Sins of Omission and the Practice of Economics

This paper advances the proposition that economics, as a discipline, gives rewards that favor the "hard" and disfavor the "soft." Such bias leads economic research to ignore important topics and problems that are difficult to approach in a "hard" way- thereby resulting in "situ of omission." This paper argues for reexamination of current institutions for publication and promotion in economics-as it also argues for greatly increased tolerance in norms for publication and promotion as one way of alleviating narrow methodological biases.