Gary Becker on Economic and Social Policy

24 Sep

Speaking before an audience of mainly University of Chicago alumni in the halls of the International Monetary Fund, Chicago School Nobel Laureate Gary Becker addressed education reform, human capital, immigration, and the thoughts of Austrian-ish economist Tyler Cowan:

The event left a little to be desired. Becker’s remarks were a little nebulous and less than tart, in contradiction to what he promised in his prologue. If you were familiar with the topics you could fill in the blanks or repair to his written works. The questions were almost uniformly disappointing.

Becker is asked a question about Tyler Cowan’s statement on whether all the “low hanging fruit” in terms of investments in human capital have been found in the American economy, and answers a question on whether all the “low hanging fruit” in terms of economic research and PhD topics has been picked.

(This is around 35 minutes of Becker talking followed by 35 minutes of Q&A. So until you see around 8 pieces of video loaded here it isn’t all up. You can check the YouTube playlist Life of the Mind and see if the rest is there yet if interested.)