Social scientists and policy analysts often work with numbers. But for the rest of humanity (including voters, for example), this number may not mean much. Ed Riemer is a well-known econometrician, and above all he knows how quantitative games are played. A long time ago, in 1983, there was this now classic article: „Let's eliminate the shortcomings of econometrics“ What he was pointing out was that if you split a data set into sufficiently discrete parts and apply a sufficiently diverse range of statistical effects to each part, you'll almost always get results that confirm your biases and preferences. That's it.
To discuss how economists are trying to meet this challenge, the following starting points are helpful. A four-paper symposium on “Removing Fraud from Economics” in the Spring 2010 issue. Economic Outlook Journal (I work as Editor-in-Chief), which includes articles from Leamer.
I would like to point out one thing here. Mr. Riemer's comments in a book review scheduled to be published in economic literature journal. The book is The unequal impact of globalization, co-authored by Pinelopi Kouzianou Goldberg and Greg Larson, but Riemer's points apply more broadly. he writes:
After many years of teaching econometric theory at the doctoral level, I switched to „turning numbers into knowledge“ and strived to leave behind three words: pictures, stories, and numbers, and that humans are best at processing images. , emphasized that it is good at image processing. There are stories, but no one really understands the numbers. When I came to academia, economists' opinions on globalization were almost 100 percent story-based. Mathematics is used to „prove“ that free trade is the best option for a country, and the term „Pareto efficiency“ is used to explain the neglect of income redistribution as trade barriers rise or fall. it was done. Numerical evidence became more prevalent in international economics in the 1990s.
Mr. Leamer's comment resonated with me for several reasons. One is his casual equation of economics, which is based on mathematical proofs, with „storytelling.“ I sometimes hear comments like the following from economists: „If you don't do the calculations, it's just a story.'' I agree with that statement, but I also add, „If you don't do the calculations, it's just a story.'' The intellectual activity of economics as a social science occurs when insights from mathematical theory, statistics, and logic have to be fused with knowledge about markets, people, history, law, organizations, and social structures.
Additionally, Mr. Riemer's explanation of economic persuasion matches some of what I often do on this blog. That means telling a „conversational“ story and including some graphs with your photos. I sometimes provide a quick sketch of how a particular estimate or number was calculated. Nothing written here should be taken as discouraging social science researchers who have used sophisticated methods to produce more reliable statistical estimates. But yes, my feeling is that what people „know“ is determined by images and stories. This has implications for how economics research is best communicated to people outside the seminar room.