Podcasts Education Self-Improvement Conversations with Tyler Melissa Dell on the Significance of Persistence

Melissa Dell on the Significance of Persistence

Published: July 15, 2020, noon

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Explaining 10 percent of something is not usually cause for celebration. And yet when it comes to economic development, where so many factors are in play\\u2014institutions, culture, geography, to name a few\\u2014it\\u2019s impressive indeed. And that\\u2019s just what Melissa Dell has accomplished in her pathbreaking work. From the impact of the Mexican Revolution to the different development paths of northern and southern Vietnam, her work exploits what are often accidents of history\\u2014whether a Peruvian village was just inside or outside a mine\\u2019s catchment area, for example\\u2014to explain persistent differences in outcomes. Her work has earned numerous plaudits, including the John Bates Clark Medal earlier this year.

On the 100th episode of Conversations with Tyler, Melissa joined Tyler to discuss what\\u2019s behind Vietnam\\u2019s economic performance, why persistence isn\\u2019t predictive, the benefits and drawbacks of state capacity, the differing economic legacies of forced labor in Indonesia and Peru, whether people like her should still be called a Rhodes scholar, if SATs are useful, the joys of long-distance running, why higher temps are bad for economic growth, how her grandmother cultivated her curiosity, her next project looking to unlock huge historical datasets, and more.

Read a\\xa0full transcript\\xa0enhanced with helpful links, or watch the\\xa0full video.

Recorded July 30th, 2020

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