Rubinstein's Freak-Freakonomics

I liked the book Freakonomics (like many) but also wondered at parts whether it was economics or just interesting statistics. Ariel Rubinstein provides a response to the book's popularity in the recent Economists Voice

Chapter 1: is imperialism still alive?
Economists believe that they have a lot to con- tribute to any field—sociology, zoology or criminology. The academic imperialism of economics has something in common with political imperialism. Therefore, I will begin my chapter with a fascinating historical review where we will learn that imperialism stemmed from the perceived superiority of the conquering people over the conquered peoples, and that the role of the conqueror is to disseminate its lofty culture.

From here, I will move to describe Freakonomics as a typical work of academic imperialism. The complex interplay of feelings of superiority and deficiency has driven every empire, and economics is no different. Levitt: “Economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers, but a serious shortage of interesting questions”. Freakonomics makes statistical reasoning, which is used in all the sciences, look like a subdued colony of economics. Furthermore, Freakonomics expresses the aspiration to expand economics to encompass any question that requires the use of common sense. ...

and this...

Chapter 2: why do economists earn more than mathematicians?
The chapter is inspired by Freakonomics’ discussion of the question of why “the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect”. The comparison between architects and prostitutes can be applied to mathematicians and economists: the former are more skilled, highly educated and intelligent. Moreover, just as Levitt has never encountered a girl who dreams of being a prostitute, I have never met a child who dreams of being an economist. Like prostitutes, the skill required of economists is “not necessarily ‘specialized’” (106), so why do economists earn so much more than mathematicians?

Here, I offer a new explanation for the salary gap between mathematicians and economists: many economists are hired to justify a viewpoint. In contrast, I have never heard of mathematicians who proved a theorem to satisfy their masters.

The rest of this article is free to download from the journal's webpage.
[AF]