Both the research and training in quantitative methods sequences is just so far behind/below what is taught in the equivalent course sequence in econ PhD programs.
Why is this?
Unpopular Opinion: PS “Methods” Is a Joke Compared to Econometrics
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Serious answer: because about half of us are going to write our way into a TT job.
I mean, this would explain it.
But if that’s the case, then why is methods mandatory at so many places?The more methods that are required, the more the program has resigned itself to training people for industry. The students most seriously focused on academic employment learn most of their methods through self-teaching, not from the department's 'methods guy'.
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Let us begin by assuming perfectly rational preferences.
Rational preferences is a super weak condition. All it requires is that:
any two choices A and B can be compared (i.e. either A is preferred to B or B is preferred to A (or indifference between them))
and transitivity (A preferred to B and B preferred to C implies A preferred to C)
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Let us begin by assuming perfectly rational preferences.
Rational preferences is a super weak condition. All it requires is that:
any two choices A and B can be compared (i.e. either A is preferred to B or B is preferred to A (or indifference between them))
and transitivity (A preferred to B and B preferred to C implies A preferred to C)And even this "super weak condition" does not correspond to reality and actual psychology.
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Both the research and training in quantitative methods sequences is just so far behind/below what is taught in the equivalent course sequence in econ PhD programs.
Why is this?Political Scientists don't want PhDs to know advanced econometrics because then they'd be able to blow the whistle at the reg monkeys who p-hacked their way into tenure.
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Let us begin by assuming perfectly rational preferences.
Rational preferences is a super weak condition. All it requires is that:
any two choices A and B can be compared (i.e. either A is preferred to B or B is preferred to A (or indifference between them))
and transitivity (A preferred to B and B preferred to C implies A preferred to C)Lolz. Read Elster.
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Let us begin by assuming perfectly rational preferences.
Rational preferences is a super weak condition. All it requires is that:
any two choices A and B can be compared (i.e. either A is preferred to B or B is preferred to A (or indifference between them))
and transitivity (A preferred to B and B preferred to C implies A preferred to C)Super weak, and yet still not applicable to 90% of human behavior.
Behavioral theories are superior by far.