Comments on: A Wealth of Notions

By: Club Troppo » Kieran Healy on economics

Club Troppo » Kieran Healy on economics — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 05:40:47 +0000

[...] In the researches set off by Don Arthur’s critique of my article on ‘acting tough’ I came upon Keiran Healy’s excellent review on Crooked Timber of Steven Levitt’sFreakonomics. I’d actually raved about the symposium they’d held at the time, but reserved Healy’s review for subsequent reading – and we all kow what happens to that these days. Anyway, the end of the para really hits home – so I reproduce it below the fold. Economics has a bad habit of routinely re-discovering (and taking credit for) ideas that are well-established elsewhere. Sometimes, whole fields are victimized in this way — social networks, institutional analysis, culture — as smart economists assume an idea that’s new to them is new to everyone and go off and reinvent some wheels. Freakonomics does have some sociologists and psychologists lurking in its footnotes (a stronger engagement with Stan Lieberson’s work on names would have made Chapter 6 a lot more interesting, for instance), but to be fair there are only one or two instances where a well-researched idea is presented as though no-one had ever thought of it before. Roland Fryer’s working paper on “The Economics of Acting White” is cited as the source of the notion that “some black students ‘have tremendous disincentives to invest in particular behaviors … due to the fact that they may be deemed a person who is trying to act like a white person.’” This idea was articulated in just this form in the mid-70s by John Ogbu (as the “oppositional culture” hypothesis) and arguably also by James Coleman in The Adolescent Society, published in 1961. A mention of the large literature on the topic would have detracted from the Freakonomic buzz, I guess. The broader point: Economics is well-positioned to innovate in the social sciences, because it attracts very talented graduate students and provides excellent training in formal modeling and quantitative methods. But it is hamstrung by its lack of interest in teaching the same students much of anything else (such as its own intellectual development as a field) and its tendency to look down on cognate disciplines as poor relations, even as it borrows some of their ideas. The result is that Economics farms out reflections on its own foundations to a small cadre of methodologists and philosophers, who talk amongst themselves, and to occasional “We Can’t Go On Like This” speeches by Presidents of the AEA or Nobel Laureates. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for everyone else. [...]

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Wed, 25 May 2005 13:46:50 +0000

Great Post Kieran – thx. Btw, though I’m a big fan of Akerlof’s economics, I don’t think Akerlof’s more recent model building on identity is particularly useful. Models can be pretty clunky when applied to the wrong thing – its usually just an exercise in translating for economists. They should learn the language if the translation is so bad.

By: saurabh

saurabh — Tue, 24 May 2005 22:23:49 +0000

I came across this article trashing Levitt's abortion/crime theory.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Tue, 24 May 2005 12:40:09 +0000

Fixed that, Des.

By: des von bladet

des von bladet — Tue, 24 May 2005 10:40:52 +0000

This the only post in the category “steven-levitt-seminar”: the others are in “levitt-seminar”.

(I have an unimaginably clever explanation of the esoteric incentives that lead to this outcome but this comment box is too small to contain it.)

By: Canadian

Canadian — Tue, 24 May 2005 03:30:45 +0000

Levitt’s flattery aside, his work properly understood should make most social scientists uneasy.

There is nothing in Levitt’s empirical methods that is unique to economics. There is no fancy math or statistics. Non-economists should find it easy to use the same methods to show that their favourite theories also have bite. My guess is that the set of successful theories will be small which is not a bad thing. Levitt and his peers often make other economists uneasy because (1) the standard of empirical evidence is high, and (2) they show that an old fashioned theory known since Adam Smith is widely relevant. Economists who support more nuanced theories are left feeling defensive if they cannot show the same level of empirical relevance. If Levitt and his methods become influential outside economics, it will have a narrowing effect on those disciplines. Theories that can withstand tough empirical scrutiny are rare. Economists have an unfair advantage in this brave new empirical world. The more non-economists complain about the economists’ simplistic ideas the better. Economists can write more articles to show that simplistic ideas have empirical bite. A job creation program that all economists can support.

By: Greg Hunter

Greg Hunter — Mon, 23 May 2005 18:40:49 +0000

I loved the book and it gave me some hope that the data is available to confirm my theories that fly in the face of “conventional wisdom”.

I would love to have someone look at whether the Transportation Tax has been disproportionately used to finance white flight and sprawl. I am certain that it is obvious, but the data needs to be presented by someone with respect, instead of an empirical observer.

The book will almost certainly not be a hit when the subject of abortion is brought up at Sunday School class.

Thank you Steve. A data analyst with credentials and respect. The world needs this kind of truth.

By: jet

jet — Mon, 23 May 2005 17:17:09 +0000

Ah, I agree with Kieran. Even my wife who couldn’t be less interested in non-English fields as she is wrapping up her PhD, couldn’t put the book down and then wanted to discuss every detail. I wish there were more like it.