Thread by @DinaPomeranz

@ingridharvold Dear @ingridharvold and @AndrewM_Fischer,

Many thanks for your patience with my response. It has been a particularly busy week, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond a few days later when I have again a window with a bit of uninterrupted time.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer Let me first respond to your interesting points & add a few additional considerations of my own.

You both mention the lack of other theories taken into account. Andrew even states that "the work of the prize winners represents the culmination of this evolution of mono econ"

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer I had a couple of thoughts on this issue. First, I agree with you that science benefits when different viewpoints are taken into account.

It surprises me, however, that the current Nobel winners or the methods or randomized field studies are singled out particularly on this.
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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer If anything, across all fields of economics, the type of research that the current winners focused on is probably one of the sub-areas of economics that has most taken into accounts other perspectives and approaches.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer This goes beyond other academic disciplines as I mentioned in my previous thread & also includes deep immersion by many of the researchers in the environments they study (in my case I spent over a year in total in Chile), a lot of qualitative work prior to or in parallel...

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer ...with quantitative analysis, iterative processes in dialogue with governments, NGOs or businesses, etc.

This is not to say that surely development economics also has many blind spots.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer But it it continues to puzzle me that the sub-disciplines within econ that are most open seem to get criticized the most for not being open. At least I haven't seen as many critical takes on most of the other Nobel wins of previous years.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer That said, as I mentioned, surely development economics, as most disciplines, surely also has blind spots. The question then arises for me as to what approaches might be the most effective in generating more openings towards such other theories or ways of learning.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer 3 things spontaneously come to mind

1) We need more & more constructive dialogue. Mainstream econ has evolved *a ton* over recent decades & has the potential to continuously evolve. I am hopeful that constructive exchange of ideas has the potential for positive disruption.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer 2) My sense is that mutual acknowledgement could improve in many directions. Ingrid, you linked to an article that you said would unfortunately never be published in a mainstream journal.

I looked at it on the website (unfortunately, I don't have access to...

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer ...the full version from where I am at the moment).

If I read the references listed online correctly, that article in turn does not cite any papers published in leading mainstream economics journals. (Of course I don't know how representative this is.)

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer 3) This point that Andrew makes seems helpful:

https://twitter.com/AndrewM_Fischer/status/1187304456708329472

My sense separating the critiques of the methods of randomizing (or of field work by foreigners) from the critique of the theory is helpful to clarify the discussions.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer There are some valid critiques of the former & some valid critiques of the latter. Sometimes they are intimately intertwined, but often they are not.

My sense is that when we discuss them separately where possible, it will help people better understand the concerns & ...

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer ...thereby lead to more fruitful discussions.

This leads me to the point on methodology that each of you raise. @andrew, you bring up the topic of causal inference, and the focus of empirical mainstream economics on causal inference in recent years.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew The value of causal inference has certainly been hotly debated within mainstream econ as well. For methodological discussions, it is very helpful to separate - as you do - critique of the focus on causal inference in general, from critique of randomized trials in particular.
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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew While the debate on these issues has many aspects, I'd just like to respond to two points you are making in this regard.

First, you mention "the holy grail of causal inference [...] which positivist methods can never really down in any case".

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew While it is of course true, that there is no such thing as 100% certainty in the context of inference, I don't think this needs to lead us to a nihilistic few in that any type of causal inference is equally (in)valid.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew We can certainly all think of research designs that are more likely to be reflective of reality than others

In my view, it's a valid concern that *insofar* as we aim to ascertain cause & effect of something, it's worthwhile to aim for methods least likely to get it wrong

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew Second, you mention that I made a "denigration of complex inductive analysis as simply ‘descriptive’".

I certainly did not intend the term 'descriptive' in a denigrating way! That's why I mentioned Raj Chetty, one of the most celebrated mainstream econs of our generation.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew Another important methodological aspect that Ingrid brings up is that of external validity. I certainly share the concern that this is important. And so do the Nobel laureates. And it is certainly an area that is an important focus of today's frontier mainstream econ work.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew One of the aspect of this discussion that is not entirely clear to me is the following: which methods are you thinking about, that provide in your opinion valuable evidence, and that do not have an external validity problem? It seems to me this is a general challenge.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew Next, I want to turn to two points where we seem to agree, but where we seem to draw different conclusions as a result.

Andrew, you mention that the Washington Consensus was largely ideologically driven with little empirical evidence.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew You seem doubtful, however, that having more robust empirical evidence can make a difference in the face of such ideological/non-empirical assertions. This may indeed be a point where we disagree. My sense is that recent empirical results have overturned a lot of common...

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew ...conceptions of mainstream econ. As an example, I would cite the minimum wage work by @arindube and others, or a number of papers mentioned in this op-ed by Duflo and Banerjee in yesterday's NYT, e.g. on welfare and on incentives: nytimes.com/2019/10/26/opi…

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew oops, tagged wrong Andrew! sincere apologies!

@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube The other point where we seem to agree but draw somewhat different conclusions is the focus of mainstream econ on a particular set of methods. I agree indeed that this is the case to a significant degree.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube Even though there are a number of quite different methods (theoretical models, structural estimation, survey evidence, lab experiments, archival work, field work, deep descriptive work, causal inference, etc) & mainstream econ seems less monolithic than couple of decades ago
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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube For those who observe mainstream econ & find that there are glaring gaps in methodological approaches, there seem to be two (both valid) avenues:

Develop these additional methodological approaches in separate journals or communities, or aim to change the mainstream canon.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube a) Develop these missing methodological perspectives in separate journals, social science disciplines, or academic communities.

or

b) Take the fact that new methods have been added to the econ "toolbox" as motivation to further add the missing methods to that toolbox.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube As I said, a) seems an absolutely valid approach to me.

Insofar as b) is the goal, in very practical terms, it might be worth it to see how proponents of methods that have recently become more broadly accepted in economics achieved that goal.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube (If this is of interest, we could consider convening a meeting with people who have "disrupted" some of mainstream econ's tenants before, to learn more about what worked for them.)

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube The final point of yours that I want to respond to is my use of "personal experience". I say that to convey that this only reflects my reading of the literature and my participation in the mainstream econ community.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube My personal reading of any situation depends, as you say, on the training I had, and the interactions I had. These are many papers read, and many interactions (dozens of conferences and hundreds of seminars), but I acknowledge that someone else could have different...

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube ...readings of both the literature and the interactions, or could reach different conclusions because they read different parts of the literature or attended different conferences. The statements are not based on a representative survey of development economists.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube Ah, one more response on your points: the use of "poverty" vs "development".

It was interesting to hear that you regret the use of "poverty" & prefer a focus on "development". Other critiques of mainstream econ have criticized the term "development" as problematic.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube I can see where you are coming from, but also understand that the world "development" has many problematic connotations.

Ok, finally, I'd like to add a couple of additional points.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube First, on the focus on specific policy or programmatic questions in development economics, rather than fundamental structural considerations. It may well be that economics could benefit from more of the latter. At the same time, there is also a concrete need of current...

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube ...governments, organizations and institutions to make concrete decisions in the short and medium term. Should we raise the minimum wage or not? Will welfare payments lead to dependency or help people climb out of poverty? What measure should we take to curb tax evasion?

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube I work a lot with governmental institutions. If they would like to learn about this type of concrete questions (which often affect millions of citizens), it seems to me a valuable contribution to study together with them, which solutions might be most effective.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube Which leads me to my final point: my sense is that these discussions could benefit a lot from less "no, wrong!", and more "yes, and!". From all sides involved. We have a lot to learn from each other.

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube In this regard, I liked the following conclusion by @sebacampanario from Argentina:

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @andrew @arindube @sebacampanario "After all, for the current systematic crisis of the planet, neither the econ of 'big questions' is sufficient, nor that of 'small' questions, nor that of 'middle' ones. Simply no discipline is sufficient on its own."
(my translation)

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@ingridharvold @AndrewM_Fischer @sebacampanario Ok, I've now broken again my record of longest Twitter thread.

Thank you so much for providing the opportunity to engage!

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