Latest / Trumponomics / Episode 7: What It's Like to Win the Nobel Prize

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Episode 7: What It's Like to Win the Nobel Prize · Trumponomics

0:04
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to Bloomberg. Benchmark, a podcast about
0:07
Speaker 1: the global economy, is Thursday, October fifteen. I'm Tori Stowell,
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Speaker 1: a US economics reporter in DC with Bloomberg News, and
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Speaker 1: I'm joined by my co host, Dan Moss, our executive
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Speaker 1: editor for International Economics News, and Akido, our editor for Benchmark,
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Speaker 1: is actually working out of Tokyo this week, so she
0:26
Speaker 1: won't be joining us, but she is here in spirit.
0:28
Speaker 1: She is, and there's good reason for you to be
0:30
Speaker 1: excited today. That's right. I'm so pumped, so excited, probably
0:34
Speaker 1: the most excited I've ever been for anything in my life. Yeah,
0:38
Speaker 1: old twenty two years. That's because we've got Angus Dton
0:43
Speaker 1: with us on the show today. Hopefully that name will
0:47
Speaker 1: ring a bell. It should, because he is a professor
0:50
Speaker 1: at Princeton University and was this week named as the
0:54
Speaker 1: recipient of the two thousand fifteen Nobel Prize in Economics.
0:58
Speaker 1: And it's safe to say in the seven episode life
1:00
Speaker 1: of this show, we've never had someone of that statue
1:05
Speaker 1: in at such an important point in their life. That's right,
1:08
Speaker 1: this is going to be huge. We're very excited. So
1:10
Speaker 1: before he joins us, let's quickly run through his bio.
1:14
Speaker 1: He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and received his bachelor's, masters,
1:18
Speaker 1: and PhD degrees, all at Cambridge and all in economics.
1:22
Speaker 1: And he's been teaching at Princeton now for more than
1:24
Speaker 1: thirty years. All at Cambridge. Yes, no Oxford, No Oxford,
1:29
Speaker 1: so it's just the Bridge. His recent research has looked
1:35
Speaker 1: into things like consumer saving, measurements of economic well being,
1:40
Speaker 1: what a concept, poverty, health, and development economics. The official
1:45
Speaker 1: description from the selection committee that gave him the award
1:49
Speaker 1: is quote for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare.
1:53
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to chat with him earlier today
1:55
Speaker 1: in our newsroom, so you may hear a little bit
1:57
Speaker 1: of background noise, but what you'll here's our station and
2:00
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed as much as I did.
2:05
Speaker 1: For our listeners who don't know, Nobel Prize winners get
2:09
Speaker 1: a call from Sweden and for US laureates that usually
2:12
Speaker 1: turns out to be very early in the morning. So
2:16
Speaker 1: did you have any trouble sleeping the night before? You know,
2:18
Speaker 1: were you expecting boys? Oh no, no, not at all.
2:22
Speaker 1: I mean you know there there there have been several
2:25
Speaker 1: years when it was a possibility, and I've always realized
2:29
Speaker 1: that a possibility is a very different thing from my
2:32
Speaker 1: high probability. Right, So, um, you know, no, it's never
2:38
Speaker 1: cost me any sleep. Good And we get up pretty
2:40
Speaker 1: early in the morning anyway. So my wife Anne, it's
2:43
Speaker 1: also a colleague here, Princeton's already up and I was
2:47
Speaker 1: pretty I was certainly awake. So what time did you
2:50
Speaker 1: actually get the call? Wow, that's very precisely, and uh,
2:57
Speaker 1: what would your what was your reaction, Oh, the light,
3:01
Speaker 1: A little bit of disbelief, not that I thought it
3:05
Speaker 1: wasn't true, just all, my goodness is really happening, right, um.
3:09
Speaker 1: And it was wonderful to talk to two of the
3:12
Speaker 1: I mean I talked to the Germans, or at least
3:16
Speaker 1: once the introductions row, and then I talked to two
3:21
Speaker 1: good friends who remembers the committee, you know, one who
3:25
Speaker 1: used to be one of my colleagues of Princeton and
3:27
Speaker 1: another one who had known for many, many years. So
3:31
Speaker 1: you didn't think it was a prank at least? No, well,
3:33
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was a prank until my friend
3:35
Speaker 1: torst in person said this is not a prank. Though
3:41
Speaker 1: I never thought it was a prank. Why is he
3:42
Speaker 1: telling me that thing with my head. He's trying to
3:45
Speaker 1: make me think it might be a prank, right, trying
3:47
Speaker 1: to stake you out. It is a very funny, very
3:50
Speaker 1: playful guy. Well, your work has proven that you really
3:55
Speaker 1: have to look at the teeny tiny details to understand
3:58
Speaker 1: these big macro econom trends across the world that we
4:01
Speaker 1: talked about on our show. And you said during your
4:04
Speaker 1: press conference at Princeton that measurement is at the center
4:07
Speaker 1: of what you do. So using that as a lens,
4:10
Speaker 1: can you walk us through your work that won you
4:13
Speaker 1: the Nobel Oh? Yes, But one of the things the
4:18
Speaker 1: Nobel Committee was very generous was was citing a broad
4:21
Speaker 1: swaite of work. So it's rather difficult to um take
4:26
Speaker 1: any piece of it and say, you know, this is
4:28
Speaker 1: how I started doing that, this is what led me
4:32
Speaker 1: in this direction. But I remember, you know, very very
4:35
Speaker 1: very early on, I think even before I had a PhD,
4:39
Speaker 1: or before I even thought of getting a PhD. Um
4:42
Speaker 1: And in the days when there were no computers, when
4:44
Speaker 1: you would sit in the library and copyright numbers from
4:48
Speaker 1: statistical abstracts or from reports, and I remember even then thinking, oh,
4:53
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. Now. Of course there's someone poor
4:56
Speaker 1: work in the world. But I would look at these
4:59
Speaker 1: numbers and you know, with a pencil on one hand
5:02
Speaker 1: and e racer in the other hand, and say, well,
5:05
Speaker 1: you know, what are these talents and the fit with
5:08
Speaker 1: the way we think about these things? And then you
5:10
Speaker 1: sort of realize that maybe they sort of didn't or
5:13
Speaker 1: maybe they sort of did. So I remember that activity
5:16
Speaker 1: of just copying down these numbers and hearing the data
5:20
Speaker 1: UM being just very instructive for me and quite enjoyable
5:25
Speaker 1: in a way that I wouldn't have a therapeutic it's
5:29
Speaker 1: sort of therapeutic, but it was also it turned out
5:32
Speaker 1: to be quite scientific UM And for me. You know,
5:36
Speaker 1: one of the greatest things in recent years has been
5:38
Speaker 1: the availability of fast graphics UM, so that you can
5:42
Speaker 1: grow pictures of data and sort of look at them.
5:45
Speaker 1: So here, all of a sudden, there's this tool which
5:48
Speaker 1: enables you to see these numbers and see patterns in
5:51
Speaker 1: these numbers. And you know, I used to feel really
5:55
Speaker 1: bad and that people would say to me, so, what's
5:57
Speaker 1: your hypothesis? You know, why don't you have hypothes says
6:00
Speaker 1: you should be testing hypother says and I would say,
6:03
Speaker 1: I just like playing with the numbers, and I play
6:06
Speaker 1: with the numbers and try to see patterns in them,
6:08
Speaker 1: and then that would relate to other hypotheses that I
6:11
Speaker 1: knew about or other theories that I knew about it,
6:14
Speaker 1: because I don't think it where you start matters. It's
6:17
Speaker 1: always just this business of you know, looking at the numbers,
6:21
Speaker 1: comparing them with what you know and what people think
6:25
Speaker 1: two things together, interpret one in terms of the other,
6:28
Speaker 1: both direct. So you've looked into things looking at these
6:32
Speaker 1: these small numbers, UM, trying to figure out they've been
6:35
Speaker 1: measured right, and you've applied to things like consumer spending
6:38
Speaker 1: and savings, UM, well being and poverty UM. I mean,
6:42
Speaker 1: how did you get interested in that vein of work?
6:45
Speaker 1: And I guess what have you found would have been
6:47
Speaker 1: some of the big conclusions that you've been able to
6:49
Speaker 1: make from your work? Again, I'm you know, one of
6:53
Speaker 1: the things you do if you measure things is you're
6:55
Speaker 1: really standing on the shoulders of others. I mean, it's
6:58
Speaker 1: not like you come up with a indict theory that
7:00
Speaker 1: no one's ever thought about before. Many other people have
7:03
Speaker 1: done that, but that's really not what I do. And
7:06
Speaker 1: I think in several cases, just being really meticulous about
7:11
Speaker 1: thing and really you know, pulling things apart and trying
7:16
Speaker 1: to figure out how they hold together. I did come
7:21
Speaker 1: up with things that people really didn't know about before.
7:24
Speaker 1: And you know, we did a lot of work on
7:27
Speaker 1: UM collecting and processing prices in India and figuring out
7:32
Speaker 1: what it costs for people to live in India. And
7:34
Speaker 1: then that gave you insights on ways in which you
7:37
Speaker 1: could measure poverty, because, after all, you know how much
7:40
Speaker 1: people spend money, but you don't really know what they're
7:43
Speaker 1: getting for that unless you know the prices of things.
7:45
Speaker 1: So I've done a lot of work over the years
7:48
Speaker 1: and trying to find ways of combining these prices into
7:52
Speaker 1: cost of living index numbers UM and also collecting the prices.
7:56
Speaker 1: What sort of prices can you use? I know it
7:58
Speaker 1: sounds sort of tedious, but it doesn't to me. So
8:01
Speaker 1: I mean, let's let's zoom in on India a little
8:04
Speaker 1: bit then, how just how do you scrutinize consumption in
8:06
Speaker 1: a place like that. There's six hundred villages literacy, Sorry
8:12
Speaker 1: I thought I said six hundred thousand, That was all right,
8:16
Speaker 1: And according to the two thousand one sence is there
8:19
Speaker 1: about six? Yeah? Um, so that's a lot and and
8:24
Speaker 1: you know it's probably even more than that. Now given
8:27
Speaker 1: how old that data is? Um, I mean, how do
8:30
Speaker 1: you how do you know the data then is correct?
8:32
Speaker 1: How how do you look at prices and consumption and
8:35
Speaker 1: you compare them to official statistics? I mean, what sort
8:39
Speaker 1: of hurdles can there be in finding good measurements and
8:42
Speaker 1: using good measurements and the widespread use of good measurements? Well,
8:46
Speaker 1: you know that problem you're talking about, which is given
8:50
Speaker 1: you know, six hundred thousand or whatever the number is,
8:52
Speaker 1: how do you how do you find out about all
8:54
Speaker 1: of them? Was actually solved in India in the nineties
8:57
Speaker 1: by Indian scientists who really pioneered this. What you do
9:01
Speaker 1: is you take a statistical sample, so you randomly select
9:04
Speaker 1: some villages and you look at them, and they can
9:06
Speaker 1: stand in for the villages as a whole. But then
9:09
Speaker 1: your other questions is is how you know this is right? Well,
9:13
Speaker 1: that's when there's really no substitute for sort of appearing
9:16
Speaker 1: at the numbers and saying does this make any sense?
9:19
Speaker 1: And can I square this with other things I know?
9:21
Speaker 1: And these numbers consistent with these other numbers and does
9:25
Speaker 1: does picture make any sense? And if it doesn't make
9:28
Speaker 1: any sense, maybe the world is different from what we thought,
9:31
Speaker 1: or maybe there's something wrong with the data. And you're
9:33
Speaker 1: always trying to juggle both of these things at the
9:35
Speaker 1: same time. And a little bit about that also is
9:38
Speaker 1: two of my work unhappiness. First, I think most people,
9:42
Speaker 1: like most economists, are very imbvalent about this. I mean,
9:45
Speaker 1: they think happiness is incredibly important, and it's certainly something
9:50
Speaker 1: that gets a lot of public attention when you write
9:52
Speaker 1: about it. Um. I think my working unhappiness is the
9:56
Speaker 1: only thing I've ever done where I've heard people the
10:00
Speaker 1: supermarket talking about it, for instance, and there was an
10:02
Speaker 1: episode of Oranges that you Black where they talked about it.
10:07
Speaker 1: So it certainly is things are very interesting people. But
10:10
Speaker 1: many people are skeptical as to whether if you ask people,
10:13
Speaker 1: you know that you experienced a lot of happiness, yesity,
10:15
Speaker 1: or you know, on a scale of zeroes at ten,
10:17
Speaker 1: how's your life going. They really wonder about whether those
10:21
Speaker 1: numbers can be treated seriously or not. This is the
10:24
Speaker 1: link between income and happiness, the link between income and well,
10:27
Speaker 1: that's one of the things we looked at So that's
10:29
Speaker 1: a very good example. I mean, you've got these happiness
10:31
Speaker 1: numbers and you say, well, what would happen if those
10:34
Speaker 1: weren't linked to income at all? You know, and then
10:37
Speaker 1: you say, well, maybe these happiness numbers don't really mean anything,
10:40
Speaker 1: or maybe it's just true that income doesn't really matter.
10:43
Speaker 1: And you know, we came out with a bit of
10:45
Speaker 1: bove um, which is that, um, this is the work
10:49
Speaker 1: I did with any common which is nice time because
10:52
Speaker 1: to know about laureates that what, so maybe it's even
10:57
Speaker 1: more credible, But that was you know, what we find
11:01
Speaker 1: is that for people's emotional life, like did you feel
11:04
Speaker 1: a lot of happiness yesterday? Or did you feel a
11:06
Speaker 1: lot of strasssdy? You know, if you had less than
11:08
Speaker 1: sebout seventy five dollars, those things were much worse than
11:12
Speaker 1: you had more of that. But if you had more
11:14
Speaker 1: than seventy five, you know, you didn't experience much more
11:17
Speaker 1: happiness that you provided you as seventy five times. So
11:21
Speaker 1: we concluded from that that your emotional life depended on
11:26
Speaker 1: um sort of having a freedom not to worry about money.
11:30
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up pretty poor, not poor compared
11:33
Speaker 1: with you know, people in India or Africa were really poor,
11:36
Speaker 1: but poor enough so that the worry about money really
11:39
Speaker 1: cast a pall over your life a lot of the time.
11:43
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you know, people would say come out
11:48
Speaker 1: for a beer and anything. Oh, that would be lovely,
11:50
Speaker 1: but I really can't afford they come out and have
11:53
Speaker 1: a beer. And I think those things do undermine people's
11:57
Speaker 1: well being. You know. Friendship is a terribly important thing
12:00
Speaker 1: for people's well being. And if you're scraping money and
12:03
Speaker 1: worrying about the last few cents, then I think that
12:06
Speaker 1: gets in the way. But then we find out these
12:09
Speaker 1: other things about how is your life going, you know,
12:12
Speaker 1: rating your life altogether. That seems to keep on going
12:14
Speaker 1: up with no matter how much money here. Well, speaking
12:17
Speaker 1: of money and and income and poverty, things along that vein,
12:22
Speaker 1: the World Bank just said last week that the number
12:24
Speaker 1: of people living in extreme poverty is set to fall
12:27
Speaker 1: to the lowest on record this year. About nine point
12:30
Speaker 1: six of the global population will live on less than
12:33
Speaker 1: one dollar ninety cents a day this year, and that's
12:37
Speaker 1: the first time that rate has dropped below ten percent,
12:39
Speaker 1: and it also compares to about thirty seven that's pretty
12:43
Speaker 1: big progress. Um so looking at global poverty and what
12:48
Speaker 1: many people consider to be one of your most important contributions,
12:52
Speaker 1: which is your work looking into that. How much more
12:54
Speaker 1: progress is there to do on the front of global
12:57
Speaker 1: poverty and how do we get there? Well, you get there?
13:00
Speaker 1: Love me? Was putting that for Amnente, because that's the
13:02
Speaker 1: hard one. Um, these numbers you quoted, I'm not sure
13:07
Speaker 1: that once you take those very seriously, but the decline
13:10
Speaker 1: from thirty seven to ten, you should take that very seriously, indeed,
13:14
Speaker 1: meaning that things have gotten a lot better. So that's
13:18
Speaker 1: that's statement one, and it's got to be true. And
13:22
Speaker 1: it's just the most wonderful thing about the world over
13:25
Speaker 1: the last thirty years. So that's really terrific. And I
13:28
Speaker 1: think it's got to be right because his squares with
13:30
Speaker 1: all sorts of other things. We know, the decline, you know,
13:33
Speaker 1: the actual amount, I'm not sure totally relevant. Um. The
13:39
Speaker 1: other thing, of course, is that even with ten percent,
13:42
Speaker 1: that's seven million people. You know, that's twice the population
13:46
Speaker 1: United States, are more than twice the population in the
13:48
Speaker 1: United States, and those people are living in something pretty
13:52
Speaker 1: close to total institution. And indeed, it would be like
13:56
Speaker 1: trying to live in the United States on about two
13:58
Speaker 1: bucks a day, and if you managine that, that's pretty
14:02
Speaker 1: hard to managine. And I think that's not far from
14:05
Speaker 1: being the right comparison though. You know, in warmer climbs,
14:10
Speaker 1: people don't need to spend as much of fuel or
14:12
Speaker 1: on healthcare or unclosed song as we would have to hear.
14:17
Speaker 1: But just think of meeting you know, food and basic
14:20
Speaker 1: expenses out of two bucks of ay. So those people
14:23
Speaker 1: are really really, really very poor. And also one shouldn't
14:26
Speaker 1: just kind of poverty in terms of material deprivations. A
14:29
Speaker 1: lot of these people, um, you know, don't kind particularly
14:33
Speaker 1: healthy lives and a lot of there are a lot
14:36
Speaker 1: of kids in Africa who are still dying before their
14:38
Speaker 1: fifth birthday from totally preventable diseases. And the children in India,
14:43
Speaker 1: something like half of them are so short and so
14:48
Speaker 1: small as kids that you know, if you took them
14:50
Speaker 1: to a pediatrician here, the doctor would say, my god,
14:53
Speaker 1: you know, we really got to do something about this kid,
14:56
Speaker 1: way way off the charts. And half of all kids
14:59
Speaker 1: in are like that. So there's a lot to be done. Um,
15:05
Speaker 1: now how exactly to do it? Um? And you know,
15:08
Speaker 1: one of the more controversial things I've written about is
15:11
Speaker 1: I don't think direct two very poor countries, it's very productive.
15:16
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of progress in India and China,
15:19
Speaker 1: which is the big success stories, and the rate of
15:22
Speaker 1: growth at least the rate of production of poverty are
15:25
Speaker 1: ones where aid has not been very important. And we're
15:28
Speaker 1: talking about aid from foreign governments from foreign governments. But
15:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I think countries have to look after their people,
15:34
Speaker 1: and a lot of these countries, including India a lot
15:36
Speaker 1: of the time, are not very effective at providing public services,
15:40
Speaker 1: you know, getting all the kids vaccinated, that doing mother
15:44
Speaker 1: and child, you know, prenatal and postnatal care. So it's
15:49
Speaker 1: really about government being able to take care of its
15:52
Speaker 1: people absolutely while a wanting to and be being able to. Yeah,
15:58
Speaker 1: there are two different things. Spacity problem. Yeah, you wrote
16:01
Speaker 1: a book in two thousand thirteen called The Great Escape
16:04
Speaker 1: that looked at inequality on a global level spanning almost
16:07
Speaker 1: three centuries. The same subject got the French treatment just
16:11
Speaker 1: a year later by Thomas Paquetti his book Capital in
16:14
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, and since then the topic of
16:18
Speaker 1: inequality has become almost ubiquitous around the world. Granted, Patty's
16:22
Speaker 1: book was just about twice as big. I prefer the
16:25
Speaker 1: more concise version. UM, I would say that definitely couple
16:34
Speaker 1: of days as everybody. That's where you got the last
16:39
Speaker 1: laugh there. So well, since then, the topic of inequality
16:44
Speaker 1: has become almost ubiquitous. Why is that? Where is inequality
16:49
Speaker 1: the worst? Um? And why is it on the tips
16:52
Speaker 1: of everyone's tongues right now? It's a really good question.
16:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, these are like social movements. It's
16:58
Speaker 1: like saying, you know why you know when I was twelve,
17:01
Speaker 1: was everybody looked at the window and everyone was playing
17:04
Speaker 1: with Zula hopes. UM. So there are certain amount of fashions,
17:07
Speaker 1: but it's terribly important. And you know, Epicoty and his
17:12
Speaker 1: co author Manuel Sias, you know, did a huge public
17:15
Speaker 1: service by looking at the data in new ways and
17:19
Speaker 1: just by pure measurement exercise and showing this incredible increase
17:24
Speaker 1: in wealth at the very top of the income distribution.
17:27
Speaker 1: And I think that paper, which was written maybe twenty
17:31
Speaker 1: years ago now quite a while, UM, really did put
17:35
Speaker 1: the cat among the pigeons, because there was really just
17:39
Speaker 1: this feeling that here was something we didn't know about. UM.
17:43
Speaker 1: There was this extraordinary rise in equality and then over
17:46
Speaker 1: time it seemed to be the case that that was
17:48
Speaker 1: happening in many, many, many, not every many countries around
17:52
Speaker 1: the world. So I think this is terrific. I'm very
17:56
Speaker 1: keen that we have this debate about the good parts
18:00
Speaker 1: of inequality in the bad parts of equality. Um. And
18:04
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a one sided thing. So you
18:08
Speaker 1: can't say the world would be a better place if
18:11
Speaker 1: there was no inequality. There may be an optimal amount
18:14
Speaker 1: of inequality, but I don't know what it is, and
18:16
Speaker 1: neither does anyone else. But that's the sort of thing
18:19
Speaker 1: that people might be thinking about. And it may be
18:21
Speaker 1: that when inequality gets very severe, which is the sort
18:24
Speaker 1: of thing I've written about in the Buck and worried
18:26
Speaker 1: about it, is that then you begin to lose things
18:30
Speaker 1: that you really care about it. I mean, Justice Brand
18:32
Speaker 1: is this wonderful quote about how you know, democracy and
18:36
Speaker 1: extreme inequality are not compatible in the long run. And
18:40
Speaker 1: you know, that's something that I think we should really
18:43
Speaker 1: really worry about, and many people do. It's also become
18:46
Speaker 1: I mean, inequality has become a very politicized thing at
18:50
Speaker 1: this point too. I mean, have you had any political
18:53
Speaker 1: people calling you any presidential candidates possibly, so, um, I
18:59
Speaker 1: think good so that Um No, I mean it's become
19:04
Speaker 1: very political because of course, you know, as my work
19:08
Speaker 1: and others would predict it would, because after all, people
19:11
Speaker 1: are trying to use money to affect the political process. Well, um,
19:15
Speaker 1: I guess the biggest question that remains is what's next.
19:18
Speaker 1: You know, you've you've already run one of the most
19:21
Speaker 1: prestigious prize that you can get as an economist or
19:24
Speaker 1: in many other fields. That is what's next. You're just
19:27
Speaker 1: trying to get back to work or to get just
19:32
Speaker 1: trying to get a lot of fun. I'm having a
19:36
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I mean it's fun to um, and
19:40
Speaker 1: it's been fun um actually reading the many, many nice
19:45
Speaker 1: things that people have had to buy me and not
19:47
Speaker 1: necessarily written to me, you know, reading some of the
19:50
Speaker 1: stuff in the press has been a real treat. And
19:53
Speaker 1: the Nobel thing. I don't really know what next, and
19:55
Speaker 1: I think I've talked to several previous laureates. I mean,
19:59
Speaker 1: Princeton is great place, and there's a fair number of
20:01
Speaker 1: the no shortage there no shortage here, right, Um. So
20:06
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking, you know, there are only two
20:08
Speaker 1: British born Nobel aureates in economics, and both of us
20:13
Speaker 1: were born in Scotland, oh, you know, which is a
20:16
Speaker 1: tiny part of the Unit Kingdom. So I don't know
20:19
Speaker 1: what deck story is the answer. Um. I I think
20:23
Speaker 1: it's something I'm going to have to seriously think about it. Um,
20:27
Speaker 1: because this opens up all sorts of possibilities. And on
20:31
Speaker 1: the other hand, I thought my life was pretty good
20:33
Speaker 1: before this, and I have lots of good things I'm
20:36
Speaker 1: working on, and I would really like to go on
20:38
Speaker 1: working on those. So if I can resist all the
20:41
Speaker 1: iron calls, I would like to do that. But maybe
20:44
Speaker 1: some of the iron calls will turn out to be
20:46
Speaker 1: very interesting. Yeah, and I'm interested to read further work
20:50
Speaker 1: from you on the increase in middle aged mortality here
20:52
Speaker 1: in the US. Two. I think that sounds really interesting
20:55
Speaker 1: and also, as you've described it, terrifying. All Right, will
20:59
Speaker 1: last a bit of fun and then we'll let you go. Um.
21:02
Speaker 1: Big question. It's probably the biggest question you've been asked
21:05
Speaker 1: since Monday. Are you on Twitter? No, there are people
21:09
Speaker 1: pretending you have an impostor on Twitter right now. Um. Well,
21:14
Speaker 1: I'm always on Twitter as part of my job, and well,
21:16
Speaker 1: at least I like to say, it's part of my job.
21:18
Speaker 1: I wanted to read out just a couple of tweets
21:20
Speaker 1: that people wrote after the news broke. So Justin Wolf
21:23
Speaker 1: first over at Peterson said, if there's an economist you
21:27
Speaker 1: should want to be when you grow up, it's Angus
21:29
Speaker 1: Deaton hardness. Isn't that nice? Yeah? And then um, another
21:35
Speaker 1: professor over at Harvard, Angus Deaton is the obi Wan
21:38
Speaker 1: Kenobi of economics. So you know, are you okay with
21:42
Speaker 1: being obi Wan Kenobi or is there someone else that
21:44
Speaker 1: you would like to be? No, I'm very happy being
21:47
Speaker 1: who I am. And those comments um from I'm a
21:51
Speaker 1: touch under Justin. You know, they were as wonderful as
21:56
Speaker 1: I'm sure you would imagine they would be. These are
21:59
Speaker 1: very serious to academics, and when they say things like that,
22:03
Speaker 1: it really touches my heart. I personally think that you
22:06
Speaker 1: might be more of an Alvis Dumbledore in my opinion.
22:09
Speaker 1: You know, this great probing professor, great sense of humor,
22:13
Speaker 1: but also cares about the well being and happiness of
22:16
Speaker 1: both wizard and mankind. It's just my two cents. I
22:20
Speaker 1: think I'll do it. I'll do it definitely. Well. Thank
22:24
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us It's been such a
22:27
Speaker 1: pleasure having you treat and thanks to all of you
22:32
Speaker 1: for listening to Bloomberg Benchmark will be back next week
22:35
Speaker 1: as usual, and until then you can find us on
22:37
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com as well as on iTunes and pocket
22:41
Speaker 1: casts and Stitcher, all these apps, whereas always we beg
22:44
Speaker 1: you to rate, review and subscribe to the show. Some
22:46
Speaker 1: more listeners can find us to write us. You can
22:49
Speaker 1: also reach us on Twitter at Daniel Malston, c at
22:52
Speaker 1: Tory Steelwell and at at Ego Seven Star Wars metaphors
22:57
Speaker 1: welcome and all the Harry Potter jokes we love. See
23:00
Speaker 1: you guys next week. M