Arnold Kling notes in a blog post that the recent issue of the Journal of Economic Literature, a prominent peer-reviewed econ journal, is largely sociology.
He links to a different blog post by Florida State economics professor Randall Holcombe about the 115 papers published in the May issue of the American Economic Review. Holcombe writes:
Race and gender issues get the most coverage, and are the subjects of 44 of the 115 total articles. That’s 38% of the total. Migration and immigration are the subjects of 10 articles, or 9%. Much has been made lately about the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement in academics, and it is apparent in the research interests of economists.
Some pretty big economic issues were totally absent:
There were no articles on inflation, and no articles on supply chain issues, despite the frequent appearance of those issues in the popular press. While the general public looks at the economy and is concerned about rising inflation, the rapidly increasing national debt, and supply chain issues that disrupt markets, academic economists appear to have much more interest in issues surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
There’s nothing inherently wrong about studying economics with sociological factors in mind. To a certain extent, those factors are unavoidable, and studying them can yield worthy insights. But to do so at the expense of the major economic issues of the day is a real problem.
It’s very difficult to get published in a major econ journal. It seems that many economists have calculated that the path of least resistance is to write about DEI. (It’s not purely calculated; many of them sincerely believe this stuff.) And based on what the major journals actually publish, that seems like a good bet.
It also has a chilling effect on the research that is conducted. Say you’re a young economics professor starting out, and you’re really interested in researching inflation. The signal is clear: To increase your odds of being published, you need to at least find a social-justice angle, even if you don’t really want to. At worst, you might abandon your interest in inflation altogether, putting it off until you’re more established and can afford to displease the journal editors, and pursue social-justice research instead. That deprives the world of valuable inflation research and adds to the flood of predictable social-justice papers that please leftist academics.
The sad state of the economics profession is a good argument for think tanks. If you want to read (or donate money to support) high-quality research about inflation, industrial policy, regulation, or the federal budget, there are any number of think tanks cranking out papers on those every single day. Instead of charging you an arm and a leg for a journal subscription, most of them just post entire papers on the Internet and let you read them for free. It’s a wonderful market solution to a problem that economists have created.