Alain Bertaud once told me, ruefully, that he was part of a failed effort at the World Bank to end the implicit subsidy for car trips created by the Bank’s offer of free employee parking. This proposal generated complaints, but that does not mean that it was a bad idea. If Steve Jobs had followed a strategy of avoiding all complaints, my MacBook Pro would still have an optical disk drive.

Someone asked “What if Germany ran Detroit?” This kind of what-if-pigs-could-fly question mixes abstraction and specificity in a way that I do not find helpful. What works for me is iterating back and forth between two extremes — abstraction and radical specificity — and avoiding the middle. At one extreme, I ask abstract questions such as “Could there be gains from trade in government services like the gains from trade in private services?

In my work, I have tried to avoid revealing anything about my personal political beliefs and even worked to obfuscate as necessary. When my father was visible in national politics as a Democrat, it was helpful to have a letterhead appointment at the Hoover Institution. Although I stay away from the battles of national politics, in my role as an advocate for science as the greatest human institution, I am now drawn into the battles of academic politics.

Why do I go back and forth between periods of active blogging/tweeting and periods of silence? Sometimes I have an idea I want to explore. Digital media can be a good way to start a conversation akin to those that we used to have only in the physical space of the seminar room. But in these conversations, one has an obligation to listen to what others say and be ready to respond.

I’m pleased to report that President Jim Yong Kim has asked me to join the World Bank as Chief Economist and I have agreed to accept his offer. This may surprise you. It surprises me. I have often said to myself that the intersection of the set of jobs in Washington DC that I would find intellectually exciting and the set of jobs that I would accept is empty. Intellectual excitement depends on the chance to learn.