Vital City | Democracy of Evidence

Making a causal claim — the central goal of economic evaluation — means isolating the measurable effect of a certain cause by minimizing the chance of alternative explanations. Therein lies the majesty of economics. Correctly applied, economic techniques of measurement — econometrics — paint highly accurate portraits of the relationships between specific causes and effects. But the paintings are necessarily miniatures. Expanding their canvases to comprehend the breadth of human nature leaves the pictures patchy and pixelated. Econometrics helps us get to the truths of very small matters. Any attempt to apply these truths to very large matters requires a strong draught of assumptions. But we need not drink this brew — at least not all of us. The solution is not to abandon the economic tools that make causal research possible, but instead to put them in more hands and apply them to smaller problems — a democratization of knowledge generation that could itself be a big social change. The

Liberating economics from the academy Making a causal claim — the central goal of economic evaluation — means isolating the measurable effect of a certain cause by minimizing the chance of alternative explanations. Therein lies the majesty of economics. Correctly applied, economic techniques of measurement — econometrics — paint highly accurate portraits of the relationships between specific causes and effects. But the paintings are necessarily miniatures. Expanding their canvases to comprehend the breadth of human nature leaves the pictures patchy and pixelated. Econometrics helps us get to t

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