A Farewell Letter from America

02 LETTER FROM… Letter from America: ANGUS DEATON A Farewell Letter from America After twenty-five years of writing for theNewsletter , Sir Angus Deaton contributes his final Letter from America, in which he reflects on pastLetters , economics, and his life and times hen I was a Research the admirable Peter Howells, who who had built their own lives in Officer in the Department has been a model of punctuality, Chicago and New York. Wof Applied Economics in encouragement, and appreciation. More ominously, non-citizens Cambridge in the early 1970s, I The Letter helped me learn to have always been at risk in the US, was befriended by Thelma Liesner, write for a non-specialist audi- especially after 9/11, even before then Thelma Seward. When she ence, or at least a non-specialist the horrors of Trump. Under the became Editor of the Newsletter audience of economists, a half-way Patriot Act of 2001 (“Inequality in 1995, and after I had moved house that is much easier than in America”, April 2002), univer- to Princeton, she remembered writing for newspapers. It allowed sities were commanded to hand me and, because she was a fan of me to write about things that over personnel files of non-citizens Alistair Cooke’s Letter from Amer- interested me but didn’t always on demand, and prohibited from ica on BBC Radio 4, she suggested I know much about, and I am grate- divulging that they had done so. In might write a Letter about economic ful for my readers’ forbearance. my own case, I (think I) suffered events in America. She suggested Writing the Letter has rarely felt nothing worse than the boorish the budget, which I never did like work, more often joy. Many attentions of an immigration officer, write about, if only because, unlike have been kind enough to say nice who took a dislike to me, tore up Britain where the contents of the things over the years, and it seems my green card, and turned my life budget become law, the American that many readers know of me into a bureaucratic hell that lasted “budget” is a fantasy wish list that only through the Newsletter. for more than a year. As President the White House sends to Congress I moved to Princeton from Bris- Obama writes in his autobiog- each year. But I did find other tol in 1983. I have never given up raphy, immigrants “are always things to write about—this is my my British citizenship, and did not afraid that the life you’d worked so 50th letter—and found an ideal become an American citizen until hard to build might be upended in outlet in the Newsletter, always 2012, in part because, until Obama an instant.” Even after that near attractively produced, relatively became president, I was less than upending, I was deterred from short, and with news, professional enthusiastic about swearing alle- applying by the impossible require- information, and obituaries. I was giance to the United States and ment that I document every trip always pleased when it landed on its leadership. But as the years abroad for the last 30 years, until my desk and always looked at it, passed, it seemed perverse not to I eventually realized that, for the and others appeared to do so too. acknowledge that my home was earlier trips, their records were no Thelma retired in 1997, and here, not to mention the homes better than mine. And Anne found since then I have worked with of my children and grandchildren my old passports in the basement. LETTER FROM… 03 Once I decided to apply for the Delaware?) As a final hurdle, citizenship, the lights turned on, with no chance to prepare, on the and the agency that I’d seen as a day of the ceremony, I was asked at Writing the Letter has persecutor became my friend. The the door whether, in the two weeks rarely felt like work, bureaucracy could not have been since I had passed the test, I had more often joy more helpful—votes matter—and I worked as a prostitute. My late col- even qualified for a special old-age league, Uwe Reinhardt, claimed to dispensation that allowed me to have answered “I have long looked answer correctly only 12 out of 20 for something in that line of work, possible questions (instead of 60 but so far without success.” At the out of 100), many of which had the ceremony, the immigration official same answer. (What is the capi- who welcomed the new Americans tal of America? Who was the first began by telling us that voting president? Who famously crossed was not an important part of citi- 04 LETTER FROM… zenship, something that I already knew to be false. I resisted the urge to raise my hand. That I long did not become American reflected real ambiva- lence, admiring many aspects of American life while watching others with fascinated horror. Both reactions are well represented in the Letters. I frequently wrote about the immense prosperity of American institutions like Prince- ton, how their riches were put at the service of scholarship, but how wealthy universities, faced with (relative) adversity after the finan- cial crisis, acted to protect their endowments, rather than using them to ride out the crash (“Moon over Texas,” October 2010). I wrote Anne Case and Angus Deaton (image: Rebecca Wilcox, about some of the best of Amer- Purdue University) ican economics, how immensely distinguished scholars—and oth- few journals, several not under hard to tell what subjects they ers—served changing administra- professional control, gives great cover, or whether economics has a tions in Washington (“News for leeway to strong-minded and recognizable core. Perhaps that is parrots,” April 2001). About how sometimes idiosyncratic editors all to the good. the National Bureau of Economic who push their own views of what The American profession can Research, under its longtime pres- is good economics, regardless of look after itself, but publication ident (the late) Marty Feldstein, whether the journals are owned in these same top journals has generated a stream of invaluable by a professional association. It increasingly been used to assess externalities to the profession is hard to start a new journal, let young economists around the (“Economists without borders,” alone a top journal, and the rents world, risking the demise of distinct October 1998). are sometimes subverted to idio- approaches and schools that one The Newsletter, with an audi- syncratic agendas. day will be necessary for economics ence of economists, was a venue In one Letter in 2007, I wrote to evolve or to save it from exces- where I could write about the positively about the extraordinary sive American inbreeding. And American profession, again with breadth of research by job-market even within the US, I wrote of my both admiration and horror. Eco- candidates, in contrast to how horror at being told in a post-job- nomics remains extraordinarily economics had been in 1983 when market seminar office visit that, for open to new ideas and to young I first arrived in Princeton, a time the candidate, whose talk demon- people; in the US, there are still when theorists, empiricists and strated great virtuosity but neither plenty of jobs, and talented people econometricians were all working concern for nor awareness of previ- can still be tenured at top univer- on different parts of what was ous scholarship or approaches, the sities in their 20s. The American recognizably the same (price the- main threat to productivity was the profession’s susceptibility to fads is ory) elephant (“Random walks by amount of top-journal refereeing perhaps a consequence, though at young economists”, April 2007). graduate students were expected 75, I doubt that I am a good judge. Of course, it was a myopic ele- to do. In such an environment, If the profession does well by the phant that knew little about pov- fads spread fast, and knowledge young, it does much less well by erty, inequality, race, or health, cannot cumulate. In contrast, I told women; as the number of female leaving such topics to other social a story from the 1970s about an economists grows so, rightly, do scientists. Of those job market elderly Italian economist who, after the protests about how badly they papers, I wrote that it was often several glasses of brunello, splut- are treated in seminars and in the hard to tell to which field of eco- tered with rage (and wine) about refereeing process. nomics they belonged. Today, the a new journal (I suspect it was I have written (perhaps too divergence has gone further, so the then newly-founded European often) about the publication pro- that, for example, looking at the Economic Review) sending papers cess, which today seems badly contents of recent issues of the to “unknown readers,” a procedure broken. The dominance of the top American Economic Review, it is that was an affront to age and dig- LETTER FROM… 05 nity, and indeed to the orderly pro- tion, and still today an item of unsafe in politics and unsound in duction of knowledge. At the time, I faith on the right, where free-mar- morals.’ He was remembered annu- thought our new world was better, ket fundamentalists believe there ally after 1962 through the Richard that meritocracy (and unknown is no problem that markets cannot Ely lecture at the annual meetings. readers) were good things. Now, I solve. One of my ongoing sorrows In 2020, the Executive of the AEA am not so sure.

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