If you have ever taken game theory or have ever been interested in the nexus between politics and economics, the name Gabriele Gratton would’ve most likely come up. Associate Professor Gabriele Gratton is the Postgraduate Research Coordinator for the UNSW School of Economics, and also the man responsible for making a number of complex concepts easy to understand, and quite possibly fun! He currently teaches Game Theory with Carlos Pimienta and Politics and Economics, while encouraging extracurricular student engagement by founding and participating in the student economic discussion group run by Ecosoc.
Ecosoc’s first interview is with Gabriele and will consist of 2 parts which will be release this week and next week. The interview covers a variety of topics, including the questions you requested! The first part of the interview will cover how Gabriele got interested in economics, his undergraduate studies, and the much sought-after book recommendations. The second part of the interview will discuss his involvement within Academia, and some contentious questions which are relevant to our everyday lives.
To start the interview, can you tell me how you originally got involved with Economics?
Well, it was no grand plan and actually a bit of a surprise. I believe I wanted to study Political Science, as I was mostly interested in politics and political systems. But people told me there was no good Political Science department in Rome at the time and that Economics was a better choice.
Economics looked so important and so mysterious to me. But also a bit boring. It was something I wanted to “learn”, but not something I could read before going to bed, so to speak. So I thought: well, I can enrol in an Econ major to force me to learn Economics and study constitutional law by myself. And so I did: I bought a thousand-page book on comparative constitutional law and read it through the summer and enrolled in the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”.
With time I realized I made the right choice. In my eighteen-year-old mind Political Science was like Game Theory applied to politics. But the truth is that I would have probably never studied something like that in a Political Science department in Italy at the time. Instead I discovered Economics offered so much more than interest rates and inflation. It was a way to think of social interactions that opened insights into how and why societies behave the way they do. Political Economy, in particular, was exactly that kind of formal and quantitative reasoning about politics and political systems that I dreamed of (and could not find in the thousand-page book I read that summer). And so, as things go, I ended up studying exactly what I wanted to study by choosing the major I thought was boring.
You mentioned that you did your undergraduate studies at the University of Rome, what were your undergraduate studies like? What did you find the most interesting and challenging about your undergraduate studies?
Well, it was not all roses. But it was a good experience all in all. My undergraduate studies were very similar to an Economics and Commerce major in Australia, I guess: some accounting, some management, some finance, some law, and of course some economics. Some of the material was very interesting, especially economics and public law, but some was a bit sterile—or at least it was taught in a very sterile way. UNSW students would be amazed by the lack of students services we had, or by how… well… boring some of my professors were. I remember a course in which the lecturer would just sit at his desk, open the textbook, and go through it with a monotone voice, with basically no interaction at all with the students. The lectures were at 9 am and I remember falling asleep all the time. Fortunately the chairs in the lecture hall were sufficiently uncomfortable, and so my dreams were not too long.
But the university years were also a great chance to explore ideas and opportunities. Some courses, like microeconomics and macroeconomics, or economic history, taught me a lot. And I had the chance of contributing to a European students’ convention on the future of the European Union (those were the times of the so-called Constitutional Treaty and there was a lot of excitement). I also did some active politics, with a group of friends aiming to put pressure for the creation of what became the Democratic Party, joining the existing leftist catholic and social-democratic parties. It was an exciting period. For a year, I also went once a week to an actual Politics course—by which I mean “practice” rather than theory: we met once a week with a few Senators in Rome and they shared with us their experiences as politicians. These activities were of course not organized by my university, but I see them as part of the normal development of a university student. UNSW students have many more opportunities within the university itself, like the events organized by the EcoSoc, but they should remember to also look outside the university and in the broader community in Sydney.
But I felt pretty soon that my studies in Rome were not as interesting as I would have wanted. I had a scholarship for a semester abroad and I went to Lausanne for a few months. It was a nice experience, but bureaucratic rules meant I could only take one exam there. Fortunately I had a chance to go for a year Master at the London School of Economics and Political Science and then move to Boston University for my PhD. From an academic prospective that was a much more interesting time. But I still believe that those 3 years at the university in Rome were important for me.
Who do you look up to or consider your mentor?
I always think I have been a bit unlucky in not having a main mentor during my studies. But definitely there have been people that gave me a lot of guidance in these years. Massimo Morelli is definitely one, Steve Callander, then Laurent Bouton, my main PhD advisor. Some of my senior colleagues helped a lot: Richard, Pauline, Carlos, for example. I obviously look up to all of them, but there are many, really, from great thinkers of the past to people my age and younger.
A question that people really want to know; what was the last book you read and what Economic related books would you recommend to students?
I wish I read more books, especially the classics. I always plan to, but then other things take precedence and I end up reading mostly stuff that is more closely related to what I am working on at the time. For example, I recently read Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime: The Changing Views of Russians, by Rose, Mishler, and Munro; and Presidential Mandates by Patricia Heidotting Conley.
Other than that, some books I have read recently are Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order and Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday, but also more Econ books: Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail or The Size of Nations, by Alesina and Spolaore. Ultimately these are all books about understanding how societies develop and how institutions arise. I am not a very patient reader, so the simple fact that I read a book from cover to cover is a testament of their quality.
Acemoglu and Robinson’s book is probably a great choice for someone who is approaching economics from a history-oriented approach: big questions, big ideas. But other may find books like Freakonomics more appealing: small but lively and intriguing questions, such as “why do drug dealers still live with their moms?” or “what do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?”. There’s a lot to Economics that undergrad students may not immediately see and books like these may give a broader picture of what it’s all about. For those who would like a simple but subtle exposition of how economists think of strategy, The Art of Strategy, by Dixit and Nalebuff is probably the book to go—I stole more than one example from them for my courses.
Do you have any hobbies, and if so what are they?
When we get some time, especially when we are in Europe, my wife and I like to head for the mountains—hiking and climbing. We have also been doing some indoor climbing here in Sydney. I play guitar and that was probably my main hobby when I was younger, but I have been finding very little time for it in the past few years.
I like sport in TV, especially soccer and motorsport. I also enjoy realistic driving simulations when I can. We used to have a School of Economics soccer team in the university tournament, but I guess we are getting a bit old for that
Other than that, I guess my favourite hobby is still to spend some good time thinking and arguing ideas with smart people. That’s the real privilege of being in academia: part of your job is actually your hobby.
Also, how do you manage to stay up to date with the news?
Well,… I do not eat breakfast, but I always drink two coffees before doing anything serious in the morning. So this leaves me some time to read the news in the morning. As an Australian resident from Italy who lived 5 years in the US, my sources are quite all over the place, of course.
For good analyses, I find that following smart people on twitter is very useful to spot interesting articles, as well as recent research. I also subscribe to The Economist—their app is quite useful to get a sense of what’s going on in the world and it’s a good read for Saturday morning and when I take long flights to North America or Europe.
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