Podcast Summary: People I (Mostly) Admire

Episode: Ninety-Eight Years of Economic Wisdom (Replay)

Date: December 13, 2025
Host: Steve Levitt
Guest: Robert Solow (Nobel Laureate Economist; recording from 2023; Solow passed away at 99, shortly after this conversation)

Episode Overview

In this deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation, Steve Levitt probes the wisdom and life story of Robert Solow, one of the towering figures in economics. From Solow’s Depression-era childhood and his unintentional journey into economics, to his trenchant critiques of modern macroeconomics and candid ruminations on aging and mortality, this episode offers a rare, intimate look at a legendary mind reflecting on nearly a century’s worth of economic thought and human experience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Solow as Teacher and Thinker

• Simple Explanations of Complexity:
  Levitt recalls the impact Solow’s teaching had on demystifying complex economic theories by breaking them down simply.
  • "You would strip away all the math and you would show what was going on with a few words, with a few equations." — Steve Levitt [03:12]
• Solow’s Method:
  Solow explains he himself only understands things by seeking the underlying simplicity.
  • "That's the only way I can understand anything, is to break it down into simplicities." — Robert Solow [03:44]

2. Rethinking Economic Growth

• Skeptical View of Growth as an End:
  Solow distinguishes studying growth from celebrating it, arguing modern economies can exist without expansion.
  • "I could have spent my life studying the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. That doesn't mean I'm in favor of them." — Robert Solow [05:14]
• Stationary Economy Possible:
  Uses a thought experiment to describe a “stationary” economy (no growth, no shrinkage), refuting the dogma that “grow or die” is a law of capitalism.
  • "There is no law of economics ... that says that such an economy could not exist and be healthy." — Robert Solow [07:05]
• Core Social Concern:
  The challenge is not economic viability but the risk that a no-growth society turns into a “hereditary oligarchy” with declining social mobility.
  • "That kind of society would tend to be a hereditary oligarchy. And that's not good." — Robert Solow [08:55]

3. Accounting, Measurement, and Environmental Costs

• Measurement Blind Spots:
  Acknowledges the flaws in economic accounting that overlook environmental depletion and unpaid “damages to the planet.”
  • "Our output ... we don't charge ourselves for the depletion of natural resources." — Robert Solow [13:46]
• Preference for Bad Measurements (for Research):
  Jokes about maintaining old economic “bad numbers” for research continuity—even as better systems exist.
  • "I would be for keeping the bad numbers. Have one office ... keeping the bad numbers at another department keeping the good numbers." — Robert Solow [15:54]
• GDP ≠ Well-Being:
  Emphasizes that GDP is often misunderstood as a measure of welfare.
  • "GDP is intended as a measure of economic activity, not whether it is directed to the right goals, the right benchmarks." — Robert Solow [17:25]

4. Inequality: Origins and Consequences

• Rise in Inequality Since 1980s:
  Recalls post-WWII decrease in inequality, which reversed in recent decades.
  • "The coexistence of extreme wealth and extreme poverty strikes me as immoral, to use an old fashioned word. It's immoral because it's unnecessary and it has bad consequences beyond itself." — Robert Solow [18:48]
• Political and Economic Feedback Loop:
  Argues that economic inequality fuels political inequality, which then reinforces economic divides.
  • "Political forces then push the economy in the direction of greater inequality. And that in turn reinforces the political inequality." — Robert Solow [21:30]
• Solutions are Political, Not Technical:
  Points out that reducing inequality is politically difficult, not economically so.

5. Lessons from the Great Depression

• Economic Security:
  Personal memories of pervasive insecurity shape his lifelong skepticism of “efficient” labor market dogma in favor of security for workers.
  • "I've always balked at notions about the efficiency of the labor market which amount to imposing uncertainty on workers." — Robert Solow [26:17]
• Prevailing Fatalism:
  In the Depression, belief in system failure was genuine, influencing many to radical politics.
  • "My whole contemporary generation ... ended up as communists or fellow travelers or Trotskyites. And that was because they ... believed that the system had broken down." — Robert Solow [29:22]

6. The Accidental Economist

• No Early Calling:
  Solow had no childhood dream of economics; his path was almost random, guided by his wife’s recommendation.
  • "I just been screwing around, taking courses mostly in the social sciences. And I said to her, you majored in economics, didn't you?" — Robert Solow [36:06]
  • "What the hell, let's give it a try." — Robert Solow [37:30]
• Army Years:
  Learned Morse code and German almost by accident, leading him to intelligence work in WWII.
• Experience-Driven Priorities:
  Agrees with Levitt’s theory that economic crises draw top minds to economics, citing his own Depression-era peers.

7. Critique of Modern Macroeconomics

• DSGE Model Criticism:
  Finds that macroeconomics has become insular and disconnected from actual economies through the dominance of “dynamic stochastic general equilibrium” models.
  • "It would start by saying, well, we are going to write down a quote, micro founded model, end quote. It meant an economy with one person in it ..." — Robert Solow [45:36]
• Economics as Mechanism, Not Math Puzzle:
  Regrets the trend toward mathematical abstraction at the expense of real-world relevance.
  • "The object was to find a couple of these mechanisms and try to understand how they operated in the imperfect world we live in." — Robert Solow [49:08]

8. On Aging and Death

• Aging as Luck:
  Downplays habits and credits luck for his continued mental clarity.
  • "It's just the luck of the draw. I don't think there's any good habit I had." — Robert Solow [50:57]
• Loneliness of Aging:
  Candid about loss and loneliness in old age.
  • "It's a lonely thing to get very old. But I'm not giving it up." — Robert Solow [52:21]
• Attitude Toward Death:
  With characteristic humor:
  • "My attitude toward death is that an awful lot of people have managed to do it. So I guess I will too ... I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." — Robert Solow [53:00]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Teaching:
  "If I couldn't do that, I wouldn't try teaching it." — Robert Solow [04:31]

• On No-Growth Societies:
  "If you didn't let the children of Yale graduates go to Yale, that would help." — Robert Solow [10:12]

• On Economists and Social Mobility:
  "That's the hard part ... how you provide for social mobility." — Robert Solow [09:36]

• On Inequality's Moral Dimension:
  "It's a blot on our society. And I have not seen any evidence or any reason to believe that we profit at all from that." — Robert Solow [19:43]

• On Economics as a Mindset:
  "People keep talking about, you should learn to think like an economist. I'm not so sure that's a good idea." — Robert Solow [34:41]

• On Macroeconomic Models:
  "They have built what they think of as a brand of economics that simply has nothing to say." — Robert Solow [47:34]

Important Timestamps

• Solow on Simplicity in Economics: [03:44]
• Discussion of Zero-Growth Economy: [05:11]-[10:53]
• Accounting Flaws & Environmental Costs: [13:05]-[17:40]
• Roots and Consequences of Inequality: [17:40]-[22:10]
• Depression-Era Lessons & Personal History: [25:43]-[33:43]
• Solow's Path to Economics & Army Stories: [35:13]-[41:55]
• Critique of Modern Macroeconomics: [45:06]-[50:15]
• Reflections on Aging and Death: [50:15]-[53:21]

Overall Tone

The episode balances intellectual rigor with warmth and humor, marked by Solow’s unpretentious wisdom, willingness to critique his own field, and deeply human perspective on life, death, and what matters most.

Takeaways for Listeners

• Economic growth is not an inevitability or moral imperative.
• Social mobility and political equality are essential challenges, beyond economic statistics.
• Great economists are shaped as much by experience and accident as by textbook theory.
• Old age brings both loss and perspective; candid reflection can be as valuable as technical brilliance.
• Economics must be rooted in reality, not mere abstraction.

A fitting tribute to Robert Solow’s legacy and a foundational conversation for anyone interested in the evolution of economic thought and the lived reality behind it.