Welcome to this week’s episode of the Mixtape with Scott, a podcast devoted to listening to the personal stories of living economists and creating an oral history of the profession. This episode is partly inspired by my visit to San Sebastián, Spain, with my daughter right now and partly inspired by a 2003 article co-authored with Alberto Abadie studying the effect of terrorism on economic growth that introduced the synthetic control estimator. My guest is Javier Gardeazabal, a professor at the University of the Basque Country.

Javier Gardeazabal is a professor at the University of the Basque Country whose body of work has covered topics in macroeconomics, time series econometrics, labor economics, cultural economics, and political economy. He did his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in May 1991, an experience that he will share about in the interview. He is from the Basque Country and returned to the Basque Country after graduation where he has been ever since. It is therefore inspiring to me that his home became the topic of a paper that he is perhaps most widely known for — a seminal contribution to both causal inference and measuring the economic costs of terrorism, coauthored with Alberto Abadie, in the 2003 American Economic Review paper, “The Economic Cost of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country.” This groundbreaking study made a major contribution to causal inference by introducing the synthetic control estimator, but also assessing the economic impact of terrorism on economic growth in the Basque Country. It was a major contribution to the field possessing all the elements of great articles in economics — an important question answered extraordinarily well with clarity and rigor.

This influential paper not only cast a massive shadow over the evolution of causal inference and econometrics; it also accelerated Javier’s own research to include not only macroeconomics, but also the economics of terrorism and conflict. His career is evidence of an economist who followed his curiosity and intellectual interests to include understanding the economic costs of terrorism, introducing methods for measuring the aggregate cost of conflict, and the impact of political violence on economic well-being, but also exchange rate dynamics, time series econometrics, cultural policies, optimal test scoring methods, gender wage discrimination and more. Javier’s versatility is evident in his ability to adapt to and excel in a variety of economic topics and methodologies, continually evolving to address new and relevant economic issues.

Thank you again everyone for supporting the podcast and the substack. I hope that this interview speaks to you wherever you are, whenever you are.

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Welcome to this week’s episode of “The Mixtape with Scott”! My podcast tries to capture the personal stories of living economists and create an oral history of the profession from the narratives. And this week, I’m thrilled to welcome Dr. Avinash K. Dixit, a distinguished economist whose life’s work has influenced many fields within economics. But let me start by telling you a little about his background.

Dr. Dixit is the John J. F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University. He also serves as a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lingnan University in Hong Kong and is a Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. For his many contributions to science, he has been awarded numerous accolades, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He was also honored with India’s Padma Vibhushan in 2016, recognizing his outstanding contributions to literature and education.

As he will share, he was born in Mumbai, India and attended St. Xavier’s College where he earned a degree in Mathematics and Physics. Afterwards, he earned another degree (also in mathematics) from Cambridge before going to MIT to get his PhD where he was supervised by the late Robert Solow. After graduation, he went to Berkeley, Oxford, Warwick and then Princeton where he’s been since 1981. Both the sheer number of contributions he has made to many fields, but also their influence, is incredible. I put in the title for this episode simply “Microeconomics” after his name, but that was a difficult decision as his work spans microeconomic theory, game theory, international trade, industrial organization, and public economics, just to name a few. I could’ve written any one of those and it would’ve still been inadequate. His recent work continues to address pressing global issues, such as optimal policies for green power generation and the dynamics of social, political, and economic institutions. He is an example of someone who follows his heart and his mind, even taking risks throughout his career to leave entire fields of inquiry in search of more questions.

In addition to his long list of scientific manuscripts, there have also been many influential books, both textbooks but also more ones aimed at a broader population of readers. Things like “Theory of International Trade” (with Victor Norman), “Investment Under Uncertainty” (with Robert Pindyck), “The Art of Strategy” (with Barry Nalebuff), and “Games of Strategy” (with Susan Skeath and David Reiley).

So I’ll stop there and turn it over to the show’s host — myself — and my guest, Dr. Dixit. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of “The Mixtape with Scott.” If you enjoy our conversation, please share the podcast and help us continue to bring you stories from the world of economics.

Scott's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Welcome to this week’s episode of "The Mixtape with Scott”! This podcast is dedicated to capturing the personal stories of living economists and creating an oral history of the profession through these narratives. This week, I’m excited to welcome David Autor, an esteemed labor economist from MIT, where he serves as the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor, as well as the Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow. He was also last year's VP of the AEA, is on the Foreign Affairs board of the US State Department, and is a Digital Fellow at Stanford Digital Economy Lab. The number of accolades is too numerous to list, though, so I will just say that David's pioneering work in labor economics, particularly on the impact of trade, technological change, and the computerization of work, has significantly shaped and re-shaped our understanding of these critical areas.

David Autor is perhaps best known for his influential research on the economic impacts of globalization and technological advancements. His groundbreaking study with David Dorn and Gordon Hanson on the effects of Chinese trade on U.S. labor markets highlighted the deep and often painful economic adjustments faced by local labor markets exposed to import competition. Additionally, his work on the computerization of labor, including studies on skill-biased technological change, has provided crucial insights into how technological advancements reshape the labor market and wage structures.

One of the things you’ll learn in the interview, just as a teaser, is that David was mentored by Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger, and that mentorship had a lasting effect. Not only did it changed his own human capital and trajectory, it seems also that it changed David’s own attitudes about mentorship. And although we couldn't delve into artificial intelligence in our conversation, Autor’s extensive research on the computerization of labor probably positions him as one of a handful of working economists at the moment whose voice will be kay in understanding the future intersections of AI and labor economics, and probably more than that. So with that I’ll stop, but thanks again to everyone for all your support. If you like the podcast, please share it!

Scott's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.