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do elaborate, fren
Mathematical rigor is what attracted me to economics, and it actually unlocked a better understanding for me. Narrative explanations never helped me understand, because I'd always think, "what if...". The mathematical rigor lets me posit the "what if" question as a formal question regarding the modeling or econometric assumptions.
Yet, I can see the damage that this "physics envy" is doing to the profession. The most corrosive part is how it shapes the incentives of aspiring economists. Rather than shooting for big or interesting questions, economists now focus more narrowly on well-identified natural or controlled experiments.
The profession is becoming more boring as a result. I wouldn't want to say less relevant, because the rigorous empirical reasoning is very relevant for private sector employers, litigation consulting, and to some extent policy debate. But it's getting more boring and I am not that interested in pursuing that kind of research.
This is why I loved reading Arrow, which is what inspired me to pursue economics.
Physics envy, rather than mathematization, is the issue because the profession has been trying to jam economic theory into the wrong kind of math.
There’s plenty of rigorous work that can be done with set theory and abstract functional analysis that doesn’t abandon the foundational principles of economics.
sounds good, I'm looking forward to hearing about it!
on a very related flavor of that topic:
The peer-review system rewards him for the second skill and ignores the first. By the time he has been promoted to full professor, he has been selected almost entirely for skill at intramural academic politics and almost not at all for skill at predicting the future of anything.
I have a complicated relationship with this topic