The future of the economics, the dismal science, is not so dismal, according to this article in the New York Times. Here's a quip:
"....economists have been acting a lot like intellectual imperialists in the last decade or so. They have been using their tools — mainly the analysis of enormous piles of data to tease out cause and effect — to examine everything from politics to French wine vintages...."Well, what is certainly not going to be dismal is the future of the thirteen "Economists to Watch" who were featured in the article. Andrew Leigh of the ANU calls them the young guns, although I think Leigh himself is a young gun, certainly one of the top young economists in the southern hemisphere (check out his academic website).
"...As “The Soulful Science,” a new book by Diane Coyle, puts it, there has been a “remarkable creative renaissance in how economics is addressing the most fundamental questions — and how it is starting to help solve problems.”..."
One of the thirteen on the NYT list is Ben Olken, who has done a number of his studies on Indonesia, and his works on corruption, social capital have been discussed in this Cafe (see the links to those discussions here).
An interesting fact about the list is that out of the thirteen economists on it, six of them are married to each other, a clear example of positive assortative mating (ah, this reminds me to do a post on assortative mating in the future).
Examples of positive assortative mating among economists are indeed abound. For my fellow economists whose partners are not really into utility maximization thing, don't give up just yet. There are ways to do it, which brings us to Self Promotion #395: How to Improve Your Love Life.
From Greg Mankiw's blog:
How to Improve Your Love LiveOkay, that;s probably falls into the category of how not to charm your girl/boyfriend. And see also the following
Having trouble satisfying your girlfriend? A reader of this blog emails me his remedy for the problem:"...You'll be pleased to know that I managed to persuade my girlfriend (a biologist) to buy a copy of your "Principles of Microeconomics" recently here in the UK, so that we could have more informed discussions about interesting economics problems...."
Err... Oh well, the future is probably dismal after all.".... I'm tempted to try this with my girlfriend. In time she can work up to Romer and Mas-Colell-Whinston-Green. Until then, our love life just won't be complete...."
Update: Arya at On Indonesia and the Economy also has a post about the young guns. According to him (I paraphrased), there isn't enough credit being given to economists whose work are as technically sound as those done by the featured economists, have more practical uses, but on topics less sexier than some of those on the list. I think I agree with him.
self-promotion | economists | dismal science | assortative mating
