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I think it all depends on your measures of success. In academia, the general measure of success seems to be the number of publications in top journals and the number of citations. We all are surrounded by an academic environment and probably most of us consider this measure as legitimate. The first thing I do when I have a new professor for example is to check is publications.
But will you be publishing in a top journal? And will you get citations? The 95th percentile paper has zero citations. And even the median JPE paper gets zero citations. In other words: nobody cares. I think that israelecon's 2% are a very optimistic guess.
And what about your non-academic environment? Do they care about what you do? Will you be able to talk to them about what you do? A neuro-scientist can at least tell his children that he wants to understand how the picture gets from their eye into the brain and how this leads to actions by their hands. But do you really want to discuss the existence and stability of equilibria over dinner? My point is that people outside your field will rarely be able to understand and value what you do (except if you are Steven Levitt). Your children cannot tell their friends what their father or mother does.
Don't get me wrong. I'm very excited about economics and about doing research. But I think we should do it for the right reasons. And we should know the price. I think that if your goal is to "make an impact", you risk being very disappointed in 30 years from now. You'll hardly ever get to hear a "thank you" for what you do.
Asked why he still goes on doing research, Reinhard Selten said: "because I have to".
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