Breaking Up Big Econ (with David Deming)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A small group of elite universities holds an outsized influence over the field of economics, shaping research, policy, and the broader economic narrative. But is that concentration of power stifling innovation and reinforcing the status quo? This week, Harvard economist David Deming joins Nick and Goldy to discuss his recent Atlantic article, in which he argues that Big Econ functions like a monopoly—limiting competition, excluding diverse perspectives, and making it harder for new ideas to take hold. David Deming is the Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Deming is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Social Media: @ProfDavidDeming Further reading: Break Up Big Econ DOGE Is Failing on Its Own Terms David Deming’s Substack Forked Lightning The Trouble With Macroeconomics Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Substack: The Pitch

Transcript

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0:00.0	The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.
0:11.0	The last five decades of trickle-down economics haven't worked. But what's the alternative?
0:16.0	Middle-out economics is the answer. Because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence.
0:23.1	That's right.
0:28.7	This is pitchfork economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.
0:36.9	Welcome to the show.
0:44.3	On today's podcast, Nick, we're going to be talking to a white male economist from Harvard,
0:52.0	which I really gets into the core topic of the conversation today.
1:00.4	Yeah, absolutely. We are going to talk to a white male economists from Harvard. But our guest
1:06.6	today is a swell guy named David. Despite all that, you're telling me, named David Deming,
1:13.7	who joins this day because he wrote an article recently in Atlantic where he insists that big
1:20.5	econ, much like corporate monopolies, have become too concentrated, too centralized, stifling
1:25.7	innovation. And it's become a profession that rather than challenging the status quo reinforces it.
1:34.0	And we couldn't agree more.
1:38.1	Well, we know this.
1:40.8	We could ask Ashley and Freddie about this, our producers.
1:46.2	We make an effort to try to have a diverse list of guests on this show.
1:51.6	And it's much easier if this was a physics or chemistry or any other science.
1:57.9	Or medical podcast, you know, medical research podcast, then it is with an economics podcast.
2:04.9	That's right.
2:05.7	Because the profession is the least diverse.
2:10.0	If you consider it a science, it's the least diverse of the sciences and across the board
	...

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