« Jonathan Weisman Pulls His Punches | Main | Time to Wind Up the Republican Party »
December 17, 2004
Tyler Cowen Lures Alex Tabarrok Away From His Desk to an Indian Restaurant
Tyler writes:
Marginal Revolution: Luring Alex to lunch: Here is my side of the conversation:
Alex, will you come to lunch with us?
Busy? (scornfully). Doing what?
You write articles so that people will read them, no?
How many people read one of your articles?
That's not bad. But how much time does it take to write the article?
If it is so good that articles are read, why not read another article instead of writing one? Surely not only your articles are worthy of being read.
Reading a good article is so much easier and quicker than writing one.
So you admit my point. You oversupply the writing of articles, relative to a general undersupply of the reading of articles. The same might be said of academia in general.
And surely, Glaucon, we should correct institutional failures, no?
Now let me ask you -- going to lunch, and talking with us -- is it more like writing an article or reading an article?
That's what I thought."The chicken tikka was delicious.
Posted by DeLong at December 17, 2004 03:42 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/cgi-bin/mt_2005/mt-tb.cgi/36
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Tyler Cowen Lures Alex Tabarrok Away From His Desk to an Indian Restaurant:
» Select Social Security Biblio from Explananda
Brad DeLong puts it succinctly:The Social Security Trust Fund may well not be in crisis--relatively minor changes will put it into 75-year expected balance, and there is good reason to think that the 'expectations' of the Social Security actuaries are... [Read More]
Tracked on December 25, 2004 02:50 PM
» Crisis, Social Security and the Federal Debt from Catallarchy
In a recent post, I tried to demonstrate that the Social Security Trust Fund was of no actual significance.
It has become clear that arguments are ongoing as to the timing and existence of something called a Social Security crisis. The following pos... [Read More]
Tracked on January 2, 2005 10:07 PM