Pop Economics

An article by Noam Scheiber of The New Republic suggests that Freakonomics has had a major impact on the trajectory of recent economics papers.

Scheiber argues that after Freakonomics’ authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner garnered fame and acclaim through “pop-economics”–the identification of interesting trends and relationships in “phenomena from daily life”–graduate students at elite universities have turned their attention to identifying clever, quirky-relationships. This wide, yet narrow focus has led to what he calls “lookie-here” papers that focus on methods rather than question and detract attention away from the big questions that economic theory has the potential to address.

Of course, I cannot speak on this topic like all of you can because my experience is largely in health/science and teaching, but I am sure you can provide some great commentary on it.