ȁȄȅ Partʺ: Economicsof upper-case letter or a curved letterlinstead of a straight one. Did
the writer intend a distinction, and if so, what was it, or was he sim-
ply being careless? Such time-consuming puzzles could be avoided if the
writer deigned to write clearly in the first place, perhaps even labeling his
diagrams in English.
Ļe central fact of economics is scarcity. Your readers’ time is scarce,
as well as their capacity for attention and effort. Besides figuring your
message out, they have other things to do. Many topics within and outside
of economics besides your current message are worth their attention, and
your own. (As Wilhelm Röpke used to say, economics is a subject in which
understanding a part presupposes understanding the whole, and indeed
more. An economist who is only an economist cannot even be a good
economist.)
Remember that the principle of diminishing marginal returns applies
widely, even to time and effort spent on a particular activity or topic. Even
for readers who can follow an analysis, unnecessary formalist decorations
often consume time that might have had other and better uses (Mayer
ȀȈȈȂ, p.Ȇȇ). Ļe principle of portfolio diversification applies not only to
investment assets but also to knowledge of topics within and outside of
economics.
Encouragingly, the mathematician Paul Halmos similarly exhorts his
colleagues. Ļey should write correct and clear English, keeping Fowler,
Roget, and Webster at hand. A writer who works eight hours to save five
minutes for each ofȀǿǿǿreaders saves over eighty man-hours. Halmos
warns that the symbolism of formal logic, though sometimes indispens-
able, is a cumbersome way of transmitting ideas. Nobody thinks in sym-
bols. Coding by the author and decoding by the reader waste the time of
both and obstruct understanding. “Ļe best notation is no notation,” Hal-
mos advises. Try to write a mathematical exposition as you would speak
it. “Pretend that you are explaining the subject to a friend on a long walk
in the woods, with no paper available; fall back on symbolism only when
it is really necessary” (HalmosȀȈȆȂ/ȀȈȇȀ, p.ȃǿ). Avoid distracting your
reader with irrelevant labels (for example, referring to “the functionf”
when you will not be using the labelfagain). When conveniently possi-
ble, avoid coining new technical terms. Take care about the appearance
of the printed page. Solid prose will have a forbidding, sermony aspect; “a
page full of symbols ... will have a frightening, complicated aspect” (p.ȃȃ).
It may be that clarity does not pay. (It costs time, but editors and refer-
ees have an opportunity to impose discipline on authors in the interest of