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My paper "Welfare Analysis with Heterogeneous Risk Preferences" is in this issue of @JPolEcon!
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/710561
Those of you who know me as a macroeconomist are probably looking at this and going: ?
So here is the story... A tale of writing outside of one's field
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/710561
Those of you who know me as a macroeconomist are probably looking at this and going: ?
So here is the story... A tale of writing outside of one's field
When I was working at the World Bank, my counterpart in operations (the brilliant Laura Ralston) asked me how to compute the social rate of return on cash transfer programs. I wrote up a memo explaining the Rawlsian approach, relating inequality aversion to risk aversion.
She came back to me with the question: "whose risk aversion?"
I could not find a compelling answer to this in the literature, so came up with the procedure in this paper.
Here is a previous thread summarizing it: https://twitter.com/MayaREden/status/1252201965439811584
I could not find a compelling answer to this in the literature, so came up with the procedure in this paper.
Here is a previous thread summarizing it: https://twitter.com/MayaREden/status/1252201965439811584
The idea seemed neat to me, but I was hesitant to pursue it further. I was a run-of-the-mill macroeconomist working on automation, macro-finance and IF. I was trying to follow the standard (sensible) advice of establishing myself as an expert in one, narrowly-defined field.
Also, I didn't know if the idea was any good, and had no one to ask. But I liked the idea too much to just drop it. So I decided to email people whom I've never met before, not expecting much...
Much to my surprise, they were extremely helpful (especially @pgpiacquadio, Uzi Segal and John Weymark). They pointed out references, highlighted weaknesses, and gave advice about writing. But most importantly, they were encouraging, and convinced me that this idea is worthwhile.
This collegiality and open-mindedness was also apparent in the review process. I was clearly an outsider, and there were obvious flaws and omissions in earlier drafts of the paper. Yet the reviewers and the editor (Emir Kamenica) were able to see past that.
(As a side note, a couple of important lessons that I've learned: "Lemma 1" is only a lemma if it is used in the proof of a theorem; and, "equation 2" is not an equation unless it contains an equality sign. Otherwise, it is "expression 2".)
To sum, the eventual publication of this paper at the JPE is a testament to the collegiality and open-mindedness of welfare theorists. Not sure to what extent this happens in other subfields... But I hope that it does. It was really a great experience!
Epilogue: despite ending up at the JPE, I am still not sure whether it was the right "career" move to write this paper. I was told that having publications in multiple fields might make it harder to find good letter writers, and hurt my chances of getting tenure. So, stay tuned..
