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As 2018 draws to an end, so does the 10-year anniversary of the worst part of the financial crisis, an ordeal that plunged the economics field into its own crisis. As economists puzzled over the swift and brutal nature of the recession, many wondered why they hadn’t seen a crash coming, and why the recovery proved so mediocre.
After years of soul-searching, the foundations of economics are now changing. Students educated in the shadow of the crisis are demanding new lessons, and a more diverse education that tackles the issues most people are grappling with today, such as economic anxiety, inequality, sustainability, and climate change. Already, teachers have created the CORE project, an international effort to give students a new style of economics education.
The field is also undergoing a public reckoning with its culture. As stories of gender discrimination and sexual harassment are shared more widely, there is a renewed fight for change. The opportunity is not only for more female economists, but also for more economists from ethnic minorities. Last year, the Federal Reserve made Raphael Bostic the first African-American president of a regional Fed in the central bank’s 100-year history, but he is one person in a shrinking pipeline of black economists in the US. The dismal cost of this lack of diversity is a field vulnerable to groupthink and lost opportunities in public policy and economic research.
Opening up to new ideas is also at the heart of efforts to revive macroeconomics. The field went through two major changes, after the Great Depression and after stagflation in the 1970s. Its third revolution has been overdue since the crisis. There are questions about how to fix the main models and efforts to make the profession more interdisciplinary, such as by incorporating agent-based models or learning more lessons from physics or psychology.
Economics is at the heart of public policy and all of these movements could fundamentally change how we see and understand the world, and determine what it is we want from our economy. In the process, economics could finally shake off its reputation as the dismal science. —Eshe Nelson
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
People keep falling off cruise ships. One or two people are statistically likely to fall overboard from a cruise ship each month; somewhere between 17% and 25% are rescued. As Rosie Spinks reports, operators have little incentive (and no requirement) to use technology designed to automatically detect falls; meanwhile, above all else they emphasize fun—especially with regards to booze, a key moneymaker.
Polyamory is still a political choice. It’s come a long way from the radical hippie roots of the 1960s, but the ethical non-monogamy movement remains a powerful challenge to the social norms and capitalist structures of contemporary America. Olivia Goldhill spoke with the hip urban professionals who are quietly modeling an alternative to heterosexual coupledom, discovering its practical benefits while also finding racism and sexism within the community.
The country where counting statistics is a dangerous occupation. On many maps, the Central African Republic is a blank space in the middle of a continent that is already statistically underrepresented. The data taken for granted in other nations—population numbers, for instance—are unavailable or nonexistent. Lynsey Chutel traveled to the capital Bangui, where a civil war, successive coups, and near-constant violent instability have made data collection a deadly occupation.
What exactly does Salesforce do? In an attempt to understand, Nikhil Sonnad ventured to the tech juggernaut’s annual Dreamforce event, which takes over part of San Francisco and lures some 170,000 visitors. Enduring a Metallica performance and four days of jostling crowds, he found others who are equally confused, and tried to reconcile founder Marc Benioff’s catchphrase “inclusive capitalism” with the event’s lack of diversity and scenes of homelessness on the sidelines.
A vital warning about nostalgia for the Bush era. Vice, the new Dick Cheney biopic, has shortcomings but is one of the year’s most politically and culturally necessary films, writes Adam Epstein. The former vice president helped deceive the US into a devastating war. Watching that play out on screen is different from hearing the news story or reading a Twitter thread. It’s a far more visceral experience—and one meant for posterity.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
Kelly Slater’s shock wave. Wave pools have never interested serious surfers. But now one near Fresno, California, surrounded by farmlands, can churn out virtually flawless waves. For the New Yorker, William Finnegan profiles the man behind the machine (surf legend Kelly Slater), shows how “Kelly’s wave” could grow the sport’s appeal inland, and explains why many surfers feel conflicted about it.
The iPhone has fallen flat in India. In 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook traveled to India, posing with Bollywood stars and meeting prime minister Narendra Modi in what he assumed would be the company’s next big growth market. But as Newley Purnell and Tripp Mickle report in the Wall Street Journal (paywall), realities on the ground and more flexible competitors have thwarted Apple’s efforts—raising doubts about its prospects in emerging markets.
The new authoritarians are waging war on women. When Americans look abroad, they see Donald Trumps everywhere: Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and so on. But stoking fear of immigrants or downward mobility isn’t what links these leaders; rather, it’s their determination to subordinate women. For the Atlantic, Peter Beinart explains why such leaders are gaining ground in some countries and not in others.
China’s “Belt and Road” takes a military turn. For years Beijing has insisted that the initiative—involving infrastructure development across some 70 nations—is an economic project. Now, in Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying the initiative to its military ambitions, as Maria Abi-Habib writes in the New York Times (paywall). For China, Pakistan could be a showcase for other countries wanting to shift their militaries away from US equipment and satellites.
Amtrak is backtracking on climate change. Scientists warn much of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, which carries 12 million people between Boston and Washington each year, will become chronically inundated. But as Christopher Flavelle and Jeremy C.F. Lin report in Bloomberg Businessweek (paywall), the rail operator de-emphasized climate risks in its recent public documents and declined to share a worrisome study—about a 10-mile stretch that runs perilously close to water—with local leaders.
Please send any news, comments, life vests, and Amtrak refunds to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Steve Mollman and Kira Bindrim.