#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/24/24

After spending most of the day on campus I had to shuttle the kids around to various activities, but I was still able to listen to some talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Hamed Hassani on the latest computational jailbreak attacks and defenses at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhEfXD6_14U

Next was an engaging conversation with Ben Bates on trends in advance notice bylaws on the Shareholder Primacy podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y0mZNDfCaU

Next was a fantastic talk by Max Raginsky on generalization from the behavioral perspective at the Simons Institute. This is a refreshing mix of modeling and philosophy (seriously), focusing on how assumptions are baked into models and statistical approaches which necessarily limits the generality of different methods. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhEfXD6_14U

Last was "Straight Talk on Trade" by Dani Rodrik. This book provides a thorough rebuke of the neoliberal economic consensus that drove global economic policy from 1980 to around 2016, although much more on ideological grounds alone rather than grounded in much data or rigorous analysis. That's not to say the conclusions are wrong - far from it. Most are almost certainly correct, although with the exception of an excellent chapter on moving the field of economics to a focus on identifying the correct models for the correct economic problem much of the rest of the book is left for the reader to fill in the blanks.

As a consequence, if you're unfamiliar with the last ~8 years of cutting-edge economic research, you may wonder which of the suppositions Rodrik expounds on are justified and to what degree they explain many of the local and global economic disparities that are observed today. If you want that kind of analysis, you're probably better off with one of Piketty's books. If, however, you're more interested in knowing effective talking points and the natural conclusion of books like Piketty's, this book is more succinct and engaging. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177847/straight-talk-on-trade?srsltid=AfmBOooyUCnI5x3KLZAhfOe0wiGq5BECSAguf8wf9J6XIDo1sP0OHhUm