Our History
Rhema Vaithianathan
Founder of MADE
What inspired me to start MADE
I love economics. When I was 14, I read an economics textbook and I was sold on economics. I loved how it combines systematic and rigorous thinking with issues that I really cared about. Ever since then I have had a love-hate relationship with economics. the potential for economics is immense. It has not reached its potential.
Almost every medical researcher I have met thinks their research will ultimately relieve pain and suffering. Yet economics offers so much more in its ability for relieving human suffering. The 40 year difference in life expectancy between Japan and Burkina Faso is economics, not medical science.
Sadly, so few economists think that their role is to improve the world.
I don't blame economists - nothing in our current pedagogy has taught us how to change the world. So we resort to writing reports that no one reads, running regressions that no one cares about and proving theorems that no one understands. Some of us who are so moved rage against the dying of the light. Yet it all ends in failure.
There has to be a better way.
A new field is needed - one that I call translational economics. This is a field that takes the idea of economics and implements it in a real world setting to realise its full potential. Economists have shown that female quotas in city councils increase spending on public goods that improve health. Why is a quota not implemented in every city where an economist received a copy of Econometrica in which that article was published? Economists have shown the long term effects of unemployment on men's health and mortality make it a major health risk. Yet why do we not offer unemployed men health support services to prevent these health consequences? These are all simple, ideas that could be implemented. In almost every economic paper I have read is a gem of a tool, policy or behaviour change that could make things better. Few of them see the light of day.
Economists like me who try to change the world get frustrated because we think that all we need to do is point out that a policy was a good/bad idea and it would get taken up/dropped.
I have come to realise that failure to implement good economic policy is not written in the stars, but that the remedy lies in our hands. We must think like Steve Jobs, who understood that the trick to selling computers is not to think like computer geeks but to think like designers. Similarly, the way to implement economic ideas is not like economic geeks but like social designers. The changes we advocate must be so natural, so beautiful and simple that they must slot into people's lives the way an iPhone slots into their hand.
The idea behind MADE was to get young people to start learning how to be change agents for economic ideas. To change the world one needs to understand the steps of change making - how to democratise ideas, how to lead, how to be humble, how to build a team.
As I often tell my students, if you want to do something about New Zealand's indifference to poverty or the acceptance of corruption in Africa you need to have learned how to change small things. Learn how to walk before you can run. MADE offers students a chance to crawl.
My dream for students is that they make a greater impact on the world than I. Not in a famous, Nobel prize-winning, high-flying, jet-setting kind of way. But in a more humble, powerful and effective way.
Founder of MADE
What inspired me to start MADE
I love economics. When I was 14, I read an economics textbook and I was sold on economics. I loved how it combines systematic and rigorous thinking with issues that I really cared about. Ever since then I have had a love-hate relationship with economics. the potential for economics is immense. It has not reached its potential.
Almost every medical researcher I have met thinks their research will ultimately relieve pain and suffering. Yet economics offers so much more in its ability for relieving human suffering. The 40 year difference in life expectancy between Japan and Burkina Faso is economics, not medical science.
Sadly, so few economists think that their role is to improve the world.
I don't blame economists - nothing in our current pedagogy has taught us how to change the world. So we resort to writing reports that no one reads, running regressions that no one cares about and proving theorems that no one understands. Some of us who are so moved rage against the dying of the light. Yet it all ends in failure.
There has to be a better way.
A new field is needed - one that I call translational economics. This is a field that takes the idea of economics and implements it in a real world setting to realise its full potential. Economists have shown that female quotas in city councils increase spending on public goods that improve health. Why is a quota not implemented in every city where an economist received a copy of Econometrica in which that article was published? Economists have shown the long term effects of unemployment on men's health and mortality make it a major health risk. Yet why do we not offer unemployed men health support services to prevent these health consequences? These are all simple, ideas that could be implemented. In almost every economic paper I have read is a gem of a tool, policy or behaviour change that could make things better. Few of them see the light of day.
Economists like me who try to change the world get frustrated because we think that all we need to do is point out that a policy was a good/bad idea and it would get taken up/dropped.
I have come to realise that failure to implement good economic policy is not written in the stars, but that the remedy lies in our hands. We must think like Steve Jobs, who understood that the trick to selling computers is not to think like computer geeks but to think like designers. Similarly, the way to implement economic ideas is not like economic geeks but like social designers. The changes we advocate must be so natural, so beautiful and simple that they must slot into people's lives the way an iPhone slots into their hand.
The idea behind MADE was to get young people to start learning how to be change agents for economic ideas. To change the world one needs to understand the steps of change making - how to democratise ideas, how to lead, how to be humble, how to build a team.
As I often tell my students, if you want to do something about New Zealand's indifference to poverty or the acceptance of corruption in Africa you need to have learned how to change small things. Learn how to walk before you can run. MADE offers students a chance to crawl.
My dream for students is that they make a greater impact on the world than I. Not in a famous, Nobel prize-winning, high-flying, jet-setting kind of way. But in a more humble, powerful and effective way.