Interesting Econometrics Topics?

[Tom Lehman]

The simple fact of the matter is that most people don't have enough time to sit
down and spend hours following and pondering the math used in most journal
articles. It's just wonderful for a small number of specialists.  The question
is just how long will the general public pay for symbolic analysis.  In Ohio
it's getting harder and harder to get a school tax levy passed---me I'd rather
slash and burn the symbolic hindsteiners---than cheat deserving 6th graders.

On an another level.  If you do devote the time to trying to follow the
mathematical arguments being made by a journal author, even an author whose
topic interests you.  Often you come to the conclusion that you have just
witnessed the re-invention of the wheel.  This is really frustrating.

Your email pal,

Tom L.

Doug Henwood wrote:


> John DiNardo wrote:
>
> >       The Journal of Economic Perspectives (from the American Economic
> >Association) is considering a symposium on recent developments in
> >econometrics. Part of my job is to get input from a subset of
> >*non--econometricians* on topics that they might actively choose to read
> >about if published in the JEP. That is, this is not intended to be
> >interesting to *econometricians* -- it is intended to be interesting and
> >accessible to JEP readers.
>
> Yeah, I'd like to see some consideration of the actual achievements of
> 'metrics. What has it told us that other approaches couldn't? Is there such
> a thing as definitive proof in the field, or do researchers end up just
> proving what they "knew" from the outset?
>
> Doug