Sociology of Economics

Interesting post today on Greg Mankiw's blog, "The Sociology of Economics."

"The economists are the only social scientists in the room who are willing to argue with the statisticians. This could be that you are a more argumentative lot in the absence of substance, but also that you know something. I'm not qualified to tell who wins these disputes, but the statisticians seem to regard the economists with a high degree of regard. Why do you think that different disciplines view the importance of statistics differently?"

MP: In my economics doctoral program at George Mason I had 4 classes in PhD-level statistics and one course in mathematical economics, and George Mason is relatively "non-mathematical." Therefore, I think most economists today get rigorous training in statistics, compared to sociology and other social sciences.

Exhibit A: In a previous post I wrote about why Larry Summers was fired from Harvard for saying something rather sensible and non-controversial from a statistics standpoint. Perhaps the lack of training in statistics in social sciences and other disciplines contributed to Summers' downfall.