If it makes the academics feel any better, you can look back at 20 years of hard work on commercial projects and come to the same conclusion. It's hard to identify companies and projects that will still seem genuinely important 5 years later and be in the position to make important contributions to them. Most new companies poop out. Many projects at big successful companies involve spending 2 years to re-style the login page. The bulk of companies getting by in the middle often seem replaceable and mediocre from a distance.
I think that's why Elon has been so successful at recruiting.
This is an unbelievably scathing critique of academic economics considering what a successful career Levitt had (and that he is presumably holding back somewhat so as to not burn too many bridges).
"It was being passed around Washington because it was the only paper that supported the position that they had already chosen."
Moral of the story: If you want politicians to listen, tell them what they want to hear. Would MMT have been given so much attention in any other environment? Could it have even been conceived in any other environment?
That is quite a thing to read. Other than the bit about reaching the pinnacle and being in academia for a really long time, it probably matches almost every experience of PhD students who want to work on hard problems and teach then see what it is really like and nope out. Quietly damning of the institution of universities we have had.
No influence? Even callers to sports radio these days talk about "outliers," "variance" and "small sample size." Freakonomics had a lot to do with that.
Neat summary of field of economics. It is difficult to be a scientific field when the ground underneath is not only complex but constantly shifting. The mathematization at least forces some rigor, but it does get lost in theoretical tangents. It is also way too abstract, does not pay enough attention to the institutional microstructure. So here we are after a couple of centuries of modelling and what has been learned, what can be used to inform policy?
My optimism about the field of economics remains despite Levitt's, Arnold's, and my own experiences. As one commenter said earlier, I "noped out" of academia. Nonetheless, I believe that the economist's way of thinking still has a lot to say that is quite useful. I recall listening to a presentation by an academic who, at the time roughly 30 years ago, was the Chief Economist at the SEC. (If I recall correctly, he was on leave from Rochester.) He said his job boiled down to telling all the lawyers (regulators) to stop writing some new regulation because it flew in the face of economic reality.
Economics can teach us to think about problems rigorously (i.e. methodically and logically) with or without "mathiness" and stop the world from doing stupid stuff. We still have many battles to fight - minimum wages, tax simplification, and rationalizing the U.S. health care industry come to mind. These problems would all be simpler to solve if more people - especially politicians - understood basic principles of economics, even at the Econ 101 level.
Late one night, an obvious student is leaving the Central Square Stop and Shop and puts 12 items on the express belt, right under the sign saying "10 items or fewer". The cashier looks at him and asks "are you from MIT and can't read or Harvard and can't count?"
(For context, Stop and Shop is or was a New England grocery chain and Central Square is about half-way between MIT and Harvard).
(Disclaimer: I graduated from MIT. They ain't kidding about the math. I'm surprised my history classes didn't include any.)
“Most academic research has no lasting presence.” Cut funding, cut funding, cut funding. Move to Substack. Let’s move toward a system in which customers are directly paying teachers and researchers. If you can’t satisfy your customers find another profession.
I don't understand why Levitt would see a future of irrelevance for economics. It seems to me he's right in the middle of a worthwhile future along with Thaler, Kahnemann, Mulligan, and others who look at very practical questions.
“And I really feel like our field has moved towards technicality. Harder proofs.” Likewise with other academic fields. How many interpretations of Shakespeare do we need? I say we need to cut funding. There is too much research that no one cares about or reads. Let’s get back to the fundamentals and start working on real problems.
“I was a data scientist who was messing around with data…” Playing with and presenting data is fun. We all go through this phase and it probably never stops being fun.
If it makes the academics feel any better, you can look back at 20 years of hard work on commercial projects and come to the same conclusion. It's hard to identify companies and projects that will still seem genuinely important 5 years later and be in the position to make important contributions to them. Most new companies poop out. Many projects at big successful companies involve spending 2 years to re-style the login page. The bulk of companies getting by in the middle often seem replaceable and mediocre from a distance.
I think that's why Elon has been so successful at recruiting.
This is an unbelievably scathing critique of academic economics considering what a successful career Levitt had (and that he is presumably holding back somewhat so as to not burn too many bridges).
"It was being passed around Washington because it was the only paper that supported the position that they had already chosen."
Moral of the story: If you want politicians to listen, tell them what they want to hear. Would MMT have been given so much attention in any other environment? Could it have even been conceived in any other environment?
That is quite a thing to read. Other than the bit about reaching the pinnacle and being in academia for a really long time, it probably matches almost every experience of PhD students who want to work on hard problems and teach then see what it is really like and nope out. Quietly damning of the institution of universities we have had.
No influence? Even callers to sports radio these days talk about "outliers," "variance" and "small sample size." Freakonomics had a lot to do with that.
Neat summary of field of economics. It is difficult to be a scientific field when the ground underneath is not only complex but constantly shifting. The mathematization at least forces some rigor, but it does get lost in theoretical tangents. It is also way too abstract, does not pay enough attention to the institutional microstructure. So here we are after a couple of centuries of modelling and what has been learned, what can be used to inform policy?
What do you make of the substantive criticism of his abortion crime paper?
My optimism about the field of economics remains despite Levitt's, Arnold's, and my own experiences. As one commenter said earlier, I "noped out" of academia. Nonetheless, I believe that the economist's way of thinking still has a lot to say that is quite useful. I recall listening to a presentation by an academic who, at the time roughly 30 years ago, was the Chief Economist at the SEC. (If I recall correctly, he was on leave from Rochester.) He said his job boiled down to telling all the lawyers (regulators) to stop writing some new regulation because it flew in the face of economic reality.
Economics can teach us to think about problems rigorously (i.e. methodically and logically) with or without "mathiness" and stop the world from doing stupid stuff. We still have many battles to fight - minimum wages, tax simplification, and rationalizing the U.S. health care industry come to mind. These problems would all be simpler to solve if more people - especially politicians - understood basic principles of economics, even at the Econ 101 level.
Obligatory MIT/Hahvahd joke:
Late one night, an obvious student is leaving the Central Square Stop and Shop and puts 12 items on the express belt, right under the sign saying "10 items or fewer". The cashier looks at him and asks "are you from MIT and can't read or Harvard and can't count?"
(For context, Stop and Shop is or was a New England grocery chain and Central Square is about half-way between MIT and Harvard).
(Disclaimer: I graduated from MIT. They ain't kidding about the math. I'm surprised my history classes didn't include any.)
“Most academic research has no lasting presence.” Cut funding, cut funding, cut funding. Move to Substack. Let’s move toward a system in which customers are directly paying teachers and researchers. If you can’t satisfy your customers find another profession.
I don't understand why Levitt would see a future of irrelevance for economics. It seems to me he's right in the middle of a worthwhile future along with Thaler, Kahnemann, Mulligan, and others who look at very practical questions.
Tyler did not allow comments on the non-binary gender economics post—a wise decision!
“And I really feel like our field has moved towards technicality. Harder proofs.” Likewise with other academic fields. How many interpretations of Shakespeare do we need? I say we need to cut funding. There is too much research that no one cares about or reads. Let’s get back to the fundamentals and start working on real problems.
“I was a data scientist who was messing around with data…” Playing with and presenting data is fun. We all go through this phase and it probably never stops being fun.
“My main memory of teaching was how weak the students were in math.” Hahaha