Question and Answer with Elizabeth Bogan

'Prince': What attracted you to economics?

Bogan: I think it helps to explain much of the world, so when I went to get a Ph.D., there was no question in my mind that it was going to be economics. That was the field that I wanted to inspire other people to enjoy.

P: After all of your years of teaching economics, is it still interesting to teach? What keeps it interesting?

B: Obviously, the students play a big part in that. I particularly like the discussion aspects of the precepts because students at Princeton do usually do the readings, and they do have opinions, and they are able to integrate across disciplines.

P: Can you describe your role as a faculty fellow for the women's lightweight crew team and how you became involved with that?

B: I was watching a race, and a group of the students, after they raced, came up and said, "We'd like you to be our faculty fellow." . . . I was watching the race in part because my son rowed here at Princeton, and so I've been very interested in crew . . . I don't really do a lot. It's more like an insurance policy. I'm there for the students if they'd like to discuss the interface between their athletic commitment and their academic commitment.

P: What is your opinion of the athletic moratorium?

B: I opposed it. I thought it was an ill-conceived response to a possible problem. If we have a problem with admitting some athletes that are not as academically ready as our regular admits, then I believe the problem, if it exists, should be addressed directly.

That is, it should be an agreement among the admission directors at the Ivy League or related schools to make sure that they are genuinely bringing in students whose academic characteristics fit the school. I want to make sure that Princeton is there as a place for true scholar athletes.

I think it is very unfortunate if a person has to decide: Do I want to go to an athletic university or do I want to go to an intellectual university. They should be able to do both because there are some very smart scholar athletes, and Princeton attracts a lot of them.

P: What is your opinion on the expansion of the University and the increase in student body?

B: I do understand the benefits that people are talking about from expanding the University. More students get the wonderful opportunity to come to Princeton, and maybe it makes us able to be a little bit bigger and hire some new faculty and have new disciplines like genomics, but I'm concerned that we didn't pay enough attention to some of the costs.

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We said that making ourselves bigger would make for more diversity. I don't believe that. Diversity comes from within the numbers, making sure that Princeton draws on a lot of different people from different backgrounds. But bigger numbers, I'm afraid, will make people have more friends just like themselves, and you'll see things like in many of the bigger universities where each group is large enough to be pretty independent. You don't really get a mixing of people and what I think is a wonderful scene of diversity. So, that has me concerned.

I also am very concerned about open space. I am sorry to see the tennis courts taken out and more dorms put in because one of the things I think is beautiful about Princeton is open space.

I also think there's going to be a strain on the economics department and other departments that are already very popular. If we take high school students who say they want to major in some small major, they will get here, and the new students are going to be just like the old students. On average, a lot of them are going to want things like economics, and we're already capacity strained as a department, so that has me worried.

P: What would you consider today's major issues in economics? And can you offer any comments regarding these issues?

B: I suppose though that I am very interested in business cycles, so the fact that we just went through a financial bubble bursting and a real downturn in economy in 2001 is interesting. I'm interested to see how the recovery progresses. This has been a longer recovery than in some past recessions, but one of the things that's been different in this recession is the productivity growth has continued to be strong. Usually in a recession, the output for man-hour input falls because output falls and we don't change the labor input that quickly.

But, this time — perhaps because of computers, perhaps because of what people call the new economy, more things being readily available on the Internet, or maybe the labor market is getting more efficient knowing where jobs are available — but whatever is happening, we're seeing labor productivity staying high. That bodes well for the long run that we're able to produce more per person.

P: Does that play into the fact that people have trouble getting jobs today?

B: Well, they have trouble getting jobs because business is reluctant to hire people back until they are sure they have enough demand for their output to need more labor, but yes, you're right. The companies are able to produce as much as they did before with fewer people, so that's good for the longterm productivity, that we're able to produce more per person, but at the moment, it means that you don't have to hire people back. You're quite right.