What would Adam Smith do for a living nowadays? It seems an odd question to ask about the person some refer to as the father of economics. However, two researchers at the University of Texas, Daniel Sutter and Rex Pjesky, argue that Smith would not have been able to find work in modern economics as his approach was mainly non-quantitative; his method relied on prose and not maths. Indeed, some Nobel Prize winners in Economics have won the award with little or no quantitative analysis such as Gunnar Myrdal, Friedrich Hayek, Ronald Coase, Thomas Schelling, and James Buchanan. However, in their survey of recent publications in economics journals, the UT authors find that few papers are free from quantitative analysis.It begs the question, "Is economics about econometrics?" I always like to think that concepts that cannot be explained to reasonably diligent undergraduates are perhaps not worth explaining. Similarly, some economists may hide a lack of anything meaningful to say behind a wall of Greek symbols. Though I am by no means a quant jock, I am not totally bereft of technical chops, either. All I'd ask, and this may be a long shot, is for explanations to be equally accessible in maths or prose. Though I do not always agree with him, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times is one fellow who writes about economics in a very accessible way, Then again, I'm a political economist and not an economist; in my discipline, methodological diversity is tolerated if not encouraged. Of course, I would argue that Smith is more of a political economist than an economist with his use of different analytical lenses, though I suspect most mainstream economists would demur. In any event, do read this brief paper if you're interested in it. The abstract is below:
Using papers published in 2003 and 2004, we measure the extent of math-free research in top economics journals. Of more than 1200 papers published in ten top journals, six percent met a weak criterion of math-free, three percent an intermediate criterion, and only 1.5 percent a strong criterion. General interest journals published more math-free papers than field journals. If Adam Smith were alive today, to survive he would in all likelihood need to learn math. His extensive mastery of history, ethics, and rhetoric would ill-serve his career.
