The lecture I'll always remember from Harvard...

It was our orientation to the MPA/ID program after having gone through a three-week math marathon with one of the greatest mathematics professors I had ever encountered, Prof. Deborah Hughes Hallett, that I heard the sentence "we don't use math because we are smart; we use it because we are not smart enough" from Dani Rodrik, the then chair of the MPA/ID program. He also pointed out, jokingly, that we are at least smart enough to know we are not smart enough to do it without math, thus suggesting that we are one step ahead in the race towards solving the world's problems and making it a better place.

Anyway, what else do I remember form that day? Rodrik started by discussing "the global poverty among plenty"...something that had drawn eighty something of us from around the globe (roughly 50% of us from developing countries alone, which for a change put American students in minority position within the US :)

He then went on to discuss two fallacies:
1. The fallacy of determinism, which basically suggests that the plight or success of a nation is determined by a specific factor, such as history, geography, or the like of it.

2. The fallacy of holistic reform, which basically suggested that small steps won't work and that we need to change 'everything' to get the desired outcome of a better world

Rodrik stated that both these are termed "fallacies" because they are not quite accurate and not the best place to start as they tie our hands, leaving us to believe that well "we can't change their history or geography" or that "changing everything at once is impossible..." so let them (the developing countries) live the way they are as there is not much we can do about it anyway.

He suggested that a better place to start is that something can be done, but obviously, economists being economists just can't agree on this "something" [I am obviously not quoting Rodrik, but just using his ideas and sometimes caricaturizing it, so noone should quote me as having quoted him!]. He suggested that there are broadly three schools of thought on what could be done:

1. Money, and only large quantities of it will do the job. And one way to get the free money is to wait for foreign aid! We need foreign aid and we need alot of them. (Read Jeffrey Sachs)

2. Market is the way, so if things are not working well (automatically, or based on laissez faire), we should make sure there are no impediments s to market mechanism and the rest will take of itself through the market's magical "invisible hands" to use Adman Smith's terms. (Milton Friedman, Friedrick Hayek?)

3. Governance is the way to: Listen to the current world bank advice!

Well, which of these schools of thought did Harvard promote? Not so easy to catch them! Another line that I will always remember from that day was the claim that "we teach you HOW to think, not WHAT to think." I wonder if that claim stands the test of time!

This last line is especially relevant to my current PhD studies at the Korbel School. Some of the faculty members here are quite critical of the "economic approach" to solving social problems, but they (at least the specific individuals) don't shy away from stating their bias...