Stephen J. Dubner, writing in the New York Times Magazine, pulls off an impressive journalistic accomplishment: an interesting feature article on the economic research of Chicago’s Steven Levitt. Among many interesting passages is this: “Levitt is a populist in a field that is undergoing a bout of popularization. Undergraduates are swarming the economics departments of elite universities. Economics is seen as the ideal blend of intellectual prestige (it does offer a Nobel, after all) and practical training for a high-flying finance career (unless, like Levitt, you choose to stay in academia). At the same time, economics is ever more visible in the real world, thanks to the continuing fetishization of the stock market and the continuing fixation with Alan Greenspan.” From the Austrian point of view, it is interesting that most of the controversy that has greeted Levitt’s work has surrounded the issue of casuality. Here’s a version that doesn’t require scrolling through 7 pages.
