How I feel about economics seminars

Attending an economics seminar can be a surreal experience for the uninitiated. In one word, economics seminars are intense. Because my first academic love is economics, I have "grown up" thinking that

• Arguing with the presenter about his introduction is appropriate seminar decorum.
• If the presenter is not interrupted in the first five minutes with a question, no one is interested.
• You present your work at a seminar to have people tear it to shreds so you can see what level of criticism your ideas can withstand.

On top of these basic economics seminar rules, I discovered that there's another seminar rule at University of Chicago: No clapping. Clapping at the end of the presentation is the second worst thing you can do. What's worse? Clapping at the beginning.

As strange as this sounds, I like this set of rules. I believe that serious work takes place at economics seminars. And, the point of presenting a seminar is to get feedback from smart people. After all, when you frame the task of the presenter as eliciting feedback from a very smart group of audience members, why should the audience members clap? They're the ones working.

On the other hand, I am aware that this is not how seminars work everywhere or in every department. I attended seminars when I was pursuing a master's in statistics. Those seminars were so different that I felt like I woke up in a foreign land at my first statistics seminar.

At statistics seminars (at least the ones I attended), there is time reserved at the end of the seminar for questions. Presenters are very rarely interrupted, and if they are, everyone recognizes that the presenter is the smartest person in the room on the topic. And, as nearly as I can tell, the main purpose for presenting a seminar in statistics is to disseminate ideas. Subjecting one's ideas to sharp criticism is secondary (if it is important at all).

Coming from a different background, you may think that economists are crude for perpetuating such a hostile incentive environment. You may think that those economists who present are insane for subjecting themselves to such harsh criticism. But I believe it works, at least for economics, and more strongly, I think there are very good reasons for the differences in seminar styles across disciplines.

Although it is quantitative, economics is not straightforward. At the frontier, economics involves balancing the competing demands of simplicity and realism (even if your paper has theorems and proofs). A completely realistic characterization of the world is going to be intractable (and therefore, it's subject to criticism). An overly simplified analysis will leave out important aspects of the problem (and therefore, it's subject to criticism).

Viewed in this light, the trick with economics is to strike the right balance: Your paper has to be interesting and right, and even if it is, it's subject to criticism.

On this dimension, statistics is different. As a presenter, you have theorems and lemmas (with proofs). Your papers are a system of logic unto themselves. They're correct by the time you present, but you're using the seminar to gauge interest. If you get a big audience who is still awake at the end of your presentation, you're on the right track.

But that's not the right way to go with economics because good economics is not about theorems and proofs; it is about understanding human behavior in a rigorous framework. Economic research is fueled by candid criticism, and seminars are an outstanding way to produce good economic research.