The biggest misconception about creativity is that it’s somehow different from other kinds of work. It isn’t. Creativity is work.
Monty Python kept office hours 9 to 5 writing comedy. In Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary, you watch them clock into the studio and noodle around until a song emerges. They didn’t wait for lightning to strike. They showed up, mostly sober, and worked.
You can’t wait for inspiration. You schedule the time. You sit down. You write, or paint, or compose, build, etc.
I’m saying all this because this installment of Econ Nerds was basically assigned to me. My colleague Roman Hardgrave had been pushing for a Mariel Boatlift episode. I finally stopped waiting for an idea on how to do it and just sat down and wrote it.
I’m proud of the result. I think the video adds something useful to the conversation. Most economics coverage fixates on who’s right: Borjas or Card. I wanted to zoom out and appreciate the bigger story: revealed preference, American flexibility and evolving culture.
I hope you like it. And if you’re waiting for inspiration or permission to make something, stop. Sit down and do the work.
Don’t obsess over whether it’s good. If you keep producing, you’ll eventually create something great. Maybe not something on the level of Scarfaceface, but it is better to have made something than nothing.
That’s more than enough.
Works Cited
Bodvarsson, Örn B., Hendrik F. Van den Berg, and Joshua J. Lewer. "Measuring immigration's effects on labor demand: A reexamination of the Mariel Boatlift." Labour Economics 15.4 (2008): 560-574.
Borjas, George J. "The wage impact of the Marielitos: A reappraisal." Ilr Review 70.5 (2017): 1077-1110.
Borjas, George J. We wanted workers: Unraveling the immigration narrative. WW Norton & Company, 2016.
Card, David. "The impact of the Mariel boatlift on the Miami labor market." Ilr Review 43.2 (1990): 245-257.
Lewis, Ethan. How did the Miami labor market absorb the Mariel immigrants?. No. 04-3. Philadelphia, PA: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2004.
Peri, Giovanni, and Vasil Yasenov. "The labor market effects of a refugee wave: Synthetic control method meets the Mariel boatlift." Journal of Human Resources 54.2 (2019): 267-309.
