Steven Levitt

Really neat NYT profile of Steven Levitt, economics supastar. They say, and he says, he’s not the best at math, econometrics, theory, taxes, inflation, or any of those things, but that he asks the best questions, and puts the tools of economics to better use, than anyone else.

It makes you wonder about the nature of success and the abilities and drives of it: economics success for so long has been about long hours of data-crunching, rather than application of insight. So when you take insight to the field, even when combined with slightly less of the nuts-and-bolds stuff, it really makes a great change and opens up new views of the world.

I’m not the best technical writer in the world. I certainly don’t have the attention to detail that the guys from Sun do: I fall asleep faced with the word lists, the style rules, the translation preparations, the charts and tables. I feel that I have a more creative role in our cooperative projects. Although they have more technical expertise, we all (as far as I can tell) regard each other as equals.