction and it has this very corrosive effect I think on people's sense that they're represented um the one thing that I do think is is could be a really positive forward step and I was going to mention this but our time was so short is that I do think that we're that we're seeing in the social sciences more interest and understanding like how to repair Civic America we're seeing it in economics with work ched's work for example on social connections we're seeing it with har Han's work in political science on building Civic groups and it seems to me that that's a really important part of our our long-term policy thinking how can the policies we're pursuing both be rooted in um the demands of and and and the perceptions of broad-based uh Civic organizations but also how can they encourage um that and and I think we we forget that a lot of the policies of mid-century that um that grew out of economic work in many cases right the sort of mixed economy consensus were very good at investing in that kind of Civic infrastructure even if it was often a just a happy byproduct um so that's one idea there did you want to weigh in Professor Blinder on the the question about distrust in experts I I was just going to add two things one is that and I think they're both obvious one is that it's generic it's not just distrust in economic experts it's distr trust in expertise and Elites as if the elites are out to pardon the expression screw everybody else which is not the way we Elites usually think of what we're doing the second thing is that um thinking in terms of tradeoffs this is the Truman two-handed Economist is the mother's milk in economics but it doesn't go down quite as well in politics you know a politician trying to persuade voters is going to want to give you the Sunny Side of whatever he or she is advocating and not emphasize not never know not mention the the other side and economists don't economists when they're not put in advocacy positions where they're they're uh speaking for somebody else but are speaking more or less for themselves are always thinking about trade-offs and that's why they're two-handed as Roger said um uh president Burwell my perception is that the kinds of experts that uh politicians particularly presidential administrations have been relying on has shifted over time since well since the two of you were in the Clinton Administration for example um that there is more Reliance on people rather than coming from Academia coming from advocacy organizations or think tanks or the like uh I'm wondering if if that is your if you if you agree with that assessment and if so what you make of it that it does seem like there's a shift from relying on people like Alan Blinder and maybe people who' have come from Think Tank land or activist organizations you know I I'm not sure that I you know uh you know Becky who was mentioned you know served with her the second time I served you know in terms of a uh an academician who came and had great influ you know had influence and impact so I'm not sure that um I would think that there is a a decline um I do and and what it may be though is that um I think that there is uh there is an expansion of the definition of policy and policymaking and this gets to a little bit of what you were reflecting Roger in terms of the interdisciplinary nature of policy and solving problems and I think whether you're in the academy or in the private sector or in government in all of those sectors there is an increasing awareness and appreciation that interdisciplinary policy the interdisciplinary problem solving even if you're not doing policy that scientists so if you are somebody working on cancer now you the questions of the gut the questions of the biome and so this interdisciplinary um nature I think may be getting reflected I think the other thing that possibly may be getting reflected is further democratization and I don't mean that in you know I what I mean is more broader uh explanation of policy and let me give you an example at the the Council on Foreign Relations now which focuses on National secur National Security issues foreign policy issues um there are fellows that focus on health because health is now considered a foreign policy issue um so that's what I mean and I think that may be I think using one Administration as an example uh in your in your question I'm trying to look over you know the past uh administrations and I think there are some that are exceptional uh you know as as we we think back on looking at who was selected for uh what but I think if you look back over you know if you go all the way back to let's start with bush the first Bush uh and go through I I I think what we may be seeing is slightly different uh Dr Ferguson it's not lost on me that half of our panelists and one of the other previous speakers uh chairman Powell uh By Design were in economic positions that were insulated from politics right and that is arguably part of the reason why the Fed works as it does that you don't have to consider uh the political ramifications near- term or long term of what you do I'm wondering um is is that how it should all be you know maybe we want maybe we want people who are in economic roles who are strictly optimizing on economics and people in political roles who are strictly optimizing in on politics otherwise maybe you get some if if the politics dirties the economics and the economics dirties the politics you get bad outcomes on both dimensions so obviously I agree with the incredible value the independ of the FED but you have to recognize that the FED um while I was independent is still a creature of Congress and I have to give the you know it it was the result of a major crisis obviously that 1918 1913 that led to it um and it was showed deep wisdom by the politicians to recognize that they were incapable of doing the really hard thing of setting interest rates if it was going to slow the economy down I think it's that set of decisions belong as they are as you point out and with an independent organization as alen and I both know heavily driven by economic thinking I would not actually want to expand that because I actually think the particularly in a democracy the tradeoffs of short-term versus long-term you know who Ox get scored so to speak all those things really have to be hashed out because that is the essence of democracy um they should be informed uh not just supported but informed by economic thinking and sociological thinking and political science thinking but in no way would I encourage or think we'd be in a better place if we were simply to sort of create you know almost all economic activity independent or policymaking independent of of the you know give and take of politics and the example of that is the one that we've talked about already which is trade right you Allan's absolutely right I don't know any card I'm sorry I know very few card caring economists who are not free Traders and I know very few of them who until recently have thought through you know the transition cost issues and and even now we recognize that as being an important problem I still think there are a lot who think in the background well that's not really not really our problem but you see what happens if you don't bring political thinking into economic policymaking you end up with outcomes that are not acceptable in society and consequently don't last so I firmly believe in the FED as an independent agency I'm not TR want to have independent agencies across the board that weren't infacted by politics because you end up getting answers that are right in theory but not so right in practice if I could add something to that without disagreeing with uh we can disagree with me I'm going to disagree very slightly not so which is that the way you posed the question it was The Economist just take charge of all Economic Policy nobody wants that to happen and in a democracy it shouldn't I hope we still have a democracy after the next election and it shouldn't happen but once upon a time it was a very long time ago I wrote an article in foreign affairs actually called is government too political and I I mused in that article some people read it as a suggestion it was more amusing that there's a line between the technocratic decision ISS and the political decisions and maybe we could move that line a little bit more in favor of technocratic decisions now if that sounds crazy we have things like we've had things like the base closing commission right we're Congress saw that the politics was just so impossible they were doing it so badly that the idea was to turn it over to technocrats we have FastTrack in trade negotiations with a simp ilar rationale although it didn't I don't think it works quite as well I I was in the Clinton Administration uh with Sylvia when we were negotiating um NAFTA and politicians were in the room they were over there watching what the technocrats were doing but but the basic idea of FasTrack was let a bunch of technocrats work out the details as best they can and then bring it back to Congress for an up or down vote that's not quite how it worked but that was that was the idea I don't think that's a crazy idea so it's just about moving the line a bit uh Professor hacker much of what we've been discussing has to do with the tension between short-term and longterm uh goals and the difficulty in um and fighting what might be po what might be unpopular today results in economic outcomes that are more popular tomorrow tomorrow uh Professor Blinder talked about well you know maybe maybe there are uh things that a president can do in the beginning of the administration that will be felt by the end but there are plenty of examples Obamacare being one of them um where it took years and years before people's minds changed about the law do you think political scientists have anything to offer in terms of thinking through how to bridge that short-term versus long-term tension is it just about changing uh you know better comms for for politicians or is there something else structurally that could be done to try to get politicians to take risks uh so that they can think about optimizing for the long term and not for the next poll yeah now you're putting it on us political scientists um and you take that yeah so I mean I think it's a great question because I I there are certainly policies that I think are quite popular or at least pull well that could have big positive effects but there's no question I think your St the Affordable Care Act I was uh quite involved in that debate um as a as the sort of Chief advocate for the public option which I thought would help in the uh in the selling and in the policy but I think it's a very good example because I think on balance hugely positive change uh unquestionably quite unpopular uh or at least um quite unpopular among some portion of the electorate I'd see Sylvia getting excited um I would just say that if you look at the the if you look at legislation passed over the past 20 years or so it's it's it's on the unpopular side of the spectrum I would tell you the two least popular pieces of legislation were the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act U which failed and the tax cuts of 2017 which succeeded so there you you know the floor is there's a lot lower floor than this but and I think I I think I understand partly why that is is huge mobilization against it right um challenging a lot of entrenched interests very complex did involve imposing some uh costs um and also its long-term effects were you know not very visible so I think it I think it fits into this argument what I would say is two things one is it's it it does really suggest something that links together these two points which is in a lot of cases we are going to have to have policy that is going to have to be able to be resistant right as I said entrenchment and I think it was a close call right and so thinking more about how you do that it was really a good thing for example that that subsidies were structured as entitlements right it was really good thing that a lot of this had to work through the states even though it took a while right because it meant for the federal government essentially what you know it wasn't going to be possible to just derail it if some someone who hosle to the law like say president Trump took uh took power so that's one and two I I think it really we have to think much more seriously about the degree to which these struggles reflect our transformation toward a multi-racial democracy it hasn't come up today I don't have anything particularly profound to add to that observation but I think we're not just talking about like costs being imposed we're talking about fundamental cleavages around status and people's sense of loss in a changing society and that is very complicated it's not the it's not the it's not the comparative advantage of economists or even political science to think about but I think we're going to have to do a lot more thinking about how our policies uh can deal with that there is tons of evidence that the Affordable Care Act was highly racialized right um because it was associated with President Obama because of claims made about immigrants because of the kind of rhetoric that played out at the state levels um there's no way to get rid of that there's ways to think about diffusing it there's ways to think about building alternative coalitions there's ways to think about it you know um building organizations that I said but we have to figure out I think how to how to deal with this very fra moment because um on the one hand I I have a sort of positive view about our capacity to to get to do good things if we get through it but I also have real doubts or real fears about our capacity to get through it I guess I I would just you know approach this maybe from a a different perspective which is and and and I actually believe that the language that we use in even in this conversation politicos that the that kind of stuff I I just I don't think it's healthy for to some of the issues you're talking about in terms of how we go forward and I would just start with the premise that a Politico a president a politician took a very unpopular stance and approach I mean we can all look Rah told him not to do it everybody said Wendell's here you know everybody said this was not a great idea and it was not a great idea politically and it was not the decision was made on the substance this President chose to do something incredibly difficult this is before I got there okay so the team that's doing this I'm not there remember I I'm I'm part of implementation as we think through you know the timing of all this and so a president makes a very to your point this was not popular this was hard this was not great but he was focused on three fundamental substantive things and that's why I keep coming back to we talk about economic policy or we talk about other you know Economist decisions and that sort of it is about outcomes and when you get yourself focused on this was about affordability access and quality and like that's what this was about with a heavy dose of access in terms of what you were trying trying to do and so this actually is an example that I think of as kind of in the end a good example so first I would say I think this is actually an example where a decision was made and the other thing is all the work that led up to it the committee work and the dependence of that committee work before Ted Kennedy died this was a bipartisan process that had many many people contributing to the thing Kennedy dies the Democrats lose the vote Brown runs the election in Massachusetts and says I'm running on I'll stop this thing and so then it becomes a one-sided you know it becomes not a bipartisan vote but as you go forward the thing the other part of the story that I think is important is the thing was preserved because of the proximity of substance to the politics and making that a reality so the day after the election and president Trump is elected the thing was it's 117 times the votes against the Affordable Care Act the number of Investigations I you all know the number of Supreme Court cases with my name on them this was like deep opposition why did it hold it held because it was substantively accurate and was making the change in the difference in terms of it impacted people's lives anybody in here have a child who stayed on the their policy till 26 I am certain that there is not an individual in this room that is not either a person with a pre-existing condition or knows someone with a pre-existing condition and so the day after the election making the choice that what we had to do and this does get a little to Communications you had to make sure that proximity to substance people understood because they were acting their political interests were aligned with the substance so in terms of this particular example people I actually think it's an example of bravery and of it's one of the few times where and we work very hard to make sure that the substance and the politics aligned if you will note in the long run no in terms of making sure that you got that right away you will note that the speaker of the house and the president-elect both committed to preex before January 1st before he became president or anything there was a a and you know whether you call I don't call this politics I don't call it policy I call it like how do you get the outcome you want and we were it was I felt like we had to preserve the thing and what were the what was the way locking them in that they would not overturn prex because we knew the substance without if you pull prex out right the system falls apart because it had been designed with the help of economists with to help a political scientist in terms of making it work so just a slightly different perspective on that one fair enough um I think we are getting close to the public the uh audience Q&A portion so uh I'll I'll just bring in a couple more questions until I get those um uh Dr Ferguson I'm wondering what do you make of the fact that Americans are so unhappy with the economy right now but because we're talking about what is politically popular and what is economically good and on paper in many ways the economy looks quite good right so first let me reinforce something syvia said about Affordable Care Act I didn't have a dog I wasn't in administration or anything of that sort but her great point about the alignment of politics and policy and implementation is really important here right and you know it was it was politically very astute to be able to bring didn't quite get a Coalition but you create created something that in fact has with stood the test of time and one of the things that's ironic about it in a number of states that one I describe as red States there's a version of you know Obamacare that's got a different name but it's exactly so you know folks on the left and right have adopted much of the same policy con construct communicated differently and it still survives to your question why are people unhappy about the economy um three or four things one is you know inflation has has had an impact on a number of people and chairman poell has said something that all of us know in in economics and the reason that um all of us want to have price stability is inflation is an Insidious tax on low and moderate income people and workingclass people uh not you know the folks in this room so much we can all Escape it there a lot of folks who can't secondly um to a point that hasn't quite come up we but sort of imply by what Jake read to say we are at the end of a period roughly 40 years not quite of very low growth to no growth in real wages we're at an end of a period when we've seen you know some of the dislocations from trade that have been talked about so the second reason that people aren't happy with the economy is there's this sort of a Confluence of many things that have occurred for a long period of time all of which have become much more apparent during a period of inflation so we have inflation by itself then we have all these other things that built up that are made worse by inflation and so we now see a lot of Labor action for example the third reason I believe people are are unhappy is some of the things that are going to occur from some of the laws that have been passed and this sort of slightly agrees and slightly disagrees with what Allan had to say are still you know a long time in coming the president wants to run on bid nomics um you know and I he will then have to go out and find places where the in positive impact of those policies are seen and they aren't necessarily seen everywhere right now so you know part of what we're going to do is build great infrastructure well it takes years and years for that to play out and I suspect you know maybe unlike the Affordable Care Act there'll be some point at which you we have a massive amount of great infrastructure here that people look back onto the Biden era and say Ah that's where it got started but most folks haven't benefited from it now and so you've got I think all these things you know going on we've got inflation which is a real has been a problem the fed's getting into control and we wish them well we've got a the tail in of Decades of challenges that are coming to roost and then you know the administration's efforts to try to fix some of these things do have will play out over a long period of time so you put all that together and it is I because we have very tight labor markets you know wages are actually doing quite well unemployment is at historic lows jobs being created openings are much greater than uh than than the number of people looking for them so there are many objective factors that you say people should be really ecstatic but there are some objective factors that I think you explain why people are sowhat unhappy do you have thoughts on that just want to add just one word to this which is partisanship um because if you do look down underneath it we've seen a really fundamental shift in the degree to which partisanship influences people's assessments of the economy also their approval ratings of presidents of the out party so you know it's it's really striking I don't you know unless we have a fundamental shift in this degree of partisan polarization it's not clear to me you're going to ever see the kind of approval ratings for presidents or positive assessments of the economy that we once did but I would Echo something Roger said I do think we come at the end of this period of great instability and uncertainty in in economic life and we just went through the Great Recession and a pandemic and I do think that for a lot of people you see that they say that their personal economic circumstances are relatively good but I think they respond to this poll more about their sense of kind of both the National Economic uh sort of situation and their sense of lack of certainty about that and and the last thing I would just say is that um Al Allen because I want to bring this back down this is about Allen wrote a really great article uh some years ago about and it was it was an article that I mean let let me sum it up it said Democrats are better for the economy that was the article's main finding and but then Allan are digging into the data really carefully and he's like he couldn't figure out why Democrats were better for the economy right and it is you know there's work on inequality that suggests that there's these differences and and so we know kind of two things um one is that um that there is a lot of effect of the economy historically on whether presidents get reelected or or a lot Less on Congressional elections but the economy is supposed to be really important but we also know um that we've seen this huge shift uh in how people assess the economy and I wonder how these two things come together in this particular context um and uh I don't know if you have thoughts about that all but to me that's like the that's a big question like as you said there's a lot of reason to think that these Investments are going to have positive effects before the election and um and yet we wonder if it'll have effects yeah on President's prospects let me say two brief things to your uh question I wrote both of these in my Wall Street Journal column a few days ago yeah one is there are lags in perception and people are still a lot of people are still in the doldrums I mean the the pandemic and the aftermath were really tough episodes for many many people and they haven't quite Escape that view yet it's coming I mean these things don't last forever these views don't last forever second thing is it seems to be and to most of us economists this is weird that at least a fraction maybe not a trivial fraction of the economy is longing for the lower prices we used to have not the low inflation that J Powell just went out the door to uh help produce we help lower inflation will not lower the prices and the Paradox there is what it would take to actually lower the prices is so horrible that we don't even want to think about it uh but yet people want seem to want lower prices and the policy makers can't deliver that they'd be crazy to try to deliver that yeah I have a question from the audience good polling data shows that in the general public except among Republicans trust in scientists is durably high can we capitalize on that anyone want to take that let's hope [Laughter] so I'll let others offer more thoughtful reactions no one should hope so I agree I think you know this this loss of trust and experts in general is terrifying for lack of a better word um and so let's let's hope we can capitalize it I I tried to stay away from partisanship in my in my talk I didn't think it was appropriate for the occasion but to your question this is very much one-sided politically it's not like it's a one zero that they're completely different but it's a huge difference and you say trust in scientist climate change is the biggest scientific problem that we're facing now I think and many people think and the attit the partisanship in the attitudes towards that including what the scientist to say is just huge it's it's huge and it's just one party just doesn't want to pay attention to uh evidence and that's very sad another question from the audience what is the obstacle to building transition costs into economic analysis and policymaking is it hard to plan for compensating losers because you are then admitting there will be losers uh let me take that one First and Roger may want to no you go first I think first of all it's um not always easy to identify the losers secondly that's probably the least important secondly we don't really have policy apparat is that the right plural of apparatus to do that um Europe does a little bit better a bit better than we do we do very very poorly on compensating U losers so the the me what so what I really mean by that operation Al is it would take a lot of laws passing Congress to have that apparatus in place and we we just um we just don't have it uh now and then the third is the one that I was griping about at the podium uh it's intellectually difficult to to do that kind of analysis compared to the ease of doing equilibrium analysis right probably everyone here has taking economics 101 is a supply curve and the demand curve one of them moves and you go to the new equilibrium your teacher taught you I probably said that to you but there's a whole process in getting from point A to point B so to speak and it's messy and difficult to deal with both theoretically and empirically and so what I was urging sort of is for economists to roll up their sleeves and work on that more than more want to jump in but but look can I just add two points to what he to what Alan rightly said one as we mentioned the name Paul voker here Paul voker was very interested in a fourth leg of your stool which is something he call public administration yeah which was the actual ability to execute and deliver policies and he created the you know the whole vocer Alliance around trying to do that that is a lost art so to Allan's point we have all these laws around transition assistance on the books we don't actually have have the ability in terms of public administration to deliver it is is one point the second point I'd make back to being a little optimistic I observed that there's a fair amount of analysis now as we've learned things about trade that are getting econom are getting back down to the community level to understand you know the impact so it actually to Allan's point it may become easier if we take this out of the hands of um not disparaging a group of economists but macroeconomist and take it back down to to you know whatever this group is that's actually looking you know across borders from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to think about the impact of of waging of raising um minimum wage Etc so I think the profession itself I can't speak to others is starting to get more focused on some of these these micro issues um that might over time help us identify the winners and L A little better sorry Mart I cut in on your time this has been delightful we could could continue uh for quite a while and we uh have a a reception waiting to continue to honor I would like to thank all the panelists today for their very rich and uh textured discussion about policy and politics and economics and when they talk and when they don't uh we're not having a dialogue of the deaf today so that was a a step forward too bad that we can't educate others in Congress um that's just my view I want to thank the selection committee for their inspired choice of U Blinder for the uh 2023 moan uh award and all of the attendees but there are a couple of individuals that have been really outstanding in making this event come together and that's Tom K ketti and Jessica eer they are you would think that there was a whole bunch of people behind the scenes pulling these events together and actually they are two uh that is who who we are uh talk about efficiency we are efficient they instantiate it in everything they do uh but this has been a terrific event and I hope Ellen that you feel uh that it uh Rose to the occasion of what you've accomplished for the for the uh for the world as we said this morning in introducing you uh so thank you all for coming and I'd like you to invite you to a reception next door it's not outside this year Heidi so you won't be cold uh and and enjoy some um some our deres and some cocktails so thank you very very much for [Applause] attending

Channel: The American Academy of Political & Social Science

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Length: 87min 39sec (5259 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023