The first paper is by Haynes Goddard. It’s called Promoting Intellectual Honesty in Higher Education: Addressing Cognitive Biases, Political Discourse, and Court Decisions, and it follows up on a discussion we had in this space in 2021. Back then, lots of people were stuck at home with nothing better to do than read blogs, so that little post got 96 comments.
Goddard sent me this paper and asked if I had any idea where it could be published.
My take on this article is that it would be perfect for a hypothetical journal of economics or social science criticism. There’s an existing journal, Econ Journal Watch, and I’m on its editorial board, but Goddard’s article wouldn’t quite fit there, partly because its political orientation doesn’t match that of the journal and partly because Econ Journal Watch focuses on critiques of particular papers in the field rather than critiques of the larger ideology.
And this made me think of another paper that would fit well in the hypothetical journal, Economics Criticism. It’s a paper I recently wrote, When fiction is presented as real: The case of the burly boatmen, which begins:
From Adam Smith’s pin factory and Rousseau’s state of nature onward, parables—openly fictional or speculative stories constructed to dramatize a theoretical point—have been central to economics and other social sciences. Sometimes, though, a parable can escape its cage and be presented as a real event that happened in the wild, in which case what was originally intended as an explanation can be presented as empirical evidence.
Attributing fiction as fact is dangerous for two reasons. First, we can fool ourselves and others into thinking the evidence for a proposition is stronger than it actually is. Second, stories are not elaborated at random; when they are altered in the retelling it is natural for authors to modify their details in ways that fit the theories they want to prove. This is fine when a parable is presented as such; the problem arises when the story’s original foundation and later trajectory are obscured, leading authors and readers to think of it as empirical confirmation.
This is a story of how a particular story spread and mutate across the economics literature over several decades, becoming more fictional at each step while being presented more and more as factual. It should be a warning to authors and readers of research papers to beware of stories that fit a theory all too well and to check through the trail of references before retelling–or, worse, elaborating upon–stories that are presented as real.
The two papers are related in some way.
I don’t agree with everything in Goddard’s paper, and I don’t expect all of you to agree with everything in mine. That’s ok–the point is not to enforce universal agreement, indeed, a key point of both papers is to warn against ideological conformity.
Unfortunately the journal Economics Criticism does not exist. If any of you have suggestions of where Goddard and I can publish our papers, please let me know. Extra points if it’s a journal where I’ve not yet published.
I found the Goddard paper unconvincing. Neither of the 2 lead examples make much sense to me. First, the 9/11 security failures don’t seem like an example of a public goods failure – it was a risk that was not foreseen. Once it happened, there was a public goods response (regardless of whether or not it was the appropriate or best response). The idea of privatizing air safety is something I used to use in my principles of economics courses (50 years ago) – stimulating a conversation about whether air safety needed to be a government service or whether market forces alone would provide safety – and I would give the extreme argument that possibly private provision of air safety would result in “too much” safety rather than “too little” (no airline would want to experience an accident if safety were their responsibility rather than subject to uniform FAA requirements). Issues like this are commonly used in economics courses to stimulate thinking about why and when government “interference” in markets might be justified. Of course, neoclassical economists come into such issues with a prior belief that markets know best and the burden of proof for government policy lies with those advocating for active policies (more on this below).
The second example is of benefit-cost analysis being ignored by a “dishonest” analysis by an economist suggesting that giving people cars instead of building mass transit would be a cheaper solution to a traffic congestion problem. I don’t find this a compelling example of “dishonesty” as much as a provocative counterexample to the author’s analysis. I can agree that the author’s analysis was “better” than the counterexample, but this is far from a rare case shoddy analysis done on behalf of a client. I could list dozens of such examples from my own experience.
That brings me to the more important point raised by Goddard: cognitive biases. These are important and any good course in quantitative analysis of business or policy should contain this subject. And, I think they usually do. The example of a judge relying on a poor study because it matched a preconceived idea is not a good example of a cognitive bias. I think cognitive bias is most relevant when decisions are made that would be improved if these psychological processes were not present. I don’t think the judge suffered from a cognitive bias as much as a plain old “bias.” Their decision was what they wanted, and they found an “expert” to provide support for that. Hardly stuff that requires a course on psychological neuroscience.
Which brings me to the point (I think) of this post. Where can a manuscript questioning economic orthodoxy be published? There are a few such journals (in most fields, there will be “few” by definition), but the Goddard piece does not seem suited for them. But I think that is because it isn’t really attacking the orthodox subject matter as much as the practice of professional economists. Like many analysts, especially those with contracts to pay them for analyses, they are prone to selectively use facts and methodologies to promote a particular view and discount alternatives. I think this is appropriate for an op ed, not a professional journal. There are certainly subjects worthy of critique of economic orthodoxy – I think utility theory, the relevance of distribution of benefits and costs, valuation of non-marketed services and things, are all areas worthy of publication. These are areas where ideological conformity is dangerous.
The tendency of people to disregard facts and find “evidence” to bolster their beliefs is certainly important (more than ever I think). But a class on psychological neuroscience is not the solution. My preferred solution is for there to be more team teaching, preferably with instructors from different disciplines. Orthodoxy crumbles in such an environment – more than I believe happens through “general university requirements.”
Andrew’s analysis of the burly boatmen strikes me as a different matter. There is a focus on academic honesty which is important. I don’t have a recommendation for where it might be published, but I think it is worthy. The burly boatmen case seems like a deliberate attempt to portray a story as something it is not, while purporting to show something that might never have happened (hiring someone to whip themselves to work harder and reduce shirking) as an example of economic principles at work. I don’t see Goddard’s paper as an attack on a subject’s orthodoxy, as much as examples where professionals are willing to selectively apply evidence that supports their case. Dishonesty is a common element in both, but I find the similarities end there.
nature human behavior
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/aims
quantity and quality
https://link.springer.com/journal/11135
economics and philosophy
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy
It seems like these types of articles are better suited for journals that focus on the Philosophy of Social Sciences or perhaps journals that focus on Higher Education
I guess I have no choice but to respond, since this issue has been an important part of my life for over 40 years. The short version is that economics makes *lots* of assumptions in order to organize its theory and analysis, and rarely are they acknowledged, much less debated. My particular take is that all initial framing choices have pluses and minuses, and knowing what questions they are poorly equipped to answer is primary. Know your tools. Unfortunately, there’s no outlet for writing that does this. Econ and Phil, maybe, although you have to know quite a bit of philosophy to publish there, and that’s not where I’m coming from.
I’ve submitted a few pieces over the years to econ journals, mainstream and hetero, and have mostly been met with something bordering on incredulity. Seriously. I can give examples but won’t bore readers. One recent tack is to write short posts that each describe one such framing assumption and just put them out there. For an example involving “choice”, see https://open.substack.com/pub/peterdorman/p/economics-choosing-and-doing?r=b8ew&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
BTW, one possible strategy is history of thought, although (a) you have to spend time going into the exact circumstances in which particular assumptions were introduced, and (b) your audience will be specialized and rather limited.
I wonder what venues exist in other disciplines for this sort of conversation. I get the impression from this blog and the references I see in it that it’s been a constant in statistics, even if mainstream practice hasn’t always taken note.
Your Cargo Cult paper is almost simultaneous with this thorough (36 references!) blog post by Ken Shiriff: https://www.righto.com/2025/01/its-time-to-abandon-cargo-cult-metaphor.html
Cultwatcher:
Wow–if we’d known, we would’ve cited it!
Genuine question, why do you ask for a journal you never published in? Are you sort of collecting journals?
Anon:
The main reason is that I want to reach new audiences, people who wouldn’t otherwise read my stuff. More people read this blog than will read most journals, but my readers are already reading the blog–I want to reach other people.
Also, yeah, just for fun, I’m trying to hit 200 journals.
Have you tried the Journal of Economic Perspectives?
Jason:
That would be the ideal outlet for me. But would they publish an article that’s only 4 pages long?
Goddard’s paper is a great example of attacking supposed intellectual dishonesty with intellectual dishonesty. I barely had to read the first page.
Whatever the initial case for – in this example – a light rail line, we can safely make several assumptions that won’t be considered in the original proposal.
First, the original proposal will underestimate the costs, often dramatically so, since it is almost always created by evangelical activists who’s primary comittment is to some other principle and XYZ proposal is just a vehicle to support the larger principle. Their comittement is not to the public welfare. This is particularly true of light rail, where the driving force is frequently the environmental movement and quack beliefs about climaapocolypse and bunny saving. Talk about cognitive bias!!! It’s hard to get a more powerful cognitive bias than “the world will end if we don’t do this!”
Second, once a new tax is instituted and a new pot of honey is created, bears will come from far and wide to dip into the pot. The mission of XYZ organization will be expanded for new social service purposes. Regulations will be enacted that increase the cost. Lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits will disrupt the planning and construction and drive up the cost – particularly when the organization is lead by people sympathetic to those filing suits.
Goddard claims that the lifetime of a personal car is much less than train car, and that’s certainly true, but:
1) railroad cars and locomotives cost ***far*** more to maintain than passenger cars
2) contrary to popular belief, railroads are expensive to maintain compared to freeways, which was a major factors that caused wide abandonment of passenger rail in the first place. You don’t just spike the rails down and walk away. Anyone who lives near a busy rail line will see maintenace equipment very frequently.
3) the fact that passenger cars cost less and wear out sooner is a feature, not a bug: in cars, newer technology can be utilized sooner at lower cost, while investment in rail equipment has a very long payback time.
4) investing in rail is a duplicate investment anyway, since the overwhelming majority of people will still own and use cars.
His entire list of intellectually dishonest behaviors applies very effectively to most efforts to get public funds, light rail advocates being leading distorters of truth. The simple fact is that whatever traffic light rail carries, the main factor in generating that traffic is that poeople are denied the alterantive of a road, which they almost always prefer; and hte main factor in ensuring the cost appears lower is ignoring the benefits of highways and the negative features of rail.
So much for intellectual honesty. All the more funny for a guy from Ohio, where rails were nearly as common as roads 60 years ago, but were abandoned or taken over by the public due to the high cost of maintenance, low ridership, and generally declining economic fortunes, driven by the very environmental groups advocating rail today.
I would recommend an anthropology journal.
Trying to break mainstream economic thinking is no small task. Heterodox economists (post Keynesians etc) have been waging that battle for decades. Despite many decades of mathematical and empirical refutation, they have yet to gain the foot hold in academia, Because mainstream economics remains the hegemonic ideology.
With the collapse of neoliberalism, a window might be opening, But that’s a long way from having a place to publish.
This piece resonates with me a lot, but I think for it to be taken seriously, it needs to contain more than the impressionistic stories that were given. Currently, it doesn’t sound too different from my after dinner gripe-fest with friends and colleagues about “kids these days”. The problem is that such points become easily dismissed with accusations of “isn’t that what the older generation always say about the younger generation?”
I’ve become increasingly convinced that there is a problem, as the piece points out, but I’m not sure if pieces like this actually move the needle forward. In fact, it might set things back, since it is very much the type of argument that is effectively countered by the knee jerk motivated reasoning reactions discussed in the paper.
I’d say the biggest problem with academics economics today, or rather academic macro economics, is the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model. No matter how much it might be (correctly) criticized for its unrealistic assumptions, lack of any predictive power whatsoever, over-fittedness, clunky over-complex math that produces a joke of a phase diagram, and so on, it nevertheless forms the foundation of modern macroeconomics. When I was in grad school, my micro theory prof would regularly make fun of DSGE modeling and I got the sense that frustration with it was widespread. I certainly never saw the point in DSGE models. But because virtually all macro professors at all big name institutions have made their names noodling around with it, I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon.
The Goddard paper seems like a blog post, but if some time was spent on getting rid of the Wikipedia citations, I could see it turning into something for the Chronicle of Higher Education. I’m not sure exactly that it’s true that no one talks about those topics. It’s pretty common in sociology, at leaast when we are talking about research methods. Probably more people read Alice Goffman’s book to talk about the debates around it than to talk about the substance. We also talk about reflexivity; in some ways lack of reflexivity is what he is critiquing.
Evaluation Review?
The Journal of Economic Methodology
https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjec20