Mark Koyama: How the World Became Rich, economic history, intangibles, culture, progress

Ben Yeoh Chats

Mark Koyama is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason. Mark researches comparative national state economic development and the rise of religious tolerance. He is interested in how historical institutions functioned and in the relationship between culture and economic performance.

Transcript: www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/10/9/mark-koyama-how-the-world-became-rich-economic-history-intangibles-culture-progress-podcast

I ask why it has taken economists and historians so long to form central views on how we have become rich?

Mark discusses what historic progress might tells us about economic development today. I ask about the interaction between the main factors behind economic progress such as: institutions, culture, infrastructure, geography, energy.

I question the role of common law and ask about living constitutions. Mark discusses his reading of the literature and how the UK is relatively unique in its living constitutions.

I query the role of intangibles and the patent system and briefly lay out the case (after Brad De Long) for importance of industrial labs and the corporate form. Mark discusses these factors and their importance from the 1870s but also what was important pre-1870.

We chat about culture (using Joe Henrich’s terms) as a set of heuristics. Mark discusses the literature on the importance and role of slavery (probably not the most major facotr in the UK’s industrialization, but still heavily argued), and the role and roots of social progress such as women’s rights.

We cover impacts of war and also the black death from an economic history view and we discuss the challenge on climate.

We play over/underrated on : GDP, carbon tax, representative democracy governance mechanisms, universal basic income.

Mark ends with current projects and advice.

"….So podcasts; everything is online basically. The young person who's ambitious and interested can actually get to speed quickly. So you can teach yourself econometrics by watching tons of YouTube videos. Most people won't because there's other stuff to watch on YouTube, there's other stuff to do. I could be teaching myself foreign languages on YouTube and I'm not doing it because my opportunity costs I guess is maybe high. But if you're young and wanted to study this stuff, you can get a huge head start just by use of the internet cleverly. Tyler Cowen’s advice is find the right mentors. Find some people and learn from them. But you get a huge amount early on to give yourself a head start before you go to university because to be honest, the university experience isn't necessarily going to be all that…"