Professor Jeffrey Sachs on Putting the US Economy Back on Track

Topic: The Price of Civilization and How to Put the US Economy Back on Track

Institution: The Earth Institute at Columbia University, The United Nations

Bio: Jeffrey D. Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was also director of the Center for International Development (CID) and the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), as well as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University. During 2000–2001, Professor Sachs was chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health of the World Health Organization, and from September 1999 through March 2000, he served as a member of the International Financial Institutions Advisory Commission established by the U.S. Congress. In January 2002, he was appointed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special adviser on the Millennium Development Goals. Sachs serves as an economic adviser to several governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa and Asia. He was cited in the New York Times Magazine as “probably the most important economist in the world” and in a Time Magazine issue on 50 promising young leaders as “the world’s best-known economist.”

Episode Summary: Jeffrey Sachs discusses his new book, The Price of Civilization, in which he describes America’s current economic and political woes and their origins, including the failure to face the forces of “New Globalization” and political capture by the economic elite. Sachs and Jisung talk about possible ways to break the political gridlock, as well as the structural changes that need to be made.

 

Links to books and authors mentioned:

Jeffrey Sachs: The Price of Civilization

Milton Friedman: Capitalism and Freedom

Friedrich Hayek: The Road to Serfdom

Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations

 

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