Refresh America

The United States has been called the land of opportunity, the place where life can begin anew. Today America is a destination for young people from all over the world who want to further their studies. The best American Universities attract talent, allow direct contact with research and support student innovation. We met one of these talents, Enrico Moretti, 36, a young professor of economics at the prestigious Berkeley University.

Moretti has lived in the States for eleven years. After graduating at the Bocconi, he moved to the U.S. to continue and improve his studies with a master’s degree and a doctorate. His academic career then began as professor at UCLA in Los Angeles, he became a visiting professor in 2003 at Columbia University in New York and today he teaches at Berkeley, San Francisco.

His scientific research aims to define both the private and social benefits of education.

We started the interview by asking him about this.

How important is the level of education for one’s future in the USA?
Education is fundamental and brings enormous benefits, both at a private and social level. At a social level it reduces the crime rate; at a private level it gives substantial earning power: the average salary of an employee increases by 8-10% for every year of further education, with even higher earning power for those who have attended the most prestigious institutes. This means that on average a graduate earns 40-45% more than somebody with a diploma.

How is this different in Europe?
In the whole of Europe, apart from Great Britain, the tendency towards increased earnings is lower than in the United States. In Italy the figure is around 4-5%, rather than the 8-10% we just spoke about. The average difference between a person with a degree and one with a diploma is 20-25%.

So those who want to keep their knowledge up to date prefer to do it in the United States?
In the USA, this substantial difference in earnings encourages people to keep up to date. This becomes the aim of those involved in research and intellectual products, and so has an enormous value for the whole of civilised society. This is one of the reasons why people are more mobile and capital from foreign countries increases.

California, where you live, is the home of high-tech and the most famous web companies have their headquarters here. How important economically are radical innovation and new products?
The highest earnings are in the field of radical innovation, which happens when a new product is created; at least until the patent expires and competitors no longer let you exploit profits from this monopoly. We only have to think about Silicon Valley and the enormous economic fortunes it has generated to understand the value of radical innovation.

Up to date products are extremely important to continue to satisfy the demands of clients, who always have new needs. Updating may be marginal or substantial, but even in the latter case, there is a series of changes and so there is never a moment in which one can take advantage of monopoly earnings.

What’s happening in the rest of the country?
We could say that in New York, new comes from the past, while in Los Angeles new is for new’s sake.
The East Coast is nearer to Europe, while the West Coast is far less linked to history, in terms of urban planning, architecture, economy and culture, and this is both positive and negative. Los Angeles offers many more opportunities for those without a family background who want to start again, because it is meritocratic. In New York, which family you come from is also partly important.

What about culture?
New York is a magnet for those who want to become writers or emerge in the field of visual arts, but the decision-makers are far more established and have been in the game longer. Cultural output in Los Angeles is much more fluid, and you never know what may happen or develop. In the field of architecture, for example, in L.A. there are almost no constraints – you can build what you want how you want.

What is the “American dream” based on?
In the collective mind, it’s based on the possibility of radical change and not only at a technological level. In the last century the United States proposed new lifestyles. The concept of starting from scratch and reinventing oneself is very common in America with people of all ages and, above all, it is socially acceptable. There are many people who change their line of work or activity radically, change State, or return to studying at the age of 50. In Italy it would be practically unthinkable to start a second career, after having done a training course or a masters degree.

Is this kind of reinventing oneself an element of competitiveness for the United States?
Definitely. The most obvious reason is that the jobs market really is national and so automatically compensates the differences in jobs offered between one region of the country and another, a bit like in Italy in the ’50s. People continue to migrate and look for the best opportunities.
The United States is also a dynamic country that creates opportunities for growth and development.
Even if not everybody is able to achieve, they are inspired to try.
The third effect is on people between the ages of 30-40: if they have an idea they do everything possible to make it work.

Moving, updating, reinventing oneself… is there another side of the coin?
There is a weaker culture, with which it’s more difficult to connect; often there is no common cultural basis that allows you to relate with others about the past, about memories. This leads to a higher divorce rate and enormous geographic mobility, with important social consequences. In the USA there are people who live entirely alone, three thousand miles from friends and relations and this has both economic and existential consequences.

What about the relationship between “community” and the Internet? Do difficulties in creating real communities lead to a desire to belong to a virtual world?
This is definitely true of suburban areas. Enormous distances mean that you can’t easily meet people to share your interests with and so you turn to the Internet for conversation and relationships. However, there are people who create a shared interest wherever they are and this leads to artificial communities like the golf club or the group of readers who love thrillers. You pay to become part of the group and you feel the need to create this kind of artificial identity.
In any case, the concept of “community” is one of the most obsessively repeated words in this day and age.

So does this happen because there aren’t enough meeting places?
That’s true in rural areas, but in cities like San Francisco, for example, Italian style café-bars become real centres where people gather, meet and work. There is a strong dualism between rural areas and more developed and cultured cities. In cities like San Francisco we are already in the next phase, that of the large chains of coffee shops: people are looking for smaller realities, café-bars that are strongly characterised by their owners and are different from each other. Strangely enough, not many licenses are given to large chains and we are moving towards more homely dimensions in order to overcome the standardisation imposed by shopping centres.
This is due to urban policy and partly to the very structure of the city, which is extremely “dense”.

Enrico Moretti recommends

The Burning Man Festival
www.burningman.com
Is a cultural happening held every year in the first weekend of September in the Black Rock desert, where people from San Francisco and the whole of the USA meet to express themselves spontaneously, without rules or censorship in all fields, in a more or less professional way. No one needs to be a simple spectator, everybody brings something to contribute to the event and for that week becomes someone different from the person they normally are for the rest of the year.

Morphosis architecture in Los Angeles
www.morphosis.net

Interview by Fabio Pornaro