Economists Are Primarily Writers of Econ Essays
Many economists falsely think of themselves as scientists who just “write up” research. We are not; we are primarily writers. Economics and finance papers are essays. Most good economists spend at least 50% of the time they put into any project on writing. For me, it’s more like 80%.
From the main conclusion in "Writing Tips for Ph. D. Students," by economist and professor of finance John H. Cochrane, Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago
Several other tips from Professor Cochrane:
Figure out the one central and novel contribution of your paper. Write this down in one paragraph. As with all your writing, this must be concrete.
Distilling your one central contribution will take some thought. It will cause some pain, because you will start to realize how much you’re going to have to throw out. Once you do it, though, you’re in a much better position to focus the paper on that one contribution, and help readers to get it quickly.
Your readers are busy and impatient. No reader will ever read the whole thing from start to finish. Readers skim. You have to make it easy for them to skim. Most readers want to know your basic result. Only a few care how it is different from others. Only a few care if it holds up with different variable definitions, different instrument sets, etc.
A good paper is not a travelogue of your search process. We don’t care how you came to figure out the right answer. We don’t care about the hundreds of things you tried that did not work. Save it for your memoirs.
7 Comments:
Dr. Perry, I daily check your blog. No, I am not a financial wizard, but simply a person who is trying to live off a IRA that my spouse and I did without to contribute to for years. Now, I see that all that effort on our part (the cancelled vacations, saying in the same home, remodeling, not buying bigger, maintaining our vehicles instead of buying new ones) going down the tube as our investments loose value.
I am angry that we will now be responsible for bailing out those who did not do the same. After all those years of scriming and saving for our retirement years, we will also be on the hook for those who did not.
Perhaps this nation should go back to the mortgage standards that were in play when I bought my first home almost 40 years ago:
20% down
montly payment could not exceed one week's take home pay
no variable interest rates but a fixed rate
no 40 year mortgages, 20 year limit
And one other thing: both my husband and I worked. My salary was not considered in the financial statement. We were a young couple just starting to raise a family and the bank that gave us our mortgate did not use but one income (the husband's) as women often would quit work to stay home and raise the children. For us, this rule wound up being a God's send as my husband worked for a auto maker and he went on strike just three months after we closed on our home. Had our house payment been determined on both salaries, we would have lost it within the first year.
We have build an economy based on the housing market and a house of cards. The Community Reinvestment Act was the bottom card and now that card has been pulled out from underneath and everything is tumbling down around it.
We must become a nation that rewards hard work and prudence in personal finance. Instead, we have become a nation that rewards irresponsible behavior and we label those individuals "victims". They are victims of their own decisions.
I am so very, very angry.
Isn't it interesting that advocated here is writing in a style that attempts to quickly, and completely convince the reader that the author's personal conclusions are indeed the definitive answer to the central question/thesis?
Economics, last I checked, last least professed to be a science. And yet:
..Only a few care how it is different from others. Only a few care if it holds up with different variable definitions, different instrument sets, etc...We don’t care how you came to figure out the right answer. We don’t care about the hundreds of things you tried that did not work.
I see... So as long as you're persuaded, no amount of incorrect data, counter-examples, mathematical errors, etc will change your mind? And you don't care to validate how someone arrived at their conclusions, to see if it holds water?
I appreciate brevity and clarity as much as anyone, but these sound more like instructions for writing a WSJ column than anything worthy of academic consumption or having scientific rigor.
anon@10:14 said: Instead, we have become a nation that rewards irresponsible behavior and we label those individuals "victims". They are victims of their own decisions.
Every transaction has two sides. What do you say about the bank that originated a loan to someone without ever even asking them how much they made, or if they even had a job, before they gave them a long? Did they not share equally with the borrow in the risk of the transaction, particularly if the underlying asset decreased in value? (hint: they did).
You can be angry, but it should not be just at those individuals. In terms of specifically sub-prime lending, it should also be at the combination of underwriting, credit-enhancement, and derivatives done largely by private companies, not the GSE's as much.
To "anonymous" that responded to me. Do I blame the mortgate houses that gave these loans? No, not as much as I blame those responsible for the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks wanting to keep their ratings, to give those loans.
How many of those loans were shoved through by organizations like ACORN? How many applications were lied on? It is not my responsiblity, or anyone else's for that matter, to protect you from yourself. If I am a used car saleman, and I show you that the car has no engine and you buy it anyway, whose at fault? Me for making a buck off your stupidity or you for being stupid?
You can blame the banks and the mortgate companies all you want, but without people who were willing to get into water that was over their head, those loans would have never been made in the first place.
This crisis is just another example that liberal social engineering doesn't work, for anybody.
"If I am a used car saleman, and I show you that the car has no engine and you buy it anyway, whose at fault? Me for making a buck off your stupidity or you for being stupid?"
You (the salesman), IF you loaned me the money to buy said car and expected that if I defaulted, you could recover it as collateral. Think about it, ever after Mr.Stupid-Buyer defaults, who's left holding the inventory (which you have described yourself as essentially worthless)?
Milton Friedman:
"I have found, over a long time, that some people are natural economists. They don't take a course, but they understand--the principles seem obvious to them. Other people may have Ph.D.s in economics, but they're not economists. They don't think like an economist. Strange, but true."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008690
Most of my day is spent writing Stata do-files. Ugh.
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