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♪ (music) ♪

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<i>(narrator) Welcome to Nobel conversations.</i>

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<i>In this episode,[br]Josh Angrist and Guido Imbens,</i>

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<i>sit down with Isaiah Andrews [br]to discuss the key ingredients</i>

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<i>in their nobel-winning collaboration.</i>

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Josh and Guido, first congratulations[br]on the Nobel Prize!

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Thank you.

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(Isaiah) The work you did together,[br]particularly the work

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on the local average treatment effect,[br]or late framework

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was cited as one of the big reasons [br]you won the prize.

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At the same time, you only[br]overlapped at Harvard for a year--

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if I'm remembering correctly--

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it would be great to hear a bit more [br]about how you started this collaboration

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and sort of what made your working[br]relationship productive.

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Are there ways in which you felt like [br]you complimented each other,

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sort of what got things started[br]on such a productive, trajectory.

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Your job talk, as I recall Guido,[br]it wasn't very interesting

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but I think it was [br]a choice-based sampling--

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It was. It was.

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(laughter)

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I was a very marginal hire there[br]because they didn't actually interview me

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on the regular job market, [br]but I think they were very desperate to get

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someone else to actually teach that[br]course.

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It was after they had [br]a couple of seminars already

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and it was still looking in econometrics,[br]so Gary called me and kind of--

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Gary Chamberlain?

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Gary Chamberlain called me and[br]interviewed me over the telephone.

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He said, "Okay, well, my don't you come[br]out and give a talk?"

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I remember this talk a little bit.

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I remember the dinner that [br]you and Gary and I had.

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I remember not being very excited[br]about your job market paper,

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but I saw that Gary was and luckily,[br]Gary's view prevailed...

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Yes.

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...and Harvard made you an offer

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and I think we started talking[br]to each other pretty pretty soon after

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you arrived in the fall of 1990, right?

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Now as I said, I came and [br]I didn't have a very clear agenda.

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I was a little intimidated getting there.

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But Gary kind of said, "No, you should talk to Josh."

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You should go to the labor seminar,[br]kind of see what these people do.

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They're doing very interesting things there."

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I listened to Gary.

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As we did.

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As we did in the those days and ever since.

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I think it helped it, we were neighbors.

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So we both lived in Harvard's[br]junior faculty housing,

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partly because housing costs[br]were very high in Cambridge

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relative to our salary, [br]which was very low.

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I think it also kind of made a[br]difference, neither of us came from Cambridge,

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so there were a lot of MIT people[br]who kind of already had their whole networks,

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kind of our collaborators.

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♪ (music) ♪

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(Josh) Well, I think we had figured out [br]a mode of working together also.

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We had kind of a regular date, [br]so we were neighbors

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and we often did our laundry together.

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We didn't have laundry[br]machines at our apartments.

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But we used to do our laundry[br]and we were talking

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and you had a way of very systematically,

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addressing questions that[br]would come up in our discussions

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and the one thing that I[br]was very impressed by,

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our early interaction,[br]is you would follow up.

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Yeah,

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You would write some things down.

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Looking back at those days,[br]sort of clearly,

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just had a lot more time to actually think

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-- I mean, I look at my junior college now-- [br]-- You don't have time to think now.

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(Guido) No, but for me that is kind of one thing,

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but I feel now a lot of my junior colleagues

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don't actually have a lot of time to think.

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People are just doing so many projects, [br]and it's actually so hard

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and there's so much pressure on people[br]to publish that.

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I remember spending a lot of time sitting[br]in my office and thinking,

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"Wow, what shall I do now?"

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(laughter)

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But it would give me a lot of time [br]to actually think about these problems

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and trying to figure it them out

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and I could actually go to seminars

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and then the next day have coffee [br]or lunch with Josh or Gary

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and actually talk about those things.

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(Isaiah) You guys weren't actually at[br]Harvard together all that long,

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so you started working[br]together pretty quickly.

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Were you both in the mindset that [br]you were looking for co-authors,

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or looking for a particular type[br]of types of co-authors at the time

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or was it more sort of fortuitous than that?

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(Josh) I think we were lucky.

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I don't remember I was that I was looking

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Now that I think, it was more fortuitous.

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I said I came in, [br]I'd done my job market paper,

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and another paper for my thesis

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and I was just very happy to come to Harvard

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and suddenly there were all these[br]seminars to go to,

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and lots of interesting people to talk to,

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but it wasn't a very[br]conscious thing on my part.

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Looking back, I think there[br]was a moment for me,

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where I was discussing [br]instrumental variables,

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potential outcomes, [br]treatment effects with Guido

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and we had a pretty good discussion,

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but then he also sent me some notes

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and the notes were very methodical[br]write-up of our discussion

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and what you thought,

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we had been concluding in a fairly formal way

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and I thought, "Well, that's great."

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Talk is cheap, right, but with somebody..

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- (Guido) Yeah, but--[br]- ...really writes out their story.

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(Guido) For me, it really helps[br]writing things down

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and I do remember working with Josh

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and sitting in my office and writing things out

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and you guys have all[br]had the discussions with Gary

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where afterwards we need to then sit down

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and actually write things up

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to figure out exactly what was going on.

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I think the other thing we had, Guido,

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is we had some very concrete questions

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that came from applications.

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(Guido) Yeah.

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A lot of econometrics, in my view,

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that we were schooled in [br]was about models,

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Here's a model and what can you say about this model?

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I think we were thinking[br]about, here's a particular scenario,

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draft eligibility is an instrument[br]for whether you serve in the Army.

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What do we learn from that?

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(Guido) That's right.

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That's right, and that's sort of where your influence

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on the way I do research now is still very clear--

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♪ (music) ♪

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(Isaiah) I guess zooming out a little bit,[br]just thinking about

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when you guys started working on this,

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when you started working together,

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any thoughts for folks

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who are just interested in[br]finding productive

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co-authors being productive?

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I mean, Guido already mentioned[br]the importance of having time,

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right, which it is.

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It is very easily not to have a lot of time to think--

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You definitely have to make time.

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That's a great question, though, Isaiah,

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and I tell my students that[br]you should pick your co-authors

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as carefully maybe more carefully than you pick your[br]spouse.

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You want to find co-authors who,

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you have some complementarity

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and that's what makes a strong relationship.

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You don't want to work with somebody[br]who sees the world exactly like you

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and as much as Guido and I agree about things,

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we often disagree about things to this day

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and it's fruitful to have those discussions

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and we had complimentary skills.

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I was very empirical. [br]I'm not really an abstract thinker.

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Guido was great at figuring out what the principles were.

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Yeah, that's right and I totally[br]agree, kind of [a different spot.]

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These are incredibly[br]important relationships

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and you see a lot of[br]people working together

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and not necessarily working very well

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and then it's very hard often to get out of this relationship.

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A good partnering is a[br]beautiful thing, like a marriage.

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It produces wonderful children,

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the fruits of the scholarship are[br]potentially wonderful

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and they exceed the capacity of the[br]partners to do it on their own

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but a bad co-authorship can be very[br]destructive and time consuming and painful,

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just like a bad marriage.

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Arguments may start about who did what when

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and intellectual property type issues,

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especially when it when it goes a little sour

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and somebody thinks the other party[br]is not pulling their weight.

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There's more co-authorship[br]now in economics,

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I think that's been documented, much more.

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(Guido) Yes.

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There's more teams[br]and there's larger teams

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and I think that's great, [br]I love working on teams.

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We do work on schools with big teams.

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I work often with PI teammates [br]like Parag Pathak and David Autor

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and then a team of graduate students,

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but I see that the students are not always,

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in some ways they're a little too promiscuous,

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in my view, in their partnering.

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They don't think it through.

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It's difficult to think it's through.

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I think, for me, working[br]with people always has involved

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spending a lot of one-on-one[br]time with people,

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you need to figure out how they think

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and what kind of problems are interested

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and how they think about these problems, [br]how they like to write, to make that--

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And it takes some maturity on[br]everybody's part.

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Yes. Yes.

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In what sense?

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Just in the sense of knowing what's going to work for them,

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knowing when things are[br]versus aren't working?

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(Josh) Maturity in the[br]sense of having some judgment

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to be able to face it honestly,[br]if it's not going well,

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sometimes you have to have some difficult[br]discussions.

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Is it worth continuing?

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"I was hoping you would do this, and you didn't,"

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maybe it turns out there's some

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feeling in the other direction, the same way.

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And Josh is very good[br](chuckles)

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in the being honest,[br]part from the beginning,

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(Josh) For better or worse.

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(Guido) I would write this stuff and then I remember the

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first version of the paper with Reuben,

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Josh was in Israel at the time,

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Don and I were in Cambridge [br]and so I would talk with Don regularly,

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but Don wasn't really doing[br]much writing in those days,

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I would write things and then I would fax them to Josh

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and they would come back, [br]first page just one big cross, No,

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second page, one big line, No

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and that would go for awhile

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but he still does that.

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I sent him the first draft of my Nobel lecture,

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and Josh goes, No, no!

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I've gotten some PDF comments like that from Josh, very helpful.

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Omit needless words.

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I have few co-authors[br]who are willing to do that.

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Especially as you get older, [br]it's harder to put up with that.

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I would find it harder now to start working with people who did that

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early on in a co-author relationship.

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It's also very hard because you need to have enough trust.

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Josh, for being willing to be very critical,

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he was also willing to admit being wrong.

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♪ (music) ♪

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(Josh) But you have to be on[br]the lookout for good partners,

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somebody who can help you answer[br]questions that you can't answer yourself.

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I think there's a natural[br]tendency for people to gravitate

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to people who are similar in outlook and skills

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and that's not as useful

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Josh is right, nowadays it's very tempting

0:11:42.000,0:11:46.500
to find people who think about the same problems

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you're already thinking about,[br]who think along the same lines

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and that may not lead to very novel stuff.

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But at the same time finding people[br]who actually have very different ideas,

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it's going to take a lot of time.

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Guido, you mentioned in passing how working with Josh has influenced

0:12:08.390,0:12:10.290
how you do research,

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could you say a little more about that?

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I'd also be interested to hear from Josh,[br]did working with Guido

0:12:15.100,0:12:17.200
influence the way that[br]you do research?

0:12:17.500,0:12:20.900
(Guido) Nowadays, I'm much more conscious[br]of the fact that, for me,

0:12:20.900,0:12:25.300
good economic research comes out of[br]talking to people doing empirical work,

0:12:25.600,0:12:29.300
and it's really not reading econometrica

0:12:29.800,0:12:31.500
or the reading the stats journals,

0:12:31.500,0:12:35.000
but it's actually talking to people[br]doing empirical work,

0:12:35.100,0:12:37.200
going to the empirical seminars.

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When I was at Berkeley,

0:12:40.400,0:12:45.500
David Carr and [inaudible] as colleagues there

0:12:45.500,0:12:46.700
and I would talk to them and listen to them,

0:12:46.900,0:12:48.200
trying to figure out

0:12:49.900,0:12:54.500
how are they solving their problems [br]and other things there

0:12:54.700,0:12:57.424
where I'm not really quite happy with the way they're doing[br]things

0:12:57.424,0:13:04.200
and trying to look for methodological problems,

0:13:04.200,0:13:07.900
where there's some more general solutions possible.

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I tried to tell it to my students[br]that I encourage them to work

0:13:11.800,0:13:14.500
as research assistants also,

0:13:14.500,0:13:18.724
for the people doing empirical work at Stanford.

0:13:19.700,0:13:22.100
There was no [subbing] but that I[br]learned while I was in graduate school,

0:13:22.100,0:13:25.000
but it really came out of working with Josh.

0:13:25.000,0:13:26.000
as well as talking to Gary,

0:13:26.000,0:13:31.000
Gary us was always encouraging of doing that

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and because he done that himself,

0:13:33.600,0:13:36.900
he'd worked with on empirical problems with[br]Zvi Griliches

0:13:36.900,0:13:39.500
early in his career.

0:13:39.500,0:13:40.500
Yeah.

0:13:40.500,0:13:44.600
Well, I became more more interested[br]in the econometric theory

0:13:45.400,0:13:47.000
through our interaction,

0:13:47.100,0:13:52.400
and I think empiricists are often impatient[br]with econometric theory,

0:13:52.400,0:13:55.500
partly because empirical work is[br]very time-consuming,

0:13:56.000,0:13:59.100
and you may have a sense that something is

0:13:59.300,0:14:02.400
convincing and sensible

0:14:03.000,0:14:04.100
and you haven't really fully made the case for that,

0:14:04.100,0:14:05.100
but you're convinced

0:14:05.100,0:14:09.700
and that motivates you to pursue it,[br]like the draft lottery story.

0:14:10.700,0:14:17.300
I was pretty sure that was[br]worth doing

0:14:17.300,0:14:21.100
and I came away from working with Guido

0:14:21.100,0:14:24.800
seeing that there was the potential to say something

0:14:24.800,0:14:25.800
more than just about that particular problem,

0:14:25.800,0:14:29.500
and I think over the those early[br]years in the 90s,

0:14:29.500,0:14:35.000
our thinking evolved together [br]that there's actually a framework,

0:14:35.100,0:14:37.800
a way to solve a lot of problems

0:14:38.200,0:14:41.700
and I think that that is the power of[br]the late framework,

0:14:41.700,0:14:42.800
is it answers a lot of questions in some sense.

0:14:43.150,0:14:44.150
♪ (music) ♪

0:14:44.500,0:14:46.300
In some sense, did you find that,

0:14:46.300,0:14:50.700
email versus facts versus in -person,[br]the medium mattered

0:14:50.700,0:14:52.000
to how collaboration went

0:14:52.100,0:14:55.200
or they're ways that you felt like it[br]was the most useful to collaborate?

0:14:55.300,0:14:59.700
To me, I think what matters most is,[br]initially you have a period--

0:15:00.000,0:15:04.900
We needed that initial period, [br]that was very intense with almost

0:15:05.100,0:15:08.800
daily interaction and we also became friends.

0:15:08.900,0:15:13.900
You don't develop the kind of friendship,[br]electronically usually

0:15:15.000,0:15:19.000
but once you have that foundation you can be pen pals

0:15:19.300,0:15:25.300
and we did use e-mail, [br]though it wasn't as useful then

0:15:25.500,0:15:28.400
but it worked, [br]but we definitely had a lot of faxes.

0:15:28.400,0:15:34.000
I still have these faxes, long faxes

0:15:34.000,0:15:35.000
and then in the summer, I would come to Cambridge,

0:15:35.000,0:15:40.300
usually to the NBR meetings [br]and hang around for a few weeks

0:15:40.300,0:15:43.000
and you visited me in Israel.

0:15:43.000,0:15:44.000
I visited in Israel.

0:15:44.000,0:15:48.400
But yeah, there was good foundation from that that year

0:15:48.500,0:15:51.000
and in some sense that was enough.

0:15:51.500,0:15:53.000
and nowadays,

0:15:53.300,0:15:56.600
I have the co-authors[br]in lots of different places,

0:15:56.600,0:15:59.100
but it's always been important

0:15:59.200,0:16:01.400
to spend some time with[br]people in the same place each year.

0:16:01.500,0:16:04.900
You understand how they work, how they think,

0:16:05.000,0:16:07.600
even to the point that,

0:16:07.600,0:16:10.400
you know when they actually respond, [br]whether they respond quickly or whether that means,

0:16:10.400,0:16:14.100
they're not actually doing anything

0:16:14.100,0:16:15.100
or that mean they're thinking hard about a problem

0:16:15.100,0:16:17.300
and they just take take longer.

0:16:17.300,0:16:20.200
but you do need to[br]develop some understanding there.

0:16:20.200,0:16:24.304
♪ (music) ♪

0:16:24.304,0:16:25.900
We've talked about [br]how your collaboration started,

0:16:26.900,0:16:31.000
maybe just to step back slightly [br]were they're sort of features about

0:16:31.000,0:16:34.900
the environment at Harvard or in Cambridge,[br]at the time, which you felt like contributed to it?

0:16:35.000,0:16:37.400
Coming from Brown,

0:16:38.000,0:16:42.100
I felt it was very intimidating place[br]because it clearly was a very, very

0:16:43.500,0:16:45.100
impressive set of people.

0:16:45.200,0:16:48.200
Zvi Griliches was there, Dale Jorgensen--

0:16:48.200,0:16:49.200
Gary, Jerry Hausman, Whitney Newey, sometimes Jamie Robins.

0:16:52.600,0:16:55.900
I mean, my view of that in retrospect,

0:16:55.900,0:16:58.300
I can't say I loved every[br]minute of every talk

0:16:58.300,0:16:59.500
I ever gave in that Workshop,

0:16:59.500,0:17:02.400
but that was the highest powered,[br]that was the group you wanted to reach...

0:17:02.400,0:17:03.400
(Guido) Yeah.

0:17:03.400,0:17:04.900
and you would get

0:17:05.100,0:17:10.600
extraordinarily insightful feedback,[br]even if it wasn't always easy to swallow.

0:17:11.300,0:17:12.940
Yeah, and I have for a while,

0:17:12.940,0:17:16.200
I would basically give a talk every semester

0:17:16.200,0:17:19.000
because we didn't have any money[br]to be inviting people.

0:17:19.500,0:17:22.000
Gary would say, "Well, why don't you give a talk?"

0:17:22.350,0:17:23.350
(laughter)

0:17:26.800,0:17:31.600
That was the arena for young people[br]with our interest.

0:17:31.700,0:17:34.700
(Guido) Yeah, it was really very impressive,

0:17:35.000,0:17:36.600
but it was quite tough--

0:17:36.700,0:17:37.700
It was intimidating.

0:17:37.800,0:17:41.000
People there had very strong[br]views on what they thought was

0:17:41.200,0:17:46.100
the way you should do econometrics,[br]the way the direction things should go,

0:17:48.600,0:17:53.300
now, I would think things were[br]getting a little stale that in fact,

0:17:53.300,0:17:56.000
we were bringing in a lot[br]of the new ideas...

0:17:56.000,0:17:57.000
(Josh) Yeah.

0:17:57.000,0:18:01.900
...and that wasn't necessary[br]immediately appreciated.

0:18:02.800,0:18:04.300
(Josh) But that's okay.[br]- And that's fine.

0:18:04.300,0:18:10.140
We were pushed and a lot of great discussions [br]in that workshop about

0:18:11.250,0:18:13.000
what should we make of late?

0:18:13.000,0:18:15.800
But there were other questions[br]that were just as interesting,

0:18:15.800,0:18:18.000
like the role of the propensity score -

0:18:18.400,0:18:19.600
that was a big deal in the 90s

0:18:19.700,0:18:24.300
and econometrics was moving towards that

0:18:25.000,0:18:27.800
and there were a lot of great questions.

0:18:27.900,0:18:28.500
Yeah,

0:18:28.500,0:18:33.300
I learned a huge amount[br]there from the time I spent--

0:18:33.300,0:18:34.900
(Josh) I think the other thing that Guido and I

0:18:35.000,0:18:36.900
both benefited from [br]is we both,

0:18:37.400,0:18:40.500
not at the same time, but in[br]early in our careers, taught

0:18:40.800,0:18:42.700
econometrics with Gary Chamberlain,

0:18:43.200,0:18:46.500
and that was like an[br]apprenticeship for us, I think.

0:18:46.800,0:18:51.500
I taught a mixed graduate undergrad 1126,

0:18:51.500,0:18:52.100
I don't know if they still have that number,...

0:18:52.500,0:18:53.500
(Isaiah) Ahuh, they do.

0:18:53.900,0:18:58.100
...very interesting course that it had both[br]graduate and undergraduate enrollment

0:18:58.800,0:19:04.900
and it was relatively applied for an[br]econometrics class,

0:19:05.000,0:19:06.600
and I learned a lot by teaching that with Gary.

0:19:07.500,0:19:10.100
But in that sense, Harvard was a great place, very flexible there.

0:19:13.600,0:19:16.332
The other thing I remember about Harvard is,

0:19:16.710,0:19:20.150
well I had very good students,

0:19:20.300,0:19:25.100
I taught a lot of wonderful students[br]who went on to have wonderful careers.

0:19:26.300,0:19:31.750
Also, Harvard as an institution,[br]you're probably are aware of this, Isaiah,

0:19:31.750,0:19:34.800
as a junior faculty member, they didn't then ask much of us,

0:19:35.000,0:19:37.300
other than teaching our classes.

0:19:37.800,0:19:41.300
We didn't have administrative concerns, to speak of.

0:19:41.300,0:19:45.300
I think I went to two faculty[br]meetings in my two years at Harvard

0:19:46.600,0:19:50.920
and so we're left--

0:19:50.920,0:19:53.400
You were given a lot of freedom and flexibility.

0:19:53.400,0:19:58.100
Yeah. Yeah. So I went to the chair said,[br]you know, can I teach this course Reuben?

0:19:59.000,0:20:04.100
And I think it was Friedman[br]at the time. It was like fine.

0:20:04.600,0:20:05.000
Yeah,

0:20:05.200,0:20:10.100
it wasn't really any concern about what[br]what it was about and again that was

0:20:10.700,0:20:13.000
very intimidating, experience,[br]but it was a great experience.

0:20:14.700,0:20:17.600
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