The Short-Termism of 'Hard' Economics

Ilan Noy and Shakked Noy

No 10160, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: “Longtermism” is the view that the impacts of our actions on the very long-term future deserve prominent consideration in decision-making. We discuss the primary barrier that prevents academic economists from contributing to longtermist research: an overly rigid preference for methodological “hardness” (Akerlof, 2020). Hardness bias prevents economists from engaging in methodologically pluralistic, interdisciplinary, qualitative, and other kinds of research, including most potential longtermist research. We unpack hardness bias, discuss its roots, illustrate how it prevents economists from engaging in longtermist research, and try to present a positive vision of the kinds of longtermist research economists could engage in if hardness norms were relaxed.

Keywords: economic methodology; longtermism; academic economics; methodological hardness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-sog
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10160

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