Written by Eliott Fournet

2 weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend a thought-provoking event at King's College, Cambridge. As a King’s MBA student and entrepreneur, it was a unique opportunity for me to witness firsthand the intersection of academic insight and real-world experience of economic forces.

Before delving into the content, it's worth painting a picture of the venue. Having been home to great economists such as Richard Kahn, Nicholas Kaldor, John Maynard Keynes, Arthur Cecil Pigou, Joan Robinson, Richard Stone, and Oliver Hart – the latter two recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics – King’s was the perfect fit for a day dedicated to this discipline. With its Gothic architecture and academic gravitas, our college lent the day's proceedings an appropriately prestigious and collegial atmosphere. The old stone halls were soon abuzz with current and former students, all eager to hear insights from some of the leading voices in economics.

Research at King’s

After arriving and sharing refreshments with former King’s economics students (all who went on to pursue excellence in a wide variety of careers), we sat down to hear about the current PhD research taking place at the college. I was delighted to learn from Rebecca Heath about her endeavour to put a stop to online criminal marketplaces by disrupting their underlying economies of trust, and Lea Havemeister’s work studying “zombie firms”. Shane Mahen’s award-winning research concerning sustainability incentives in network economies sparked great interest in the audience, as illustrated by the insightful questions from students and alumni alike. The quality of the PhD students’ research underscores the college’s role in advancing our economic knowledge, and how passionate for research all King’s men and women remain in their professional lives.

There, I understood that if we set out to change the world for the better, then engineering, “hard” sciences, or even entrepreneurship are not enough. It is only by intervening in the intricate set of human interactions forming economies that we can truly make an impact. I know all too well from my own work that no software can totally purge criminal marketplaces from the internet, but by combining software with social engineering, we have the potential to severely disrupt the economics on which these marketplaces rely, leading to their eventual collapse. With this knowledge, it is clear to me that engineers should be generally more aware of economic concepts to maximise their impact.

Conversation with Lord Mervyn King

After a short break, we returned to the lecture hall where a statue of Keynes overlooks his legacy to listen to Lord Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England between 2003 and 2013 and King’s College Economics alumni.

I admire the way Lord King talked about the importance of what Central Bankers do not know, how their judgement is impacted by it, and how the study of economics cannot possibly pretend to create models for every single human interaction in our world, and hence it is impossible to foresee every crisis. He experienced first-hand how people expect and pressure economists – and especially Central Bankers – to predict the future, though Lord King never had a problem pointing out that it is impossible by the very nature of this subject.

Models fail, and when they do, it should not be assumed that it is due to “irrational” actors, but rather to incorrect models. From this assessment, Lord King emphasised the need for new economic paradigms, and the need for debate about which of these are best, something that has declined over the past 10 to 20 years. The role of universities in this crucial process is significant: as he sees it, there are many technicalities that an economist can learn throughout their academic and professional career, but the true value of going through a university degree and being introduced to a subject like Economics is to get excited at what there is still to discover and to invent.

Evening, Dinner, and Conclusion

To conclude this exciting event, the group gathered in the King’s bar before moving to the grand dinner hall to enjoy a meal and conversation while digesting the day’s teachings. I especially enjoyed talking with alumni: their willingness to share their work experience and connect with current students is truly inspiring. Speeches by fellows and our provost, Gillian Tett, followed, and special thanks were given to donors and especially Lord King, who contributed to the creation of a new Junior Research Fellowship in Economic History.

The reception that followed illustrates what I have taken away from this event. After learning more about the impact economic research and policy can have and their importance, I learned that its nature as a social science makes it more useful when it is debated rather than when it is expected to grant definitive answers. Thus, I understood the need for genuine intergenerational exchanges and that an efficient and open discussion with conflicting opinions is necessary for the advance of economic theory. In the warmth of the senior common room’s fireplace, this was more than anything what this “Economic’s Day” created: a productive exchange of creative views on economics, facilitated by unfiltered discussions between people with various levels of experience and seniority.

King’s College has the largest Fellowship in terms of economics. For more about these Fellows and their areas of research see https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/subjects/economics.

Since 2019, King’s College has also gradually expanded their intake of Judge Business School students. In 2018 and before, the College was home to an occasional Judge student. Today, the College has 11 full time Judge students (across all programmes: PhD, MPhil, MFin, MBA, MRes), with around 50 part-time students (across Executive MBA, Masters in Entrepreneurship, Masters in Social Innovation programmes). Read more about these programmes here: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/

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