I sent the excepted blog post to a friend. I think that we must never discount how much we could contribute to research. We must not think of ourselves us unfit to comment, unfit to dream. Hope the friend gets wat i’m tring to say.
Backstory: I’ve been telling this friend to write, she has a lot of interest in economics, and almost had a double major economics and stat. She has this mistaken sense that she doesn’t have the pre requisite eminence to comment on the issues she has an interest in. I told her to just write. Eminence be damned.
At a time when technical prowess and fancy techniques are increasingly fancied in this profession, Brian gives hope to all the budding economists out there who have great ideas, common sense, and the patience to do careful empirical research. His papers are not very technical or complicated; they just find credible answers to questions that people care about.
Brian Jacob Takes Home the David Kershaw Prize – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.