This paper is based on the transcript of an interview made by Professor Brian Snowdon with the late Douglass North, Noble Laureate who died in 2015. North was one of the most influential economists and economic historian of the second half of the twentieth century. Along with the late Angus Maddison North was a pioneer of the application of economic data to investigate key issues in economic history and was a major contributor to the growing specialist field of cliometrics. His studies led Professor North to recognise that in order to gain meaningful insights from past economic data neo-classical economic theory alone was inadequate and had to be modified to incorporate the influence of politics, the role of institutions, transaction costs and property rights. His work investigated the roots of economic development and the barriers to growth. He proposed the view that many formal political and social institutions are created not necessarily to be socially efficient, but instead to serve the interests of élites particularly those with the bargaining power to create and amend rules to suit their own interests.

François Bourguignon was Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Economics, at the World Bank before taking up his current position as Director of the Paris School of Economics. He is one of the world’s leading economists in the field of economic growth and development, in particular the relationship between growth, poverty and income distribution. To set the interview in context, Brian Snowdon first provides a brief discussion of several contemporary issues in economic development, including the recently published Commission on Growth and Development Report. In the interview that follows, discussion ranges over several subjects and key issues including Latin America; the fall and rise of development economics; changing conventional wisdom on the role of government; World Bank development research; measuring development; poverty, inequality and development; the Millennium Development Goals; convergence and divergence clubs; growth and inequality; democracy and development; geography v. institutions; globalisation; migration and development; foreign aid and development; improving the business and investment climate; the ‘Stern Report’ and climate change; culture, religion and development; and the IMF, World Bank and WTO.

Oded Galor, Professor of Economics at Brown University, is one of the world’s leading and most imaginative growth theorists. Throughout his career, his numerous publications have focussed on growth-related issues such as labour migration, international trade, income distribution, demography, human capital accumulation, and discrete dynamical systems. Recently his work has emphasised the need for a unified theory of growth that incorporates an evolutionary perspective and can account for the transition from ‘Malthusian stagnation’ to the modern growth regime. Brian Snowdon provides, as background, a brief survey of the new and exciting literature in this area and in the interview that follows, discusses with Professor Galor his innovative approach to explaining some of the most profound and difficult questions in human history, and the progress that is being made in building a coherent unified theory of long-run growth.

Ben Friedman is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading macroeconomists. His research and publications have focused on monetary and fiscal policy, and the key role that financial markets play in influencing how macroeconomic policies impact on aggregate economic activity. Professor Friedman’s recent book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, has received considerable critical acclaim. Friedman argues that America is at an ‘economic crossroads’ and in this election year in the US, the important issues he highlights are especially poignant. Before discussing with Professor Friedman subjects addressed in this influential volume and his critical views on monetary policy strategies based on inflation targeting, Brian Snowdon examines several issues relating to economic growth and to the issue of rising inequality in the United States. Among questions explored in the interview that follows are ones relating to happiness and the ‘Easterlin paradox’; democracy and economic growth; culture, religion and economics; growth and the environment; growth, poverty, and inequality; market failure, public policy, and growth; and inflation targeting and the ‘dual mandate’.

Joel Mokyr is one of the world’s leading economic historians, known internationally for his numerous publications on the history of technology and the Industrial Revolution. He has also written extensively on demographic issues and Irish economic history. In this interview, Professor Mokyr discusses with Brian Snowdon (who provides a background introduction to set the interview in context), a wide range of issues relating to economics, economic history, technology, the Industrial Revolution, and the influence of the ‘Industrial Enlightenment’.

Milton Friedman is best known as the founding father and leading exponent of the monetarist school of macroeconomic thought, and for championing the case for the efficacy of free markets in a wide variety of contexts. Without doubt, Friedman’s ideas have influenced the research agenda of a whole generation of economists as well as those who influence public policy throughout the world. Friedman’s extraordinary gifts of communicating complicated ideas allowed him to become one of the very few economists who are well known outside the economics profession. As well as his many scientific contributions, Friedman sought to communicate his views on a wide range of issues to non-economists. His gift for writing about topics in applied economics, accessible to a mass audience, established Friedman as one of the world’s most famous economists. Throughout his professional academic life, because of his high public profile, the ideas of Milton Friedman certainly aroused strong reactions from both opponents and supporters, and, until very recently, with respect to many of his ideas, he swam against a strong and extremely hostile tide of opinion. However, whatever view is held about Friedman’s libertarian political and economic philosophy, most commentators would agree that his recent passing brings to an end the life of the last great economist guru of the twentieth century. In this paper, Brian Snowdon and Howard Vane review his most influential contributions to economic analysis and political economy.

To set the interview in context, Brian Snowdon first traces out some important landmarks in twentieth-century Russian/Soviet Union history. In the conversation that follows, Professor Desai gives her views on a number of key issues relating to the decline of the Soviet system and problems of Russia’s transition to a market economy. Recently, Freedom House has suggested that Russia is at a ‘crossroads’ with respect to its fledgling liberal democracy and market economy. Therefore, also discussed are the prospects for survival of democracy and markets in the new Russian ‘liberal’ order. In the first part of the interview, Professor Desai also comments on the influence of socialist ideas on India’s growth and development strategy.

“I think that the most important question that an economist can ask is, What is it that makes a country grow? More than anything else it is economic growth that affects human welfare…this is why it must remain a major research interest for economists.” In this interview Xavier Sala-i-Martin—widely recognised as one of the world’s leading economists in the field of economic growth—discusses with Brian Snowdon several important issues relating to economic growth and development. The interview, which follows a review of the historical context of recent research, addresses arguments about growth and history, theories and models, globalisation and convergence, political barriers and the ‘natural resource curse’, the impact of religion and culture, and questions of international inequality, foreign aid, human capital, geography, competitiveness, economic and political freedom, and happiness.

Brian Snowdon presents the text of a two-hour interview conducted with Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University—a wide-ranging discussion relating to Professor Sachs’s work over the past thirty years on macroeconomic stabilisation, the economics of transition, and several important issues in the field of international economic development. First, Snowdon provides some background to the debate relating to Professor Sachs’s most recent work that has helped focus international attention on the growth tragedy of sub-Saharan Africa. This key humanitarian issue has received enormous coverage in the media throughout 2005 and has been highlighted in particular at the G8 meetings in Gleneagles and worldwide Live 8 Concerts in July 2005, and the UN World Summit in September.

How should progress be measured? Today, economists and economic historians have available a rich array of data for a large number of countries on which to base their response to this important question. The need for alternative measures of the standard of living is particularly important for economic historians exploring the distant past where conventional estimates cannot be calculated. In this paper John Komlos and Brian Snowdon review several alternative measures of ‘progress’, both orthodox and unorthodox, including recent findings from ‘anthropometric’ history. The field of Anthropometrics blends history, economics, biology, medical science and physical anthropology and is now well established having helped to clarify ‘several questions important to economic historians’ including those related to slavery, mortality, inequality, and living standards during industrialisation. While malnutrition is the scourge of poor countries, obesity has become a major problem in many developed countries, particularly during the last quarter century. Research into the economics of obesity is now a burgeoning research area and the authors briefly review some of the major findings. Finally, Komlos and Snowdon comment on the recent literature on ‘happiness’. The achievement of a higher GDP per capita is, after all, not an end in itself, but a means to an end, that is, human happiness.

Alberto Alesina is the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy and Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. In this interview he discusses with Brian Snowdon his views on several important contemporary issues, including politics and the business cycle, budget deficits, currency unions, the European Union, the size of nations, economic growth, inequality, democracy, foreign aid, ethnic fractionalisation, and the welfare state in the US and Europe.

Daron Acemoglu is Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this interview he discusses with Brian Snowdon some of his recent research findings that confirm the key role played by ‘good’ and ‘bad’ institutions in determining the economic performance of countries. He shares his views on a wide range of subjects including economic history, growth theory, the role of institutions and geography in explaining growth and development, the influence of trade on growth, global inequality, and political economy perspectives on economic development.

Stanley Fischer had a long and distinguished career as an academic economist at MIT, and was Vice President, Development Economics and Chief Economist at the World Bank, before becoming First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in 1994. He is now President of Citigroup International and Vice Chairman of Citigroup. In this interview, Brian Snowdon discusses with Stanley Fischer several important issues relating to the contemporary world economy, including problems of stabilisation, inflation and growth, the economics and politics of transition, exchange rate regimes, the IMF, the East Asian crisis, and globalisation and economic development.

Jeffrey Williamson is a leading authority on the economic history of the international economy. His interests cover a wide area within the field of economic history and include research on international economic development, the industrial revolution, industrialisation and de-industrialisation, tariff policy, factor price convergence, demography and economic development, and international labour migration. Since the early 1960s he has been a major contributor to the ‘cliometric’ approach to economic history and his research illustrates how history is particularly relevant to the modern debate on ‘globalisation’. In this interview Brian Snowdon discusses with Professor Williamson his more recent research relating to the global economy in historical perspective.

Having conducted extensive research in the field of economic growth and development, William Easterly has broad knowledge and expertise on the problems facing developing countries. While working for the World Bank, he travelled extensively in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and is well placed to comment on the key issues and debates surrounding the question of how best to promote increased well-being in the poor countries of the world. In this interview he discusses with Brian Snowdon several of the key controversies that have recently attracted the attention of scholars of economic growth and development.

János Kornai is generally regarded as the world’s leading scholar on socialist economic systems. In this interview, Professor Kornai discusses the evolution of his thinking on the political economy of the socialist system, its characteristics, reform, transition and future.

Dani Rodrik is best known for his work on international economics, trade policy, the institutional foundations of economic development, and the political economy of economic policy reform. Much of his recent research has been concerned with the limits and consequences of international economic integration (globalisation). In this interview, Professor Rodrik gives his views on several important contemporary issues relating to the international economy.

Professor James Tobin, who died on 11 March 2002, was possibly the most eminent of the world’s ‘Keynesian’ economists. Described by Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson as “the archetype of a late-twentieth century American scholar”, Tobin was without doubt one of the most influential economists of his time who inspired a whole generation of students. In this interview, Professor Tobin discusses the progress and development of economics in the second half of the twentieth century.

Ben Bernanke is a leading macroeconomist who has contributed extensively to the literature on business cycles, monetary policy, the role of financial markets in economic fluctuations, inflation targeting and the economics of the Great Depression. He is one of the six economists who form the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, a group that determines the dates of recessions in the US. In this article/interview Professor Bernanke discusses issues relating to the Great Depression of the 1930s and problems relating to inflation in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Professor Bradford DeLong is a leading macroeconomist and economic historian, and is best known for his work on economic growth, business cycles, finance and issues relating to international economic history and globalisation. However, his interests and publications cover a vast range of issues and, above all, his research and publications demonstrate the important insights that contemporary economists can gain from a deep knowledge of history. In this article/interview the author argues that economists, particularly those interested in economic growth, have much to gain by paying more attention to the literature of ‘historical economics’. In the interview that follows, Professor DeLong gives his views on economists and economic history, the industrial revolution, long-run changes in living standards, economic growth, US economic leadership, depressions, inflation and instability, the ‘new economy’, and the twentieth century.

Professor Jagdish Bhagwati is without question one of the world’s leading economists and an authority on the principles and practice of foreign trade. In his extensive research over the past forty years he has made seminal contributions to trade theory and policy, public finance, the new political economy, development theory and policy and India’s economic development. Recently, Professor Bhagwati has been an outspoken critic of US trade policy, capital account liberalisation in developing countries and the global trend towards establishing preferential trade agreements and regional trade blocs. He also continues to champion the case for free trade against the ‘anti-globalists’ who, in order to achieve a variety of social and environmental agendas, advocate various forms of protectionism. Professor Bhagwati gives his views on these, and several other important global issues.

An interview with introduction by Brian Snowdon
Professor Joseph Stiglitz is without question one of the world’s leading economists. In his extensive research he has made seminal contributions to the analysis of the economic consequences of incomplete information and uncertainty. This work has greatly enhanced economists’ understanding of the welfare properties of markets and the sources of market failure. His research has also contributed to the development of better microeconomic foundations for Keynesian macroeconomic models. Most recently Professor Stiglitz has been heavily involved in controversial public policy debates relating to the East Asian crisis, problems of transition from communism to capitalism, the limitations of the ‘Washington consensus’, and globalisation and development. A common theme in all of these debates relates to the role of government and legitimate borders of the state in both developed and developing economies. In this article/interview Professor Stiglitz gives his views on these and several other important global issues.

This wide-ranging discussion takes in the development of macroeconomics and the influence of ideas and events on that development, the nature and causes of the Great Depression, Keynesianism, lessons from the high-inflation period of the 1970s, the role of macroeconomic policy, and the idea of the ‘new economy’.

This wide-ranging discussion takes in globalisation, the causes of the Great Depression (and the likelihood of future recurrences), the Marshall Plan and post-war European recovery, growth in the 1950s and 60s followed by the problems of the 70s, and the strengths and weaknesses of the current international financial system, among other subjects. It provides a stimulating introduction to factors underlying important events in the history of the twentieth century and prospects for the century we have just entered.