Notes from #EconTwitterIRL

a conference discusses The Chips Act, Stagnation and Progress, and Immigration

Mark your calendars for these paid subscriber events: tonight,

Timothy B Lee

next Monday night,

Bryan Caplan

; Monday the 15th,

Freddie deBoer

On Saturday, I attended a conference hosted by Adam Ozimek at his bowling alley/amusement arcade in Lancaster, Pa. The themes of the conference were partly personal and partly professional.

The personal theme was Adam’s fondness for economists on Twitter. He traced this back to the early days of the economics blogosphere, for which he gave credit to Marginal Revolution and EconLog, among others. Adam participated in those days, along with Karl Smith (who was a conference no-show), in Modeled Behavior.

As someone who would like Substack to take us back to the “good old days” of the blogosphere before Twitter, I appreciated the sentiment. In that crowd, I was probably the most negative about Twitter. But regarding the current feud between Twitter and Substack I fault Substack. I only polled one other person (I should have polled more), and he blamed Elon and expressed surprise at my perspective.

The professional theme was the role of government policy in technological progress. This reflected the focus of the two small new-ish think tanks that sponsored the conference: the Economic Innovation Group and the Institute for Progress.

Samuel Hammond

recently joined a similar think tank, the Lincoln Network (it maybe has a new name?), for which

Mike Solana

is a board member.

Concerning the Chips Act, the panel was sympathetic to the industrial policy on national security grounds. They batted around the issue of how to know whether it was working. Adam mentioned the Public Choice case against industrial policy, but none of the panelists gave the full-throated Boudreaux critique that I share. I was listening at a table with Megan McArdle, and she noted the pained look on my face.

The panel on measuring stagnation/progress was moderated by

Matthew Yglesias

, so we got to hear how the YIMBY movement is a model for how we can reorient policy toward progress. I was no longer sitting with Megan, but I had another pained look when one of the panelists went on about “total factor productivity.” I think of this concept as caught up in The Muddle of Labor and Capital, and economists delude themselves by purporting to explain movements in the second derivative of a function where measurement of the level is unreliable.

The panelists endorsed introducing greater variety into funding mechanisms for science. That I would not argue with.

The panel on immigration found the panelists taking unexpected stances. Garett Jones, whose latest book seemed like a valentine to the immigration restrictionists, argued for a larger increase in immigration than any of the other panelists. He and Daniel Di Martino wanted the government to prioritize who is allowed in the country by assessing the skill levels of potential immigrants. Leah Boustain, who is to the left of center, wondered why we would not want instead to reduce the role of government micromanagement and instead allow at least as much scope for private decision-making as we do now.

I estimated about 120 attendees at the conference. Probably about 90 percent male, which Megan remarked on, saying that it was higher than what you would see in the economics profession overall these days. My guess is that the tech industry involvement in the sponsoring think tanks indirectly led to the male skew. Note that many of the attendees were non-economists from the tech world.

It seemed to me that there was a high concentration of attendees between the ages of 35 and 45. The youngest attendee was probably Max Tabarrok (Alex chose not to go). I believe that I was the oldest. Other than Robin Hanson, who is in his early 60s, I do not believe that any other attendees were over 60.

With my 69th birthday coming up this weekend, I am definitely feeling my age. It’s not just that I was the old libertarian crank at this event.

There used to be dances where I could leap high enough that I would only come down half a beat late. But at a dance camp in Wimberley, Texas a few weeks ago I felt like my feet were glued to the floor.

Wimberley is in what Texans call Hill Country, between Austin and San Antonio. It looks like it was once a rural village that is in the process of being invaded by middle-class retirees. San Antonio, which we visited, was ok, but I would not recommend going out of your way to see it. By the time we got there, I had a cold, so I did not do a meetup.