SAIL Lab Critiques Economist's Article on Acemoglu as Unconvincing

ChenhaoTan · x · 2026-08-19

Stanford's SAIL lab responds to an Economist article critiquing MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, calling the piece unconvincing. They argue the article concedes no one accuses Acemoglu of poor research, yet conflates three distinct propositions: unconvincing scholarship, inflated reputation, and banal punditry. The response highlights that the term 'unconvincing' slides between 'less impressive than his fame' and 'wrong' without reconciling with the article's own admission that the work is useful and heavily cited.

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