Alan B. Krueger, dead at 58
March 21, 2019 7:25 AM Subscribe
Alan Krueger, who ignited the debate on minimum wage and pushed economics to be a more empirical field of study, has died. He blew up the assumption of most economists at the time that labour markets were more or less competitive. He thrilled young economists with the idea that natural experiments and instrumental variables could show causation, not just correlation. He advised two American presidents, despite vowing to never return to government after the first one. Among his many publications were important studies of terrorism, the opioid epidemic, and racial inequality. His death, by suicide, has prompted discussion of mental health in academia.
Thanks for posting this. Alan was light years away from me in terms of success as an academic economist, but it's still hitting close to home.
.
posted by dismas at 7:56 AM on March 21, 2019
.
posted by dismas at 7:56 AM on March 21, 2019
Reminding us all that it is possible to:
1) Be a pioneering, brilliant scholar AND incredibly kind,caring
2) Be widely respected & adored as a kind & brilliant scholar AND still experience depression.
I mean, if we don't understand that this isn't an exception but seems to be becoming a rule (i.e. kind, brilliant people developing mental illnesses and then killing themselves) then IDK.
.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:02 AM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
1) Be a pioneering, brilliant scholar AND incredibly kind,caring
2) Be widely respected & adored as a kind & brilliant scholar AND still experience depression.
I mean, if we don't understand that this isn't an exception but seems to be becoming a rule (i.e. kind, brilliant people developing mental illnesses and then killing themselves) then IDK.
.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:02 AM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
kind, brilliant people developing mental illnesses and then killing themselves
I want to take a second to unpack this. Because I think this framing is common and problematic.
Depressed people can often be kind - either because they are in touch with how intolerable life can be, or they feel so worthless they feel indebted to everyone else around them.
Brilliance can mask mental illness. Particularly if you're from a comfortable family that can buy the material support so you don't have to manage your personal life - you can be the eccentric genius. And if you look a certain way, the world rewards you.
Both of these create a gilded cage. You don't feel you have the ability to ask for emotional support, and you aren't acting out in socially inappropriate ways to trigger someone reaching out to help you get that emotional support. Add a pervasive social climate that still stigmatizes the trustworthiness or leadership skills of someone with mental health issues, you will avoid being seen as struggling.
Racism, Classism, Sexism all mean that the more privileged you are, the more isolated you will be when you struggle with a mental health issue. It is more likely to escalate to lethal consequences, even while you have more resources at your disposal. The fact that you have everything and are still struggling easily becomes a compelling Exhibit A in why things can never get better.
Intellectually understanding this only gets you so far, when you're swimming in it. But I think reminding us of this is always good to ground us in why our toxic systems hurt us all - and not treat notable suicides as somehow separate. That narrative feeds the "Am I important enough to risk social/career/financial risk to seek help" to a brain that is never going to feel important enough.
I always respected him as a student. I am not an economist, but I look back at my economics classes with fondness. He was one of many I immediately identified with, as my dad expected my degree to teach me the Wisdom of a Laissez Faire market. He will be missed.
.
posted by politikitty at 12:03 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
I want to take a second to unpack this. Because I think this framing is common and problematic.
Depressed people can often be kind - either because they are in touch with how intolerable life can be, or they feel so worthless they feel indebted to everyone else around them.
Brilliance can mask mental illness. Particularly if you're from a comfortable family that can buy the material support so you don't have to manage your personal life - you can be the eccentric genius. And if you look a certain way, the world rewards you.
Both of these create a gilded cage. You don't feel you have the ability to ask for emotional support, and you aren't acting out in socially inappropriate ways to trigger someone reaching out to help you get that emotional support. Add a pervasive social climate that still stigmatizes the trustworthiness or leadership skills of someone with mental health issues, you will avoid being seen as struggling.
Racism, Classism, Sexism all mean that the more privileged you are, the more isolated you will be when you struggle with a mental health issue. It is more likely to escalate to lethal consequences, even while you have more resources at your disposal. The fact that you have everything and are still struggling easily becomes a compelling Exhibit A in why things can never get better.
Intellectually understanding this only gets you so far, when you're swimming in it. But I think reminding us of this is always good to ground us in why our toxic systems hurt us all - and not treat notable suicides as somehow separate. That narrative feeds the "Am I important enough to risk social/career/financial risk to seek help" to a brain that is never going to feel important enough.
I always respected him as a student. I am not an economist, but I look back at my economics classes with fondness. He was one of many I immediately identified with, as my dad expected my degree to teach me the Wisdom of a Laissez Faire market. He will be missed.
.
posted by politikitty at 12:03 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
The fact that you have everything and are still struggling easily becomes a compelling Exhibit A in why things can never get better.
Holy fucking shit. I've never heard it put this way before. This exactly.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Holy fucking shit. I've never heard it put this way before. This exactly.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
The opioid paper in specific is helping me prep for a rollicking conversation this evening with a old friend who's heavily involved in treating addiction at UMass. In the age of so much "data science" buzz, it feels like our reliance on this kind of research informing public debate is at its lowest ebb in my lifetime. I was unaware of Krueger previously and feel less qualified to comment on his depression, but I'm grateful for his life and work, to have discovered such rich research on topics that are having such an outsized impact on our current culture and politics.
.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 12:36 PM on March 21, 2019
.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 12:36 PM on March 21, 2019
Eh I was mostly making a case that the struggle to live as a kind, ethical person surrounded by a world where it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the ultimate status quo could ultimately lead to severe mental illness and suicide. Not that depression and kindness are mutually exclusive or that it is the only factor that contributes to it. Just in that you see a lot of successful people who have championed kindness and the common good, who are also wildly successful, suddenly just...tap out lately.
posted by Young Kullervo at 2:28 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Young Kullervo at 2:28 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
.
posted by doctornemo at 4:13 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by doctornemo at 4:13 PM on March 21, 2019
.
posted by praemunire at 8:43 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by praemunire at 8:43 PM on March 21, 2019
« Older “Ever look at a flower, and hate it?” | The colors of the past Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:45 AM on March 21, 2019