The Diversity Council livestreamed the fourth event in its Diversity Dialogue Series, “Doing Economics Like Indiana Jones” over YouTube on September 28, starting from 3 P.M. Five students who had been selected to participate after applying beforehand attended the dialogue in person, observing preventive measures against COVID-19, to ask questions. In the style of an Indiana Jones adventure story, Professor Syngjoo Choi of the Department of Economics described the on-site research he had recently conducted overseas, broken down into six sections. Professor Dong-Joon Jo of the Department of Political Science and International Relations acted as host and led a Q&A session during each section that was centered around the questions of the attending students and questions submitted via a live YouTube chatroom.

Comparing economic rationality and competition, as classic treasures of economics, to the holy objects sought by Indiana Jones, Professor Choi first explained the two concepts with reference to various economic theories and then presented on the preparation, process, and findings of research he conducted in Malawi, Myanmar, and Cambodia. The students in attendance asked about his research methods, difficulties he encountered in the field, and the theoretical and practical implications of his research topic and findings. The dialogue was a lively two-hour exchange on the impact—on individual lives and on communities—of economic experiments conducted in several overseas sites. This was the first Diversity Dialogue to be streamed live online, and video recordings of each of its sections (in Korean, with automated Korean captions) are available on the Diversity Council’s YouTube page, www.youtube.com/snudiversity.

Diversity Dialogue Series 4: Doing Economics Like Indiana Jones [Link]