Review of Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis

摘要

Detail or Big Picture, focusing on the forest or on the trees, writing books or articles: what's the best strategy for understanding economic inequality? The incentives of tenure and promotion imply that most of the academic researchers writing on economic inequality are doing so primarily in the format of academic journal articles. With multiple referees to satisfy and strict page limits, the authors of articles are necessarily constrained in how much they can talk about and what they can say. Even if big social issues (like inequality) are nuanced, interrelated, and multidimensional, the journal article medium primarily rewards those who can provide rigorously tested answers to clearly defined (and often quite narrow) questions. Precision, focus, and carefully qualified conclusions are better predictors of the probability of journal acceptance (and all the good things that come with it-like continued employment) than holistic vision, range of ideas, or even social importance.