What’s it like to have lunch with a Nobel laureate?

16th September, 2019

My recent “lunch with the FT” with Richard Thaler (Nobel laureate, author of Nudge and Misbehaving) was a lot of fun. I don’t do these formal sit-down interviews often but over the years I’ve racked up a few.

At the end of the lunch I mentioned to Thaler the other economists I’d lunched with. “Good company”, he said. I think he’s right. So, just in case you missed the other interviews:

Thomas Schelling (1921 – 2016, Nobel Laureate 2005). I interviewed Schelling in his home shortly after he won the Nobel. I was still barely a journalist at all; he was charming and gracious. I find Schelling and his ideas endlessly fascinating. If you’d like to read a Schelling book, perhaps start with Micromotives and Macrobehaviour.

Gary Becker (1930 – 2014, Nobel Laureate 1992). Becker, charmingly, committed a “rational crime” during the interview.  Becker’s ideas were a big influence on my writing The Logic of Life.

My very first “Lunch with the FT” was with Steven Levitt, just before Freakonomics came out. It feels like a long time ago…

And if you want more, here’s my lunch with blogger, activist and novelist Cory Doctorow; here’s the time Michael Lewis played me at an obscure German boardgame.

 

My book “Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy” (UK) / “Fifty Inventions That Shaped The Modern Economy” (US) is out now in paperback – feel free to order online or through your local bookshop.

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