I’ve heard all sorts of scare stories of what it’s like to speak in an academic economics seminar: they’re rude, they interrupt constantly, they don’t let you get through three slides in an hour, etc. But whenever I’ve actually spoke in an economics department, the people have been polite and well-behaved, really it’s been like any other seminar.
I mentioned this to some people awhile ago and they said that the nasty-economist thing only happens in the top departments. I’d spoken at Columbia (which, if not at the very top, is still respectable), but that was in the political economy seminar and I’m a political scientist, so maybe they were nice to me because I’m local. And the other econ departments where I’d spoken were in Europe (maybe they’re nicer there) or at non-elite institutions in the U.S. So I called my friend at Harvard econ, told him my story, and asked if I could speak there. He duly booked me for the Harvard-MIT econometrics seminar.
I spoke at the seminar, and . . . it was just fine. In their questions they were a bit more persistent than the usual stat or poli sci audiences, but the were polite, they laughed at my jokes, and they did not hassle me at all, nor did they try to stop me from presenting my material.
In a way this was a letdown, but overall I found the experience surprisingly pleasant.
So here’s my new hypothesis: economists at top U.S. universities are really mean to seminar speakers—unless you speak in the political economy or econometrics seminars.