Lab-grade economics
Labor economists often study a fundamental social question: What impact does education have upon earnings? As important as this issue is, it can be fiendishly hard to analyze accurately. Children of wealthier families might have more extensive schooling, but also higher earnings for reasons not strictly related to education. Here cause and effect form an unruly tangle. Joshua Angrist has spent two decades refining methods that give a firm scientific foundation to economic studies in this area. Now Angrist, Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, has distilled those insights into a surprise-hit book, "Mostly Harmless Econometrics," along with co-author Jorn-Steffen Pischke, a former MIT professor who now teaches at the London School of Economics. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics" (the title riffs on the final book in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series) is a do-it-yourself microeconomics manual that in early September was ranked at number 879 on Amazon.com —...