Dear rem:

Your doubt is fair enough. Undoubtedly, it is on the mind of many on this forum too. As I have told you thrice already, we as a profession are "just making a living", by playing with a toy called "model." (Regression monkeys play with a similar but less fancy one.) Contrary to what you might think, life as an economist isn't bad at all, at least in China. Take me for example. I make handsome money, 7-figure to be precise, simply by making clever use of my models. In a few nights' time I can write down and polish an original model which I then send off to a top journal which then accepts and publishes it in a couple of months. With close to a dozen top publications in hand, bingo, I am now a full professor with double tenure (i.e., I can be fired once and still keep my job), at the #1 university in the Universe. You know what's even more amazing? The highest level of mathematics I know is how to take first derivatives (I have to turn to my cousin for help with integration I must admit), and I teach very badly (usually the last place in our department's teaching evaluations). The benefits of being a male professor in China are numerous. For one thing, I now have more attractive girls chasing me than I can possibly handle. It goes without saying that I sampled them one by one.

By the way, Steve Levitt (a.k.a. John List) was, still is and will be my worst enemy in the Universe. Your unscrupulous promotion here of his lousy work so pissed me off. Lest you forget, I wrote an article a while back that provided the much needed rebuttals to his infamous book. My colleagues think that my article is a highly worthy service to the profession. Read it and you will realize how wrong you have been. Alas, too simple, sometimes naive.

http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/freak.pdf

Sincerely yours,
Eriel Lubinstein
Professor of Freak-Freakonomics
University of the Universe

John List真是苦出身，是个人奋斗的典范，最让人佩服的是，他发了158篇论文，还生了五个小孩。

学术不易