Sins of omission

Much of A-level Economics concerns the content of Economics with only superficial nods to the discipline of Economics. For those who of you who want a challenging but interesting read on the latter, here is a paper from George Akerlof (winner of a Nobel Prize in Economics, him of lemons and peaches fame).

“This paper advances the proposition that economics, as a discipline, gives rewards that favour the “hard” and disfavour the “soft.” Such bias leads economic research to ignore important topics and problems that are difficult to approach in a “hard” way— thereby resulting in “sins of omission.” This paper argues for reexamination of current institutions for publication and promotion in economics—as it also argues for greatly increased tolerance in norms for publication and promotion as one way of alleviating narrow methodological biases.”

Read it here.