> ...The complex math that researchers use is disposable. You deploy it to get a publication, then move on with your career. When it comes time to give policy

> ...The complex math that researchers use is disposable. You deploy it to get a publication, then move on with your career. When it comes time to give policy advice, the math is AWOL. If you’re lucky, researchers default to common sense. Otherwise, they go with their ideology and status-quo bias, using the latest prestigious papers as fig leaves. Empirical social science teaches us far more about the world than pure theory. Yet in practice, even empirical researchers barely care what empirical social science really has to teach. This rings true much more generally unfortunately. My profession is sexy maths. But when the rubber meets the road, decision makers broadlly -- like policy makers narrowly -- will revert to something much simpler.