Faculty Spotlight - David Benjamin

Why did you choose economics?  Why did you choose your subfield?

DB: The hooks for me were about public policy, particularly around poverty.  I was also turned off by those who frame public policy debates as clashes over symbolism which I felt described other public policy fields   I was also attracted to public policy projects that pursued repeated experimentation rather than the implementation of an already-known fixed agenda.  Also, I grew up in close contact with the world of transportation planning, where no one had successfully solved congestion issues, so I started out with the belief that the main limit on government action is uncertainty about the effects of different policies.

What research are you working on right now?

DB: I work on sovereign default and how to create realistic solutions to sovereign debt issues.

What was your favorite paper to write, and why?

DB: The paper that has had the most influence was the sovereign default because I believe we taught a lot of people new info about these issues and it was the one where the model felt the truest to actual experience.

What was your favorite paper to write, and why?

DB: The paper that has had the most influence was the sovereign default because I believe we taught a lot of people new info about these issues and it was the one where the model felt the truest to actual experience.

What is your favorite class to teach, and why?

DB: The Economics of Regulation, because the theories it presents on cartels are among the most elegant and deeply layered in the field.   Also, the applications often place us in the position of a court which makes decisions with only small bits of concrete knowledge, a skepticism of economic models and a need to convince its participants of its ultimate fairness.  We ignore these constraints on policy in other classes.   Also, this class brings out the competing ideological views that exist elsewhere in economics in frameworks that are very unusual.

What was your favorite class as an undergrad?

DB: At the time it was an American studies class that focused heavily on Michel Foucault and surveillance as a method of control.  I am less enamored of that way of thinking now. What has been the longest lasting was a political philosophy class that introduced both Nozick and Rawls as competing views of the world.     Besides that, I connected to George Elliot through a college class and I can’t imagine not having done that.

What is your top piece of advice for your students?

DB: There are social science results (Arum et al (Aspiring Adults Adrift)) which explain which college experiences are important (difficult of major and amount of time spent of HW matters, grades do not).   Also, there is social science about how to do well in class that few students follow, i.e. Brown et. Al, Make it Stick.  This is mostly found in empirical psychology or neuroscience.   These resources are important and worth seeking out.   You are unlikely to come across this material unless you look for them and they really do help.  But mostly my advice is to embrace, and not fear, being wrong about economic ideas.   What makes economics a unique social science is not that it is always correct, but that it deals honestly with partial answers and accepts that its practitioners are often incorrect.  You should study it in the same way.   Having a partial understanding of an economic argument is a key milestone to having a deep understanding of it.  So, you should embrace being wrong when you are learning about economics.    Discovering an understanding you had confidence in is flawed often means you are very close to the correct answer and on the right track to a deep long-lasting understanding.