A Homeless Blog

I am no Economist

It has been only a few weeks that I seriously do blogging. Along the way, I couldn't help but browse through blogs of my friends, friends of my friends, and their friends...wherever the links of the links brought me to.

I really do enjoy quietly reading a lot of them. Lately, I have enjoyed reading the discussion among a particular group of friends...people I know and lost touch for quite some time. I am delighted to learn that they are doing more than OK. This group of people is a bunch of young, brilliant economists in Thailand. Their articles and discussions on their blogs have been educating, entertaining, and enlightening to me. And, I would like to take this opportunity to ask for their permission to put links to their blogs in my blog (so the list of my friends a little longer :P). I hope they don't mind.

In their blogs, there are a lot of explanations, discussions, constructive arguments, and sometimes damn-good jokes...especially concerning economic issues. Many people gave their opinions...from their point of view...according to their expertise.

As for me, I found myself having no comment whatsoever. I had nothing to say or to contribute. But, why so? And, this is what I can come up with...

Answer #1: It is because these people are the cream of the crop. They can cover so many angles far beyond my imagination...so that I am left speechless. The outthink me...which I find quite very possible. I honestly believe so.

But, that doesn't mean that the Answer #2 will be obsolete.

Answer #2: It is because I don't care. I might not care about those issues as much as they do. Partially, this is also true. I do not fancy economics as much as I should. Or...maybe...I have lost my faith.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that my faith is fading. I think the concept of an economist I have now appears different from the concept of an economist I used to know. Maybe I have finally discovered the truth. Maybe I had had the wrong idea or ideal all along. Or maybe I'm just in a wrong place.

As a researcher, I'm trying to search for more explanation...and I think I found two things that have disturbed me.

First of all, anyone who wish to excel in ("pure") economic studies almost always has to pass the so-called "Qualifying Exam" in Microeconomics and/or Macroeconomics. People here called it the terrifying Q-Exam. A lot of people have suffered and failed the gauntlet.

This year, I heard that the Student Counselor from the healthcare center sent a letter demanding an explanation from the Econ and Applied Econ Departments, "What's going on?" About 75% of total students who seek mental help are from these two departments. And, five of them are in a "danger zone." They are prone to being suicidal.

That was one shocking information to me, and I frown upon it. Life in education should not be this bad. I am sure that we can learn a lot of things and become very useful to the society without having to be pressured that hard. In addition, the knowledge (i.e. high-level mathematics) forcefully stuffed in us would become pretty-much useless if we go back to our (developing) countries.

The second point I found is the academic evaluation system here. Many may not agree with me on this, and I'm still not sure whether I'm thinking in the right direction. But, let me just tell you what I think.

As everybody knows, publication matters...a lot. More publications mean that you are a better academic person. I believe that is true to a good level. However, the direction of acceptable publications seems to be more toward the abstract world (or the world of mathematics) more than the real world. The well-known experts in the top universities are formed in the same fashion. From what I see, a person with better mathematical ability will be a better economist (by such standard). And, they will produce such and such publications...which is geared toward the abstract world. And, more importantly, they will design the "Q-Exam" to form the new batch of young economists. And (again), the young economists selected will do their best in what they can do best - exploring more in the mathematical world.

To me, that may lead us nowhere. But then, again, I can be wrong.

posted by Bikku @ 5:27 PM