at any point in time, the most overrated economists are the most highly rated young empirical economists at the top schools.
He says this is because empirical results do not hold up terribly well, and because what matters in empirical work is the overall body of work done by the profession, not so much the contributions of particular individuals.
I think that economists in policy-hot fields tend to be over-rated. Macro is one example. Health care is another. When I think of Jonathan Gruber or David Cutler, what comes to mind are their policy opinions, rather than any research discoveries. They are rated highly by economists who think that Gruber and Cutler know how to fix the health care system. Given that I do not believe this to be the case, I have to view them as dangerously over-rated.
I think that the fields of economic history and financial institutions are under-rated. Doug Diamond is known for his paper with Dybvig, but he has done other stuff that I like that has not received as much attention. Consequently, I think of him as under-rated. Gregory Clark may be under-rated. In my macro memoir, I end up saying that if I had it to do over again, I would pursue economic history and financial institutions as fields, rather than macro.
Many years ago Dick Startz wrote advice to economists on the job market. He said that the quality of professors at lower-institutions tends to be higher than you probably expect. Given that observation, it would be easier to find under-rated economists at lower-tier institutions and easier to find over-rated economists at top-tier institutions.
This may all be true, but so what? I want to know which economist are *good* and which fields are *important*. Over- vs. under-rated is a second-order consideration, if it matters much at all. And “higher than you probably expect”? That tells me more about expectations than the quality of researchers.
If I want to “show” that I can increase test scores, for instance, I will give a diagnostic, “treat” those who score below average, and let regression to the mean do its magic. The low-scoring students are more likely to be over-rated, but also more likely to be low performers.
In general I’d say the guys whose academic credentials are used to legitimize their opinions on topics unrelated to what got them their credentials in the first place.
Ie, most pundits.
I like the implication that only some economists are empiricists.
I think what is referred to is the bizarre thing almost unique to economics where people make a virtue of just massaging data.
“When I think of Jonathan Gruber or David Cutler, what comes to mind are their policy opinions, rather than any research discoveries.”
That seems more like a reflection on your knowledge of their work, not how ‘overrated’ they might be.
It seems wrong then. I don’t know much, but all I know is what is brought up in the public debate and I don’t know what Arnold knows but he must be talking about why those names keep popping up in the public debate, a la Krueger. They keep popping up because their work is used to forward a certain agenda.
There is almost no way that an economist that becomes a household name could be under-rated. And if you aren’t under-rated, chances are you are not exactly perfectly properly rated.
Is Goodman as much of a household name as those? And I’m trying to think of the other one, but I can’t even remember his name.
Of course, a large group of people will say “well, that’s because those guys are wrong!” and I say QED!
I am familiar with some of their work. To which discoveries are you referring?