Economic etymology and the AEA
In a WSJ article about how economists are cheapskates at the AEA conference, the following unusual error appears: Think of the person who orders the most expensive entr[eacute]e at a restaurant, knowing that the check will be shared equally among companions. I find myself trying to pronounce the typo. Is this where the word ' entrecote ' comes from? More seriously, and yet somehow also less: Cornell University economist Robert Frank, working with a pair of psychologists, mailed questionnaires to college professors asking them to report the annual amount they gave to charity. Their 1993 paper reported that 9.1% of the economists gave no money at all -- more than twice as many holdouts as in any other field. Note that twice as many reported holdouts is not the same as twice as many holdouts . Many economists, I have no doubt, are proud of their lack of charitable giving and much happier to admit it in a survey than others might be. And one more piece of odd speculation:...