I am happy if many economists just want to understand the world, not make it better. Too many of the influential ones who have wanted to make it better have had the opposite effect.
"...It is a shame that publication timelines are such that it could only come out long after the horse had left the barn – the period studied was 2009-2012, but the working paper was only out in 2019, and the"
As someone who works as a journalist (but no training in the craft) and often enough specifically on the subject of economics (again, no professional training in it other than a BSc) I am against this idea. Why would I want increased competition? Tsk.
On the other hand more economists with presentation skills would be a grand idea. Currently the public conversation is dominated by the cranks (of which I might be one) with such skills and not the analytical ones.
this rhymes with something happening in journalism. pms are starting to handle the aggregation work that reporters used to do through calls and background conversations. question for both fields is the same. once the infrastructure handles the easy part, what's left?
"We don’t really need any more tools." Not true. There are many issues in theory that we do not understand very well. For starters, we don't have a satisfying theory of inflation. We don't have definite predictions screening in non-exclusive environments (e.g., multiple banks lending to a single borrower). Our theories of competitive health insurance markets are still shaken by equilibrium non-existence. Dynamic contracting still feels underexplored. Sure, we have a great headline: incentives matter. But that's not a substitute for a coherent theoretical edifice (as is GE theory, but that's mostly missing the incentives). And pretending that having a coherent theory doesn't matter and academic economists should just fill the void opened up by the implosion of the journalistic profession since they lost their ad revenue sounds like a massive disservice to economic science. Having said that, each individual researcher should definitely try hard to disseminate what they know. But to which audience? The issue at hand is just that 1) there are bounds to what economists know to date (as our theory is still incomplete) and 2) the dissemination bit is exactly where AI will come to our aid, so I'm not sure that engaging the public is where bright minds ought to invest most of their efforts (dissemination is not our comparative advantage). Focusing on dissemination within the profession--e.g., returning to in-person job interviews to make sure the profession unites once more in the same place to max learning from one another--would be a much better use of our time than everyone shouting into the substack void where few posts (unlike journal articles) are written to stand the test of time.
1. I don’t think having a satisfying theory is a good goal. There will be true theories which do not satisfy — for example, “inflation is driven by beliefs about what inflation will be” is unsatisfactory but plausibly true.
2. Not commenting on the other matters, because I don’t know enough, but what do you think is needed in dynamic contracting? I thought the barrier was lacking credible deep parameters.
3. I am not saying we shouldn’t have a credible theory. I’m saying that there are a lot of things which don’t involve theoretical advancements, but are useful. The thing which comes to mind is merger retrospectives, but really anything involving entirely formulaic methods would fit.
Quote: "The economist should be someone who goes out into the world, gets the facts on what we can and should change to make the world better, and then builds a case for why we should do this."
I agree with the argument and have been trying to do this with my podcast and essays. A key challenge for economists is that papers serve as a way to get tenure and promotions, which means that multi-tasking away from paper writing is costly. Some can afford to do this easily (those with tenure at top places or those who are already not pursuing prestige econ publishing), but most can't. There is also much less agreement on what makes public engagement valuable. Does getting a 30s soundbite in NPR count? How about a long-form podcast listened to by 1000 people? What about a substack essay vs a newspaper editorial? How much should marginal revolution mentions count? Etc...
I am happy if many economists just want to understand the world, not make it better. Too many of the influential ones who have wanted to make it better have had the opposite effect.
This paragraph just ends mid sentence:
"...It is a shame that publication timelines are such that it could only come out long after the horse had left the barn – the period studied was 2009-2012, but the working paper was only out in 2019, and the"
Not. A Single. Woman. Exhausting.
I see this as an unbiased representation of reality. Who should I have listed?
As someone who works as a journalist (but no training in the craft) and often enough specifically on the subject of economics (again, no professional training in it other than a BSc) I am against this idea. Why would I want increased competition? Tsk.
On the other hand more economists with presentation skills would be a grand idea. Currently the public conversation is dominated by the cranks (of which I might be one) with such skills and not the analytical ones.
this rhymes with something happening in journalism. pms are starting to handle the aggregation work that reporters used to do through calls and background conversations. question for both fields is the same. once the infrastructure handles the easy part, what's left?
"We don’t really need any more tools." Not true. There are many issues in theory that we do not understand very well. For starters, we don't have a satisfying theory of inflation. We don't have definite predictions screening in non-exclusive environments (e.g., multiple banks lending to a single borrower). Our theories of competitive health insurance markets are still shaken by equilibrium non-existence. Dynamic contracting still feels underexplored. Sure, we have a great headline: incentives matter. But that's not a substitute for a coherent theoretical edifice (as is GE theory, but that's mostly missing the incentives). And pretending that having a coherent theory doesn't matter and academic economists should just fill the void opened up by the implosion of the journalistic profession since they lost their ad revenue sounds like a massive disservice to economic science. Having said that, each individual researcher should definitely try hard to disseminate what they know. But to which audience? The issue at hand is just that 1) there are bounds to what economists know to date (as our theory is still incomplete) and 2) the dissemination bit is exactly where AI will come to our aid, so I'm not sure that engaging the public is where bright minds ought to invest most of their efforts (dissemination is not our comparative advantage). Focusing on dissemination within the profession--e.g., returning to in-person job interviews to make sure the profession unites once more in the same place to max learning from one another--would be a much better use of our time than everyone shouting into the substack void where few posts (unlike journal articles) are written to stand the test of time.
1. I don’t think having a satisfying theory is a good goal. There will be true theories which do not satisfy — for example, “inflation is driven by beliefs about what inflation will be” is unsatisfactory but plausibly true.
2. Not commenting on the other matters, because I don’t know enough, but what do you think is needed in dynamic contracting? I thought the barrier was lacking credible deep parameters.
3. I am not saying we shouldn’t have a credible theory. I’m saying that there are a lot of things which don’t involve theoretical advancements, but are useful. The thing which comes to mind is merger retrospectives, but really anything involving entirely formulaic methods would fit.
4. Why would AI help dissemination?
Quote: "The economist should be someone who goes out into the world, gets the facts on what we can and should change to make the world better, and then builds a case for why we should do this."
Are amateurs allowed? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW
Naive statement. Facts don't speak for themselves.
I agree with the argument and have been trying to do this with my podcast and essays. A key challenge for economists is that papers serve as a way to get tenure and promotions, which means that multi-tasking away from paper writing is costly. Some can afford to do this easily (those with tenure at top places or those who are already not pursuing prestige econ publishing), but most can't. There is also much less agreement on what makes public engagement valuable. Does getting a 30s soundbite in NPR count? How about a long-form podcast listened to by 1000 people? What about a substack essay vs a newspaper editorial? How much should marginal revolution mentions count? Etc...
> There is also much less agreement on what makes public engagement valuable. Does getting a 30s soundbite in NPR count?
As someone who did about 15s last summer, I hope that everything counts :)
But right, there's no agreement on what counts, so I thought we probably should be open to all of the options you mentioned.
What should matters is that you think it's fun and valuable.
Might I possibly be on your podcast? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW