Caleb Watney is the director of innovation policy at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and he joins Macro Musings to talk about his recent piece, *Cracks in the Great Stagnation* and the reasons why we should all be techno-optimists. Specifically, David and Caleb discuss greater skilled immigration, further government R&D spending, innovative energy solutions, and more as ways to help repair an economy plagued by secular stagnation.

 

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

 

Caleb’s Twitter: @calebwatney

Caleb’s PPI profile: https://www.progressivepolicy.org/people/caleb-watney/

 

Related Links:

 

*Cracks in the Great Stagnation* Caleb Watney

https://www.agglomerations.tech/cracks-in-the-great-stagnation/

 

*The Egghead Gap* by Caleb Watney

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-egghead-gap

 

*Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?* by Nicholas Bloom, Charles Jones, John Van Reenen, and Michael Webb

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338

 

*Is the Rate of Scientific Progress Slowing Down?* by Tyler Cowen and Ben Southwood

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cEBsj18Y4NnVx5Qdu43cKEHMaVBODTTyfHBa8GIRSec/edit

 

*The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies* by Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock, and Chad Syverson

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25148/w25148.pdf

 

David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth