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♪ [music] ♪
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- [Narrator] Welcome to [br]Nobel Conversations.
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In this episode,[br]Josh Angrist and Guido Imbens,
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sit down with Isaiah Andrews [br]to discuss the key ingredients
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in their Nobel-winning collaboration.
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Josh and Guido, first [br]congratulations 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 [br]a bit more
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about how you started [br]this collaboration
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and 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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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.[br][laughter]
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I was a very marginal hire there
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because they didn't [br]actually interview me
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on the regular job market,
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but I think they were very desperate [br]to get someone else
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to actually teach their courses.
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It was after they had [br]a couple of seminars already
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and they're still looking [br]in econometrics,
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- ...so Gary called me and kind of--[br]- [Josh] 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, why don't you [br]come out and give a talk?"
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- [Josh] I remember this talk [br]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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- [Josh] ...and Harvard [br]made you an offer
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and I think we started talking to [br]each other pretty pretty soon after
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you arrived in the fall of 1990, [br]right?
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As I said, I came [br]and 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, [br]"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 [br]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 [br]and ever since.
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I think it helped that [br]we were neighbors.
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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 made a difference,
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neither of us came from Cambridge,
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so there were a lot of MIT people
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who 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 figured out
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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 [br]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 [br]of fairly systematically,
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addressing questions that[br]would come up in our discussions
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and the one thing that [br]I was very impressed by,
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our early interaction,[br]is you would follow up.
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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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I just had a lot more time [br]to actually think.
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- I look at my junior colleagues now-- [br]- You don't have time to think now.
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No, but for me that is [br]kind of one thing,
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but I feel now a lot of [br]my junior colleagues
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don't actually have a lot [br]of time to think.
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People are just doing [br]so many projects,
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and it's actually so hard
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and there's so much pressure [br]on people to publish.
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I remember spending a lot of time [br]sitting in my office
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and thinking, [br]"Wow, what shall I do now?"
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[laughter]
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But it would give me a lot of time
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to actually think about [br]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 [br]those things.
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- [Isaiah] You guys weren't actually [br]at Harvard together all that long,
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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 [br]fortuitous than that?
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- [Josh] I think we were lucky.
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I don't remember that I was looking.
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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 [br]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 [br]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 [br]in a fairly formal way
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and I thought, [br]"Well, that's great."
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Talk is cheap, right, [br]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 [br]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 [br]to then sit down
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and actually write things up
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to figure out exactly [br]what was going on.
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I think the other thing we had, [br]Guido,
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is we had some [br]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 [br]you say about this model?
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I think we were thinking about, [br]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 [br]where your influence
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on the way I do research now [br]is still very clear--
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♪ [music] ♪
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- [Isaiah] Zooming out [br]a little bit, just thinking about
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when you guys started [br]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 [br]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, [br]Isaiah,
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and I tell my students that
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you should pick your co-authors [br]as carefully,
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maybe more carefully [br]than you pick your 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 [br]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 [br]and I agree about things,
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we often disagree [br]about things to this day
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and it's fruitful to have [br]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 [br]what the principles were.
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Yeah, that's right and I totally[br]agree, kind of [inaudible].
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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 [br]very well
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and then it's very hard often [br]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 [br]can be very destructive
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and time consuming and painful,[br]just like a bad marriage.
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Arguments may start about [br]who did what when
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and intellectual property[br]type issues,
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especially when it when [br]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, [br]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 [br]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 [br]graduate students,
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but I see that the students [br]are not always,
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in some ways they're a little [br]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 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 [br]how they think
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and what kind of problems [br]they're interested in
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and how they think about [br]these problems,
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how they like to write, [br]to make that--
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And it takes some maturity on[br]everybody's part.
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- Yes. Yes.[br]- [Isaiah] In what sense?
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Just in the sense of knowing [br]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 [br]some difficult discussions.
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Is it worth continuing?
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"I was hoping you would do this, [br]and you didn't,"
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maybe it turns out [br]there's some feeling
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in the other direction, [br]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 [br]and then I remember
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the first version of the paper [br]with Rubin,
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Josh was in Israel at the time,
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Don and I were in Cambridge
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and so I would talk [br]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 [br]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[br]but he still does that.
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I sent him the first draft [br]of my Nobel lecture,
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and Josh goes, [br]"No, no!"
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I've gotten some PDF comments [br]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[br]working with people who did that
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early on in a co-author [br]relationship.
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It's also very hard because [br]you need to have enough trust.
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Josh, for being willing [br]to be very critical,
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he was also willing [br]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 [br]answer questions
0:11:28.010,0:11:29.710
that you can't answer yourself.
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I think there's a natural tendency [br]for people to gravitate
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to people who are similar [br]in outlook and skills
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and that's not as useful.
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- [Guido] Josh is right, nowadays [br]it's very tempting
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to find people who think [br]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 [br]to very novel stuff.
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But at the same time finding people
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who actually have [br]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 [br]how working with Josh
0:12:07.570,0:12:10.270
has influenced how you do research,
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could you say a little more [br]about that?
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I'd also be interested [br]to hear from Josh,
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did working with Guido influence [br]the way that you do research?
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- [Guido] Nowadays, I'm much [br]more conscious of the fact that,
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for me, good economic research
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comes out of talking to people [br]doing empirical work,
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and it's really not reading [br]econometrica
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or the reading the stats journals,
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but it's actually talking to people[br]doing empirical work,
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going to the empirical seminars.
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When I was at Berkeley,
0:12:41.250,0:12:44.167
David Carr and Raj Chetty, [br]as colleagues there
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and I would talk to them [br]and listen to them,
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trying to figure out
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how are they solving their problems[br]and other things there
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where I'm not really quite happy [br]with the way they're doing things
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and trying to look for [br]methodological problems,
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where there's some more [br]general solutions possible.
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I tried to tell it to my students[br]that I encourage them to work
0:13:11.700,0:13:13.199
as research assistants also,
0:13:13.199,0:13:18.409
for the people doing empirical work[br]at Stanford.
0:13:19.700,0:13:20.810
There was no [subbing]
0:13:20.810,0:13:22.100
but that I learned while [br]I was in graduate school,
0:13:22.100,0:13:25.380
but it really came out of [br]working with Josh,
0:13:25.380,0:13:26.990
as well as talking to Gary,
0:13:26.990,0:13:30.367
Gary was always encouraging [br]of doing that
0:13:30.367,0:13:31.860
and because he done that himself,
0:13:31.860,0:13:35.830
he'd worked with on empirical [br]problems with Zvi Griliches
0:13:35.830,0:13:39.500
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
0:13:45.500,0:13:47.100
through our interaction,
0:13:47.100,0:13:51.960
and I think empiricists are often [br]impatient with econometric theory,
0:13:51.960,0:13:55.040
partly because empirical work is[br]very time-consuming,
0:13:55.040,0:13:59.100
and you may have a sense [br]that something is
0:13:59.300,0:14:00.740
convincing and sensible
0:14:00.740,0:14:04.100
and you haven't really fully [br]made the case for that,
0:14:04.100,0:14:05.100
but you're convinced
0:14:05.100,0:14:07.465
and that motivates you [br]to pursue it,
0:14:07.860,0:14:10.604
like the draft lottery story.
0:14:10.604,0:14:12.441
I was pretty sure that was[br]worth doing
0:14:14.420,0:14:19.613
and I came away from [br]working with Guido
0:14:19.613,0:14:22.348
seeing that there was [br]the potential to say something
0:14:22.733,0:14:25.220
more than just about [br]that particular problem,
0:14:26.560,0:14:29.028
and I think over the those early[br]years in the 90s,
0:14:31.600,0:14:33.360
our thinking evolved together
0:14:33.360,0:14:35.500
that there's actually [br]a framework here,
0:14:35.500,0:14:37.270
a way to solve a lot of problems
0:14:37.270,0:14:40.700
and I think that that is the power[br]of the LATE framework,
0:14:40.700,0:14:42.930
is it answers a lot of questions.
0:14:42.930,0:14:44.500
♪ [music] ♪
0:14:44.500,0:14:46.300
- [Isaiah] In some sense, [br]did you find that,
0:14:46.300,0:14:48.560
email versus facts [br]versus in-person,
0:14:48.560,0:14:51.462
the medium mattered[br]to how collaboration went
0:14:51.462,0:14:53.030
or they're ways that you felt like
0:14:53.030,0:14:55.300
it was the most useful [br]to collaborate?
0:14:55.300,0:14:58.761
To me, I think [br]what matters most is,
0:14:58.781,0:15:00.860
initially you have a period of--
0:15:01.020,0:15:02.340
We needed that initial period,
0:15:02.340,0:15:06.477
that was very intense with [br]almost daily interaction
0:15:06.477,0:15:08.358
and we also became friends.
0:15:08.900,0:15:13.992
You don't develop the kind of [br]friendship, electronically usually
0:15:13.996,0:15:14.996
[laughter]
0:15:15.000,0:15:18.731
but once you have that foundation [br]you can be pen pals
0:15:19.300,0:15:24.314
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.
0:15:28.400,0:15:31.300
I still have these faxes, [br]these long faxes
0:15:32.920,0:15:36.885
and then in the summer, [br]I would come to Cambridge,
0:15:36.907,0:15:40.300
usually to the NBR meetings [br]and hang around for a few weeks
0:15:40.300,0:15:41.949
and you visited me in Israel.
0:15:41.949,0:15:44.000
I visited in Israel.
0:15:44.000,0:15:48.400
But yeah, there was good foundation[br]from that that year
0:15:49.000,0:15:51.500
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
0:15:59.100,0:16:01.380
to spend some time with people [br]in the same place,
0:16:01.380,0:16:04.900
so you understand how they work, [br]how they think,
0:16:05.800,0:16:07.350
even to the point that,
0:16:07.350,0:16:08.900
you know when [br]they actually respond,
0:16:08.900,0:16:10.267
whether they respond quickly [br]or whether that means,
0:16:10.267,0:16:11.710
they're not actually doing anything
0:16:11.710,0:16:15.100
or that mean they're thinking hard [br]about a problem
0:16:15.100,0:16:17.300
and they just take longer,
0:16:17.300,0:16:21.707
but you do need to[br]develop some understanding there.
0:16:21.707,0:16:23.484
♪ [music] ♪
0:16:23.484,0:16:26.900
- [Isaiah] 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
0:16:31.000,0:16:34.000
the environment at Harvard [br]or in Cambridge, at the time,
0:16:34.000,0:16:35.770
which you felt contributed to it?
0:16:36.290,0:16:37.920
Coming from Brown,
0:16:37.920,0:16:42.174
I felt it was very intimidating place[br]because it clearly was a very, very
0:16:43.500,0:16:45.200
impressive set of people.
0:16:46.590,0:16:49.040
Zvi Griliches was there, [br]Dale Jorgensen--
0:16:49.040,0:16:53.780
Gary, Jerry Hausman, Whitney Newey,[br]sometimes Jamie Robins.
0:16:53.890,0:16:55.900
I mean, my view of that [br]in retrospect,
0:16:55.900,0:16:58.000
I can't say I loved every[br]minute of every talk
0:16:58.000,0:16:59.270
I ever gave in that Workshop,
0:16:59.270,0:17:00.990
but that was the highest powered,
0:17:00.990,0:17:02.670
that was the group [br]you wanted to reach...
0:17:02.670,0:17:03.600
- [Guido] Yeah.
0:17:03.600,0:17:07.974
And you would get extraordinarily [br]insightful feedback,
0:17:07.974,0:17:10.600
even if it wasn't always [br]easy to swallow.
0:17:11.300,0:17:12.660
Yeah, and I have for a while,
0:17:12.660,0:17:15.940
I would basically give [br]a talk every semester
0:17:15.940,0:17:19.000
because we didn't have any money[br]to invite people.
0:17:19.500,0:17:22.000
Gary would say, [br]"Well, why don't you give a talk?"
0:17:22.000,0:17:23.000
[laughter]
0:17:26.800,0:17:30.758
That was the arena for young people[br]with our interest.
0:17:30.758,0:17:32.778
- [Guido] Yeah, it was really [br]very impressive,
0:17:32.778,0:17:35.448
but it was quite tough--
0:17:35.448,0:17:37.128
It was intimidating.
0:17:37.800,0:17:41.000
People there had very strong[br]views on what they thought was
0:17:42.810,0:17:44.560
the way you should do econometrics,
0:17:44.560,0:17:46.720
the way the direction [br]things should go,
0:17:49.340,0:17:51.710
now, I would think things were[br]getting a little stale,
0:17:51.710,0:17:55.550
that in fact, we were bringing in [br]a lot of the new ideas...
0:17:55.550,0:17:57.000
- [Josh] Yeah.
0:17:57.000,0:18:01.900
...and that wasn't necessary[br]immediately appreciated.
0:18:02.380,0:18:04.300
- [Josh] But that's okay.[br]- And that's fine.
0:18:04.300,0:18:07.730
We were pushed [br]and a lot of great discussions
0:18:07.730,0:18:12.887
in that workshop about [br]what should we make of LATE?
0:18:12.887,0:18:15.687
But there were other questions[br]that were just as interesting,
0:18:15.687,0:18:18.267
like the role of [br]the propensity score,
0:18:18.267,0:18:20.678
that was a big deal in the 90s
0:18:20.689,0:18:24.300
and econometrics was [br]moving towards that
0:18:25.000,0:18:27.550
and there were a lot [br]of great questions.
0:18:27.550,0:18:28.790
Yeah,
0:18:29.430,0:18:32.810
I learned a huge amount[br]there from the time I spent--
0:18:32.810,0:18:34.760
- [Josh] I think the other thing [br]that Guido and I
0:18:34.760,0:18:36.800
both benefited from is we both,
0:18:37.400,0:18:39.810
not at the same time, but in[br]early in our careers,
0:18:39.810,0:18:42.400
taught econometrics [br]with Gary Chamberlain,
0:18:43.200,0:18:46.500
and that was like an[br]apprenticeship for us, I think.
0:18:46.800,0:18:50.640
I taught a mixed graduate,[br]undergrad 1126,
0:18:50.640,0:18:52.080
I don't know if they still have [br]that number,...
0:18:52.080,0:18:53.500
- [Isaiah] Ahuh, they do.
0:18:53.500,0:18:55.480
...very interesting course [br]that it had
0:18:55.480,0:18:57.885
both graduate and undergraduate [br]enrollment
0:18:58.800,0:19:02.869
and it was relatively applied for [br]an econometrics class,
0:19:03.270,0:19:06.794
and I learned a lot by teaching [br]that with Gary.
0:19:07.500,0:19:11.350
But in that sense, [br]Harvard was a great place,
0:19:11.350,0:19:13.210
very flexible there.
0:19:13.600,0:19:15.879
The other thing I remember [br]about Harvard is,
0:19:16.710,0:19:18.612
well I had very good students,
0:19:20.300,0:19:22.672
I taught a lot of [br]wonderful students
0:19:22.690,0:19:25.013
who went on to have [br]wonderful careers.
0:19:26.300,0:19:28.346
Also, Harvard as an institution,
0:19:28.346,0:19:31.400
you're probably are aware of this, [br]Isaiah,
0:19:31.400,0:19:35.350
as a junior faculty member, [br]they didn't then ask much of us,
0:19:35.350,0:19:37.140
other than teaching our classes.
0:19:37.640,0:19:40.730
We didn't have administrative concerns,[br]to speak of.
0:19:41.300,0:19:43.757
I think I went to two [br]faculty meetings
0:19:43.757,0:19:45.356
in my two years at Harvard
0:19:46.600,0:19:48.940
and so we're left--
0:19:50.920,0:19:53.400
You were given a lot of freedom [br]and flexibility.
0:19:54.300,0:19:57.886
I went to the chair said, [br]"Can I teach this course with Rubin?"
0:19:59.620,0:20:04.133
I think it was Friedman[br]at the time. It was like, "Fine."
0:20:05.200,0:20:09.383
It wasn't really any concern about [br]what what it was about
0:20:09.383,0:20:11.790
and again, that was a very [br]intimidating experience,
0:20:11.790,0:20:13.350
but it was a great experience.
0:20:13.350,0:20:14.505
♪ [music] ♪
0:20:14.505,0:20:16.010
- [Narrator] If you'd like to [br]watch more
0:20:16.010,0:20:17.943
Nobel Conversations, [br]click here,
0:20:18.358,0:20:20.676
or if you'd like to learn more [br]about econometrics,
0:20:20.676,0:20:23.160
check out Josh's [br]"Mastering Econometrics" series.
0:20:24.075,0:20:26.943
If you'd like to learn more about [br]Guido, Josh, and Isaiah,
0:20:26.943,0:20:28.744
check out the links [br]in the description.
0:20:28.744,0:20:30.577
♪ [music] ♪