How I became a Better Economist
The books that helped me in 2020
This year has been a tough year, but it has been a great opportunity to seek personal growth. So in this week’s video I’m sharing the books that helped me become a better economist this year.
I know what you’re thinking. “But Craig, you are already one of the greatest economists on YouTube! Thanks, but in the economics world I’m like Kevin Hart trying to play basketball against LeBron James. So I was glad to see that this year I improved in some key areas.
Data that passes the Sniff Test
I love when data reveals wild trends connected to other important trends. Like how demand for water on Super Bowl Sunday spikes at halftime, suggesting a lot of people are flushing their toilet at the same time.
Well this past week a great one appeared this year. It turns out scented candles are getting flooded with negative reviews on Amazon, with claims that the candles don’t work. Well, what is one of the main symptoms of COVID? A loss of sense of smell!
The full data breakdown is available on twitter here:
Do what you’re curious about
Paul Graham is one of the founders of Y-Combinator, a group that helped give us great tech companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Lambda School. He occasionally writes essays, and each one is a hit. This week he wrote one on how to become an independent thinker. It’s filled with gems, but here is one that stuck with me.
Curiosity seems to be more individual than fastidiousness about truth or resistance to being told what to think. To the degree people have the latter two, they're usually pretty general, whereas different people can be curious about very different things. So perhaps curiosity is the compass here. Perhaps, if your goal is to discover novel ideas, your motto should not be "do what you love" so much as "do what you're curious about."
Auction Theory
If you’re looking for a soft introduction on Auction Theory, which was the focus of this year’s Nobel prize, then I recommend this video by VSauce3.