INTERVIEW: Raquel Fernández in Conversation with The Straddler

The Straddler interviews Raquel Fernandez, Professor of Economics and a DRI affiliated faculty member, on culture's impact on economic outcomes:

Economists essentially have a sophisticated lack of understanding of economics, especially macroeconomics. I know it sounds ridiculous. But the reason why I tell people they should study economics is not so they’ll know something at the end—because I don’t think we know much—but because we’re good at thinking. Economics teaches you to think things through. What you see a lot of times in economics is disdain for other's lack of thinking. You have to think about the ramifications of policies in the short run, the medium run, and the long run. Economists think they’re good at doing that, but they’re good at doing that in the sense that they can write down a model that will help them think about it—not in terms of empirically knowing what the answers are. And we have gotten so enamored of thinking things through that the fact that we don’t know anything needs to bother us more. So, yes, it’s true that the average guy on the street doesn’t understand economics, and it’s also true that we don’t understand economics. We just have a more sophisticated lack of understanding than the guy on the street.

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VIDEO: New Directions in Development

 These videos come from DRI's annual conference at the Cooper Union on March 4, 2011. Speakers included DRI co-directors Bill Easterly and Yaw Nyarko, Yale's Chris Blattman, NYU Economics' Raquel Fernandez and NYU Law's Kevin Davis.


Bill Easterly - From Skepticism to Development

Yaw Nyarko - Information Technology and Development

Download Yaw Nyarko's Powerpoint slides here.
Chris Blattman - Does Poverty Lead to Violence?

Download Chris Blattman's Powerpoint slides here.
Raquel Fernandez - Culture Matters

Download Raquel Fernandez's Powerpoint slides here.
Download her working paper, "Does Culture Matter?," here.
Kevin Davis - Law and Development

Download Kevin Davis's Powerpoint slides here.
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