Welcome to the high-level podcast series run by the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab. This series introduces listeners to the world’s leading figures as they discuss how we can reset in a fairer and a smarter way.
This episode's guest is Daron Acemoglu – the newly minted Nobel prize laureate in Economics and distinguished Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The host is Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences.
The two debunk some long-standing assumptions about technology, productivity, and shared prosperity. Benefits do not automatically tickle down from industry to workers. Distributive gains take inclusive institutions and a calibrated approach that creates greater competition, changes the norms in the industry, and deals specifically with market failures via a host of incentives, subsidies, taxes, and regulations. In the case of the tech industry, that starts with a vision that is pro-worker and pro-democratic – the opposite of what Acemoglu characterizes as the current Silicon Valley equilibrium. Finally, we are asked to think very critically about some of the trending policy solutions. Universal basic income is not the silver bullet some see it to be. Data value and its distribution, on the other hand, deserve great attention. Data is going to be as important as land is to production and should be framed as such.
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Daron Acemoglu is the co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economic sciences. He is a distinguished Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-author of Why Nations Fail, and more recently, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity.
Gabriela Ramos is the Assistant Director General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO. Prior to this, she was the Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20/G7/APEC in the OECD.
The facts, ideas and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO or any of its partners and stakeholders and do not commit nor imply any responsibility thereof. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this piece do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
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Music: Algorithms by Chad Crouch (CC BY-NC 4.0)