How Economists Write on The Dismal Science

The dismal science, a term coined by Scottish historian, Thomas Carlyle, in the 19th

century is used to describe the depressing and dreary nature of the field of economics. This name

was given to economics as economics aims to answer questions like why some people are poor

while others are rich, how a country can go from being prosperous to struggling with mass poverty

and starvation in less than a decade, etc. It is up to economists to analyze data, experiment with

theories, and develop models to lead closer to a hopefully less dismal explanation for these

phenomena.

A phenomenon that has caught the interest of economists worldwide is the financial crisis

of 2007-2008. Economists, eager to know the ins and outs of the causes, effects, and solutions that

got the United States economy out of the recession, got to rigorous study and research. As a product,

many economists presented their own theories and ideas concerning the economic collapse in

academic essays, articles, and books. Examples of these academic writings are “Economic

Stagnation Postponed: Background of the 2008 Financial-Economic Crisis in the European Union

and the United States”, “The Financial Crisis: Lessons for International Macroeconomics”, and

“Hedge Funds and the Financial Crisis of 2007–2008”. These writings on the financial crisis serve

the purpose of answering the questions surrounding the recession by using a standard format, field-

specific lexicon, and makes claims backed by data and evidence.

When reading academic articles, you’ll notice an adherence to a common format that acts

to uniform entries; economists’ academic articles are no exception to this. All three of the articles

presented have titles that serve the purpose of informing the reader exactly the reason for the article

as they are often straightforward to avoid vagueness and confusion. Reuten and Bussière et al.

utilize subtitles to achieve this straightforwardness and use the main title to act as a hook. However,
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this hook can only be so vague and or creative as to not cause confusion or contradiction with the

subtitle. Following the titles in economists’ academic articles is an abstract which serves a similar

purpose as the title. The abstract informs the reader on what the article is about contains the

authors’s claim. Throughout the rest of these articles, the use of figures and data cited in APA style

are used as evidence to support the claim found in the abstract. Although APA style is very

common, it is not always used in economists’ academic articles.

Like a discourse community, academics in the field of economics use terms, phrases, and

concepts unfamiliar to those outside the field. This lexicon, specific to economics, is used by

authors because it allows them to be most effective in their writing. In a sense, they are able to

assume knowledge in their readers to make shortcuts in their writings. Considering that economists’

academic articles are written mainly for others in the field it is understood why such verbiage is

used that is unknown or confusing to common readers. For example, when Dixon explains one of

the root causes of the financial crisis, he writes “Bear Stearns bought subsidiaries that made

subprime mortgages directly to home buyers and set up two internal hedge funds that loaded up

on MBSs and CDOs. The Bear Stearns funds were leveraged 10 or 15 to 1 and targeted assets that

were rated AA or AAA.” Dixon’s explanation is chock-full of field-specific terminology, MBSs,

CDOs, and the ratings that rating agencies use, that the average reader wouldn’t know and doesn’t

later explain these terms. Dixon and other academics knowingly do this because they know the

genre they are writing in and so does their intended audience.

When economists write, a lot of the freedom and direction in their writings comes from

and is influenced by the audience they are writing for. Economists write to share their own theories

and evidence but to also create dialogue and elicit responses from their readers. To promote this

purpose, it is very easy for other authors in the audience to cite and reference these articles due to
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the presence of database markers. Whether it’s an ISSN for printed entries or a DOI for digital

ones, tags are extremely instrumental in allowing others to critique an author’s work, thus

explaining the commonality of tags in the not just the field of economics, but all academic writings.

Like mentioned before, their audience being mostly other academics in the field of economics

gives authors the flexibility of assuming knowledge in their readers. This explains why it’s not

uncommon for authors to reference and use equations and models not present in the writing or that

are only very briefly explained that are meant to be known by their audience: “This Kaleckian

equation is analogous to the Keynesian equation of: W + Profits (broad) = Y = C + I”. Reuten goes

into very little explanation of the Kaleckian and Keynesian equations and the variables in them

and goes straight into manipulating them to provide as an explanation for an “increasing gap

between profits and investments”. While collaboration and dialogue between the author and the

audience is not unique to the field of economics, it is common and extremely vital to the

furtherance of the field.

The use and analysis of evidence and data to support claims is absolutely instrumental in

any successful article in the economic field. When graphs are used in articles, they are referenced

by their figure number and or their title to differentiate from other data sets in the writing. Any

equation that is used is tagged with an identifying number in parentheses that is used to reference

at later points in the piece with ease: “Rearranging equations (1) and (2) gives: R = I + C - (W +

net interest paid by companies) (3)”. Contrary to the common practice of leaving out explanation

and assuming the responsibility of knowledge onto the audience, when it comes to utilizing data,

Economists are very careful in explaining the purpose of the data. Authors do this to make sure

the audience understands exactly what they want them to get from the data presented and so the

purpose of the evidence is not misconstrued. For example, Bussière et al. reference another one of
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their own articles and specifically say they “consider the importance of the contraction in trade as

an international transmission channel” and reference a graph that shows a contraction of

international trade in 2008 just to relay to the reader a link between international trade and the

authors claim that world GDP growth rate has fallen. The article and the graph Bussière et al.

reference present more data than they acknowledged for the purpose of making sure the reader

only gets from the evidence what is relevant to the claim.

Academic articles and entries in the field of economics are incredibly brief, dense, and to

the point, making it difficult for those outside of the field to understand in full. However, this is

acceptable considering the genre economists are writing in and to whom they are writing to. To be

effective at writing in the field, economists are careful in choosing data and explaining their

evidence to properly support their claims. They, for the most part, follow a uniform format so that

articles can be easily navigated and can be referenced to allow for further conversation and the

advancement of understanding in the field. Considering their audience, authors are able to use

terminology and reference equations and models commonly used in economics without needing

an explanation. Such conventions are observed in economic writings as they are conventions that

allow for the most efficient furtherance of the knowledge and collaboration on the dismal science.
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Works Cited

Bussière, Matthieu, et al. “The Financial Crisis: Lessons for International

Macroeconomics.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, vol. 5, no. 3, 2013, pp.

75–84. JSTOR, [Link]/stable/43189552.

“Hedge Funds and the Financial Crisis of 2007–2008.” Hedge Funds and Systemic Risk, by Lloyd

Dixon et al., RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA; Arlington, VA; Pittsburgh, PA, 2012,

pp. 39–62. JSTOR, [Link]/stable/10.7249/j.ctt1q60xr.12.

Reuten, Geert. “Economic Stagnation Postponed: Background of the 2008 Financial-Economic

Crisis in the European Union and the United States.” International Journal of Political

Economy, vol. 40, no. 3, 2011, pp. 50–58., [Link]/stable/23104261.