The economist Tyler Cowen has argued that growth should be a stubborn attachment for economists. In today’s episode you will get an idea of why. We start with Solow who’s exogenous growth model is highly famous. From him we learn the power of ideas and how they spread to create growth and property from Romer, and finally the inventor of the carbon tax Nordhaus. This is an exciting episode indeed, and full of great reasons why growth matters, we also talk about the coolest wedding an economist can imagine, chartered cities and why light is more important than you might think.

References:

Jones, C. I. (2019). Paul Romer: Ideas, nonrivalry, and endogenous growth. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 121(3), 859-883

Nordhaus, William D. 1997. "Do Real Output and Real Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Light Suggests Not." The Economics of New Goods. Edited by Robert J. Gordon and Timothy F. Bresnahan. University of Chicago Press for the National Bureau of Economic Research. 27–70.

Nordhaus prize lecture: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/nordhaus/lecture/

Nordhaus banquet speech: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/nordhaus/speech/ 

Romer prize lecture: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/romer/lecture/ 

Solow prize lecture: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1987/solow/lecture/

Solow banquet speech: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1987/solow/speech/ 

Solow 1957 Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function