Re: the superiority of economics ...

["Samuel G. Pooley" <spooley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Readers might equivalently enjoy the recent Journal of Economic Literature
(September 1997) article by Gary Miller (Washington University) on the
superiority of economics to political science: "The impact of economics on
contemporary political science." To summarize: If it can be derived by
logistics, it must be good. If it can be measured and correlated, it must
be even better.

Perhaps I protest too much, but after two economics departments (one
masters), I doctored in political (economy) science and somehow didn't
feel cheated by their (University of Hawaii, a tremendously eclectic
department) approach to the world. And I can still make a living as an
economist. But it is also true that many PoliSci departments are
quantitatively oriented, and in those cases, it may well be that the
analytic rigour of economics has made a major contribution to fuzzy-minded
regressions and factor analyses.

Sam Pooley
spooley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Honolulu, HI