Economist Writing Everyday

That’s a blog I came across thanks to MR, and if you’re a student learning about economics, this is very much the kind of blog you should be reading.

Why?

1. Updated regularly, which should serve as inspiration
2. Written in an easy, conversational style (ditto)
3. A lot of interesting blogposts that serve to help you think through concepts you may have learnt recently (students who’ve just embarked on macro might like reading this post, for example)
4. And a meta point that I’m going to spend the rest of this blog post on, so please continue below the fold 🙂

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One post that Tyler Cowen himself linked to in his post on MR was this one, about academic publishing:

There are a lot more people writing academic journal articles.
There is a lot more well-executed economic research.
The teams of co-authors on papers/projects have become much larger.
The number of journals whose prestige is commensurate with a tenured position at an elite school has grown slower than the total faculty employed by elite schools.
Economics research has become more expensive and labor intensive.

https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2021/05/31/academic-publishing-how-i-think-we-got-here/

1. I’ll get to my thoughts about this in just a bit, but I want to spend a little bit of time in helping you learn how to draw parallels.
   1. Those points noted above, they work just as well if you replace journals with universities, and faculty with applicants.
   2. Further reading, if you’re now suddenly interested in the topic. Also ask yourself if your answer changes depending upon whether you’re in Harvard or not (or have been published in a top-tier journal or not – same thing, for the purposes of this post)
   3. “Where else can this be applied?” is a question that should be front and center when you’re learning a new concept is the larger point I want to make.
   4. So when you learn about the pyramid in publishing, ask if it can be applied to the world of student applications. To, say, the IPL. To, say, becoming a “top lawyer”, or a “top doctor”…. you get the drift.
2. The rest of the post is a wonderful explanation of how to build a simple model to help you arrive at the equilibrium. More people should learn this skill, and more universities should teach this skill!
3. The author’s conclusion? More papers should be published by top journals, which is tantamount to saying more students should be accepted by Harvard. Who is right? Mike Makowsky or Tyler Cowen? Why? If your answer is both, what makes student applications different from paper submissions? What a wonderful set of questions to think about!
4. This blog (not just the blogpost, the blog) gets better from here on in because they’ve published a follow-up post on this topic!
   1. It’s written in “yes, and” style, rather than a “no, but” style, which is a lovely thing to see
   2. It asks this question: “As an academician, what are you optimizing for?” And employing the concept of division of labor, Jeremy Horpedahl argues that if you’re the kind of academician who likes to teach, maybe it’s ok to not be published in a top 5 journal. If you’re the kind of academician who likes to research, on the other hand…
   3. Homework: how does this work in the case of student applications?
5. And all this from just two posts on the blog! I’ve subscribed, of course, and I would strongly recommend you to do the same.
6. I’m going to be a little greedy, and give one final recommendation. This post on Identifying Ideas That Motivate You is great reading for young would-be researchers.