Petition to Notre Dame to keep Economics Program Diverse and Heterodox

[PBR]

The department has a five-year (2004-2009) strategic plan. What a relic.

[pevdoki1]

The strategic plan is pretty sad actually.. It culminates with the establishment of a master's program.

I, for one, wish there was a course in history of economic thought at every department..

[bscout]

The Strategic Plan is from the Econ and Pol. Science Department. More or less is a way to justify the existence of a department which not longer produce knowledge.
AFAIK, the they will not be authorized by the University to give any graduate course in Economics (although they could collaborate with people at the Pol. Sci. Department).

[PBR]

Originally Posted by pevdoki1

I, for one, wish there was a course in history of economic thought at every department..

Come on, we are no longer a social science, there's no need to spend time with dead people.

[pevdoki1]

"Worldly" philosophy is good for creative thinking

[slightlyconfused1]

Originally Posted by israelecon

my personal opinion, is that departments can do whatever they want and teach what they believe. no one forces you to go to any specific university.

While I agree with this statement in the context of graduate studies, it doesn't ring true elsewhere. Only a vanishingly small fraction of prospective undergraduates has any idea that heterodox economics exists at all, or that certain heterodox departments are exiled from the mainstream. It's quite possible that undergraduates at Notre Dame or UMass Amherst -- both quality schools that generally attract quality students -- could have made significant contributions to mainstream economics, but were never able to enter the system because of their unlucky undergraduate choices. This, in my mind, is a serious problem.

I think that economics has to gain from exposure to heterodox stuff. It's like an optimization problem: you can never do worse, but sometimes can do better with more flexibility.

I think that there's a difference between "economics that lies outside the mainstream yet retains methodological and mathematical rigor" and "economics that is primarily polemical and has no apparent, consistent methodology." Economists at heterodox departments overwhelmingly do the latter -- if you don't believe me, look at some of their websites!

Their rather lousy work stands in marked contrast with the provocative but high-quality "heterodox" work that has appeared in economics from time to time. Behavioral economics may have once been "heterodox," but once its practitioners started setting standards and doing quality empirical work, it gradually started on its way into the mainstream. Imperfect competition was once "heterodox," but Akerlof forced it into the highest levels of economic discourse with his famous paper. And so on: when economists with "heterodox" ideas do rigorous empirical or theoretical work to support them, they ultimately become integrated into the mainstream discussion.

This never happens with heterodox departments, however, because such departments frankly don't seem to have much interest in rigor. A quick scan of work from professors at these departments reveals that most of their papers are either (1) crude empirical studies or (2) rambles without any methodology whatsoever.

There is no reason for universities to support this.

[batmanisafatman]

Originally Posted by slightlyconfused1

This never happens with heterodox departments, however, because such departments frankly don't seem to have much interest in rigor. A quick scan of work from professors at these departments reveals that most of their papers are either (1) crude empirical studies or (2) rambles without any methodology whatsoever.

There is no reason for universities to support this.

I would like you to qualify this statement using the two heterodox departments you've mentioned: i.e. Notre Dame and UMASS-Amherst. Please explain why you feel these heterodox professors lack "rigor", as I have found there to be many professors at both institutions who have exhibited strong methodological approaches in their work.

Keep in mind that many heterodox economists have trouble getting published in mainstream journals (by virtue of their subject not their content) and so publication rates may not be the best way to determine this. Also, simply pointing to one or two articles is not indicative of overall work either.

Additionally, even if you look at publication rankings, depending on which ones you look at, neither of these departments are as bad as you would make them out to be! (especially if you believe the odds are against them by virtue of subject)

<You made the statement, I believe it is groundless... I'm asking you to support it, as in any academic discipline the initial burden of proof is on the person who puts forth the hypothesis>

[pevdoki1]

slightlyconfused1: I'm not sure what you mean by "lacking methodology" (I assume you mean some sort of an axiomatic, mathematical approach), but there is no denying that many "polemical" heterodox papers contain ideas that are quite interesting and valid. This may be one example: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~fazz/saving.pdf . You can view a paper like this as a "sketch" for a rigorous, axiomatically sound study.

And here is a question: is there a reason for universities to support philosophy departments? comparative literature? sociology? This is a rhetorical question; the answer is a resounding yes. You can put these heterodox departments into the same group (of places that create new knowledge).

[slightlyconfused1]

Originally Posted by pevdoki1

slightlyconfused1: I'm not sure what you mean by "lacking methodology" (I assume you mean some sort of an axiomatic, mathematical approach), but there is no denying that many "polemical" heterodox papers contain ideas that are quite interesting and valid. This may be one example: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~fazz/saving.pdf . You can view a paper like this as a "sketch" for a rigorous, axiomatically sound study.

I think we actually may be in agreement here: I don't dispute that it's possible to express valid and insightful economic ideas "in English." My problem with many heterodox economists is that they never manage to move beyond this -- they don't construct plausible models, or run carefully designed regressions. I'm entirely in favor of using a rhetorical style to "sketch" an argument, but I believe that the arguments should be clarified and supported using firmer tools.

I think that a person's reaction to the assumptions often found in neoclassical economic theory -- rational expectations, perfect information, etc. -- provides a useful test of his or her intellectual seriousness. It's incredibly easy to rant about how these assumptions are clearly untrue; no one believes that they're universally correct. Realizing that there might be imperfections in the market doesn't automatically make you smarter than the consensus of professional economists. Yet many a heterodox economist seems to believe that "seeing through" the unrealistic assumptions of prevailing theory grants the observer almost magical power. In the ultimate irony, these self-styled mavericks then retreat to entirely non-rigorous, verbal reasoning, where loads of questionable assumptions are buried under the glossy rhetorical finish.

Originally Posted by pevdoki1

And here is a question: is there a reason for universities to support philosophy departments? comparative literature? sociology? This is a rhetorical question; the answer is a resounding yes. You can put these heterodox departments into the same group (of places that create new knowledge).

Frankly, I am a little skeptical of comparative literature and sociology departments, and I'm not convinced that such institutions are valuable commitments of public resources. This, however, is probably due to my somewhat unconventional ideas about value -- I don't view "creating knowledge" in the abstract to be a useful pursuit, and I think that almost all the work in these fields has been utterly meaningless to those outside the cozy confines of academia. (Most work in economics has been useless as well, but I think it's pretty clear that economics has the potential to be much more important to society at large.)

If you don't accept my premises here, though, I think there's still an important distinction between heterodox economics and, say, comparative literature. In literature, the objects of study are themselves verbal; it makes perfect sense, then, to study them through a verbal discourse. (I don't think computer modeling of Shakespeare is going to catch on anytime soon!) In economics, on the other hand, I don't think it's possible to escape the numbers involved; if you're thinking about markets, tradeoffs and maximization, you're not going to reach any safe conclusions without thinking quantitatively. Rhetoric may be a useful part of the discussion, but it is always secondary.

[slightlyconfused1]

Originally Posted by batmanisafatman

I would like you to qualify this statement using the two heterodox departments you've mentioned: i.e. Notre Dame and UMASS-Amherst. Please explain why you feel these heterodox professors lack "rigor", as I have found there to be many professors at both institutions who have exhibited strong methodological approaches in their work.

I'll admit: it's not reasonable for me to dismiss entire departments as lacking rigor when I can't possibly be familiar with the work of every professor within them. There may be professors at generally "heterodox" departments who do very strong work. I can, however, get a pretty strong sense that something is sketchy when I scan through the papers of various faculty members and don't see any clearly defined models, any statistical work that recognizes and deals with the primary difficulties in econometrics (unclear causality, etc.), or anything beyond rhetoric and trivial presentation of data.

To establish my point, I'm going to review the CVs of all the non-emeritus faculty members at Notre Dame's heterodox wing. This is made difficult by the fact that I can't even seem to find many of the papers listed, but I'll make an attempt.

Mary Beckman:
Her recent work seems to consist of conveying mildly interesting anecdotes and survey data about teaching. She doesn't seem to be doing much economic research, though, and I can't find most of her other papers online. (Have the journals never been made electronic?)

David Betson:
Hasn't had a journal paper for 8 years (although he's published chapters in books that I can't access). His most recent journal paper is a coauthored tract where members of a panel on poverty measurement summarized their conclusions -- it doesn't seem bad, although it doesn't indicate much beyond his membership on a panel. He had a 4 page article in AER also based on the panel experience. Many of his other articles are difficult to find online -- if you use google scholar, you get nothing, and if you "plain" google them, the only relevant hit is his CV!

Frank Bonello:
Has not published a journal paper since 1987, and I can't find its full text anywhere. Hard to say much here...

Amitava Dutt:
Seems relatively legit -- it's hard to tell whether the math in his papers is actually sound without a lot more time, but at least he seems to have respect for rigor and clarity in presentation.

Kwan Kim:
Seems prolific... but not with any articles that I can actually find online. I don't want to sound too glib, but the identifiable journal names in English (he has a habit of writing articles in other languages, including Spanish) are pretty sketch: "Journal of Global Awareness," "Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Conference on Responsibilities of Developed Countries in the Global village," etc.

William Leahy:
Website does not link to a CV or list of publications.

Philip Mirowski:
Publishes more or less exclusively on the philosophy and history of economics. I can't say whether his work is reasonable or not without a lot more time, but I think that it's properly viewed as belonging in a field that's somewhat disjoint from the rest of research economics.

James Rakowski:
Another aging professor who hasn't published much in the past few decades; he has some articles in "Trains" and "Traffic World," which are pretty sweet names for journals, but googling the articles only gives his CV. The only publication within the last decade is "Does the Consumer Have an Obligation to Cooperate with Price Discrimination?" The first few pages of this paper appear reasonable, but are more "amateur philosophy" than "economics."

Jaime Ros:
Unlike many of the other professors, he is doing work that's identifiable as having both theoretical and empirical components. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be of terribly high quality -- see, for instance, "Unemployment and the Real Exchange Rate in Latin America," where the "striking" empirical results in Table 3 aren't really striking at all, and certainly aren't conclusive evidence in support of the model presented.

David Ruccio:

Here we have a truly fringe-heterodox economist, who seems intent on making his work sound like literary theory. There are no numbers or models -- just lots of fancy words and references. Read his most recent articles, “Beyond the Highs and Lows: Economics as a ‘Process Without a Subject," “Unfinished Business: Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks,” and “Globalization and Imperialism" if you don't believe me!

Jennifer Warlick:
Hasn't really published in 20 years, except for some work on measuring poverty coauthored with David Betson (mentioned above).

Martin Wolfson:
Has publications in many of the standard moderately heterodox outlets like the Cambridge Journal and the Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics. They contain some interesting ideas, and occasionally frame them in mathematical terms, but don't seem to have much empirical or other analysis to support their theories.

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All in all, the research record of the heterodox wing at Notre Dame seems to be roughly what you'd expect from a third-tier liberal arts college, not a highly-ranked research university. An astonishing number of the faculty's papers resist all attempts at online search. It's understandable to me why the university would want to improve the situation...