Earlier this spring, I gave a talk at the All-Russian Economic | Professor M

Earlier this spring, I gave a talk at the All-Russian Economics Olympiad for high school students. If you speak Russian, you might be curious to tune in.

It’s a long lecture. If you have only 15 minutes, tune in to the last 15 minutes (from 1:06:50 onward). If you have 5 minutes, go to 40:15 (Experiments as a source of knowledge).

Timecodes:
0:20 Beginning
0:30 Building blocks in sciences
1:05 Principal-agent model as a building block in economics
5:06 The reason why economics matters
10:50 Personal background
13:36 How has the Economics Olympiad changed my life?
16:25 I know that I know nothing
18:58 The sources of knowledge
22:10 Newton’s law of gravity
26:18 Distinction between physics and economics
28:20 Expected utility theory in economics and how it breaks down
34:38 Prospect theory and behavioral economics
40:15 Experiments as a source of knowledge
46:31 Experiments in economics
47:28 Natural experiments in economics
54:59 Estimating the effect of winning in the Economics Olympiad
1:06:50 How can economics inform decision-making in life?
1:08:29 Where does economics fail?