Nobel Prize Conversations

“I spent all my time with my dad, learnt how to take things apart”

Hear economist David Card speak about his experience of growing up at a farm. In this podcast episode, conducted in May 2022, Card tells us about how his upbringing has shaped his life and how his dad taught him to drive tractors at the age of 10.

Card was awarded the 2021 prize in economic sciences for his empirical contributions to labour economics. Besides his work on labour, he has also done extensive research on educational systems. Here he tells us about the positive progress of more gender balanced admission at universities but highlights the increasing problem with underrepresented minorities in economic sciences.

Card also tells us about how he spends the very little time off he has wood working. He describes it as “very lone work. It’s you and the wood.” We also get to hear about another Nobel Prize laureate that he finds fascinating and that he would have loved to converse with, 1998 literature laureate Jose Saramago.

The host of this podcast is nobelprize.org’s Adam Smith.

Nobel Prize Conversations was produced in cooperation with Fundación Ramón Areces.