At 9:53 PM -0700 1/20/01, Chris Rasch wrote:
>Hi David,
>
>> To begin with, neither John Lott nor David Mustard is or was a
>> University of Chicago professor. Mustard was, I'm pretty sure, a grad
>> student, and Lott was an Olin Fellow--a visiting position.
>
>Thank you for the correcting my error. I don't think that my error(s)
>detract from my main point however. Do a search for "Olin Fellow" on
>Google. Here are some of the names that pop up on the first page:
>
>William J. Bennett, John M. Olin Fellow in Cultural Policy Studies, The
>Heritage Foundation
>Dinesh D'Souza, John M. Olin Fellow, American Enterprise Foundation
>Rachel Bronson, Olin Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign
>Relations
>Serguey Braguinsky, Olin Fellow, University of Chicago Law School
You missed me. John took the position I had held for a considerable
number of years previously.
>Imagine for a moment that Lott and Mustard were "Carnegie Fellows" at
>Berkeley, and that other "Carnegie Fellows" were prominent liberal scholars
>at places like the Economic Policy Institute, Institute for Policy Studies,
>and the Alliance for Justice. Would you not suspect that ideology might
>play a role in their research?
It might. But looking at their past research would give much better
information.
>Hypothetical FRI researchers may be no more neutral than U. of C.
>scholars. However, as far as widespread acceptance of the study is
>concerned, it is the perception that counts.
Unfortunately, as the reaction to Lott's work demonstrated, that
perception has very little connection to reality. Opponents claimed
that the work was funded by the firearms industry--on the grounds
that the Olin foundation got its money long ago from the Olin
Corporation, which at one time owned Winchester. It was that, not the
Chicago connection, that was the main argument for rejecting the work
as biased.
>I would suggest that no
>matter how scrupulously Lott and Mustard avoided bias, their methodology
>would be hotly contested because of the U. of C.'s status as the namesake
>instition for the "Chicago school of economics", as well as the "law and
>economics" movement.
Whereas my impression, as a close observer of the original
controversy (I still have a web page on it on my site, although I
haven't kept it updated), is that Lott would have gotten about the
same attacks if he had done the work while he was a Professor at Penn
(where he was before Chicago) or Yale (after).
>I believe that a hypothetical FRI-managed study would produce results that
>corroborate Lott and Mustards findings. But I think that you would see much
>less post-hoc bickering over the methodology, as both opponents and
>proponents of gun-control would have vetted and approved the methodology
>before funding it in the first place.
I doubt your version is doable--because if the study was clearly
coming out one way or the other, the more ideological people on the
other side would bail out. What you really need is a piece with
coauthors, one of whom one side will find it hard to attack, the
other the other side. You can get that by picking authors who are
identified with one side or another in general, but are not committed
on the particular issue. I actually have a project along those lines
I am trying to get going--and I hope that if it does happen, I'll be
able to persuade John to be one of the researchers.
> > If anything, the institute you describe strikes me as more likely to
>> act on a political agenda than a major university is. As you describe
>> it, it is directly funded by the EPA and the automobile industry,
>> both parties with large axes to grind. While there are many issues on
>> which the two disagree, there may others on which their interest is
>> in common--so why would you trust the output of such an institute?
>
>Yes, but at least with respect to automobile pollution, they have very
>different axes to grind. Presumably the force of their opposing biases
>would balance the grinding wheel of truth...:>
That isn't at all clear. Suppose you were given the job "design a
pollution public policy that is in the interest of both the EPA and
the automobile industry." Do you think it would be that difficult? Do
you think it likely that it would be in the public interest?
>Would you not trust the HEI's results, at least with respect to auto
>pollution, more than you would trust the results of another party funded
>unilaterally by either the automobile industry or the EPA alone?
I would not trust any of them. What I would trust, more or less, is a
competent scholarly study done by someone who had published lots of
articles in top ranking peer reviewed journals.
--
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
