Economic Possibilities for Our Children by Lawrence H. Summers published by NBER (2013).
This is the 40th anniversary of the summer when I first met Marty Feldstein and went to work for him. I learned from working under Marty’s auspices that empirical economics was a profoundly important thing, that it had the opportunity to illuminate the world in important ways, that it had the opportunity to change people’s perspectives as they thought about economic problems, and that the successful solution or resolution of economic problems didn’t happen with the immediacy with which a doctor treated a patient, but did touch and affect the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. I learned about how to approach economic research from watching Marty. There is a central element that has been a part of his approach to economics, and it has always been a part of mine, both as an economist and a policymaker. It is the approach of many in our profession, but not all. This is the belief that we cannot aspire to know the world with complete precision; that no single parameter will measure with precision how our economy is going to respond to a policy or a shock. Rather, what we can aspire to establish is a combination of logic, modeling, suggestive anecdote and experience, and empirical measurements from multiple different perspectives that lead to an overall view on economic phenomena. That kind of overall view on economic phenomena moves the world forward much more than a precise estimate of a single parameter.
