In economics, editors, referees, and authors often behave as if a published paper should reflect some kind of authoritative consensus.
As a result, valuable debate happens in secret, and the resulting paper is an opaque compromise with anonymous co-authors called referees.
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As a result, valuable debate happens in secret, and the resulting paper is an opaque compromise with anonymous co-authors called referees.
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Comments
But journals have dropped notes and replies in favor of longer papers — probably due to impact factor pressures
The scientific process requires debate. If the public can’t see good criticism, they’re vulnerable to bad criticism.
CS has fewer landmark papers or individual papers that get their authors a huge amount of credit, but works faster and more collaboratively
Cc @jasonhartline.bsky.social
There are groundbreaking CS conference papers.
In econ, you need to be known and invited to seminars to get early feedback.
It feels like doing so would be breaking some rule, but would it?
Would this be a good thing
Still not standard but I think someone would be hard-pressed to describe it as inappropriate.
“..come from not debating and just…”
A great deal of exchange of ideas and responses occurs in letters to the editor, in comments from a conference audience, or in direct and indirect communications with the author.
Just look at the long list of "alternative truthers" that wanted to debate scientists on vaccines in recent history, to see what happens now.
Purpose of academic economists seems to be to publish papers in economics journals
Hence why they are largely unable to get grants
It fails to explain why engineering departments are able to get huge grants to do social science (econ/cs) producing work of lower quality and with less policy impact than good economics papers.
The real reason is Congress:
Look at latest AER why would anyone care?
https://www.aeaweb.org/issues/785
Why in most other fields is turnaround rapid? Mostly because the results matter as they impact the world and in economics they don’t
How does it help the woman on the Mile End Road omnibus?
I do get there are lots of Econ undergrads tho
(pp. 38–92) in JPE (Feb 1989)
Academics is the only profession where your competitors decide whether you get published or funded. What a racket.
Einstein and Rosen later revisited their paper, acknowledging they had made a mistake as pointed out by the referee.
Relatedly, the only people who know the interesting debates are people who get the backstory privately from insiders.
This arrangement favors the better connected.
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So people don't do it even when they feel published papers are wrong or misleading.
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(and you certainly wouldn't know about these professional class norms from watching the presentation of a typical finance discussant.)
But agree with you on the trend!
subfields (and probably corporate cultures vary as well). I’d think forceful disagreement is certainly a claim to high status, sort of like wearing workout clothes to work? But maybe I haven’t seen the good corporate cultures
Allows the paper itself to be an authoritative artifact while lifting the curtain on the debate that led its creation.
(quoting @dholtz.bsky.social )
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See our output at https://Unjournal.pubpub.org.
But it would be better to change formal practices and norms so we don't have to rely on these heroes.
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Those are the ones for which the consensus process works best and tends to converge.
A real loss for innovation.
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