Re: notre dame

["Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>]

A few mind-boggling things about the Notre Dame "solution":

1) Though they named the departments "Economics and Policy Studies" and
"Economics and Econometrics," the departments are clearly distinguished
by their theoretical approaches, with the latter explicitly neoclassical
and the former everything else.  Obviously, much that is not
econometrics (including policy) will be included in the Econometrics
Department and much that is not policy studies will be included in the
Policy Studies Department.  Think about the most visible people in the
Policy Studies Department--Mirowski and Sent are hardly doing policy
studies.  Is there any other precedent for a discipline being divided by
*paradigm*?

2) It is so very clear that the entire exercise is for the sole purpose
of getting the econometrics department a higher "rating".  The amazing
thing is that they are so unashamed about that being the goal. The fact
that they are retaining an entire department made up of people who don't
get into the "top" journals shows that they do not buy the "ratings"
game.  And what exactly does this accomplish?  Any really good student
who wants to do neoclassical economics and/or econometrics will still go
to a top ten department.  What real difference will it make to Notre
Dame if it goes from being 103rd to 82nd or even 57th? Are the ratings
done by publications per faculty member?  If so, others could simply
administratively define people who publish less out of their department
and move up in the ratings. Or how about if we simply start lying about
our accomplishments to move up--it wouldn't be very different?