How the (Econometric) Sausage is Made

There is great value in reading old papers. No, not ones I wrote as a young prof, although I am friggin' old. I mean really old papers. Unfortunately, only a select few have the time and capacity to read such papers... mainly those doing a 2.5 year post doc if you believe Twitter.  While I never did a post doc, I found myself going down a bit of rabbit hole a little while back while editing my lecture notes for the coming year. I read the paper, " Measurement Without Theory ," by Tjalling C. Koopmans, THE REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STATISTICS , 1947. [Note: Not a typo. Apparently the journal name was later changed to  THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS .]  Honestly, I was anticipating a paper on measurement error. Instead, I found something that -- building off my last post -- is another aspect of modern applied economic research that distresses me. In fact, it's kind of a two birds, one stone kinda thing as it also relates to that last post as well.  Koopmans is ultim

My previous post entitled " The Great Divide " has generated a lot of engagement on Twitter and some on Blue Sky. I am very humbled by that. I am humbled that people read any of my blog posts. There has been some push back, some wholehearted agreement, and perhaps some muting of which I am not aware. Nonetheless, given the feedback, I thought I would continue the discussion and (maybe) better frame my thoughts.  Most of the (vocalized) pushback has centered on the steps taken by theorists, particularly since the Credibility Revolution started, to be relevant. Many theorists are attuned to various degrees to applied work. Some theory journals as well as pointed out by  Jaap Abbring, the current managing editor of Econometrics Journal , which describes itself as follows on its website: This is great. Many theory papers are indeed motivated by concrete examples, contain running examples, and may even include an application. Publicly provided code is not uncommon either. I think

I applaud the fact that the American Economic Association, the European Economic Association, the Econometric Society, and the Royal Economic Society have established an ad-hoc joint committee tasked with proposing ways to improve the publication process in economics. I encourage everyone to fill out the survey  (limited to members of the AEA, EEA, ES, and RES, however) even though I am quite cynical about what may come of it. Although only tangentially related, I decided to write a post about a topic that vexes me (and others to whom I have spoken, but I will leave it to them to out themselves) at the intersection of the Venn diagram containing publishing (editing and refereeing), teaching, and econometrics.   What lies at this intersection is the great divide between theoretical and applied econometrics, both in the classroom and in the wild.  As I have progressed in my career, I have enjoyed writing more econometrics papers and fewer economics papers per se . However, when