Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/271804 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 10160
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
"Longtermism" is the view that the impacts of our actions on the very long-term future deserve prominent consideration in decision-making. We discuss the primary barrier that prevents academic economists from contributing to longtermist research: an overly rigid preference for methodological "hardness" (Akerlof, 2020). Hardness bias prevents economists from engaging in methodologically pluralistic, interdisciplinary, qualitative, and other kinds of research, including most potential longtermist research. We unpack hardness bias, discuss its roots, illustrate how it prevents economists from engaging in longtermist research, and try to present a positive vision of the kinds of longtermist research economists could engage in if hardness norms were relaxed.
Subjects: 
economic methodology
longtermism
academic economics
methodological hardness
JEL: 
B40
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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